The sequel to From Software’s beloved Dark Souls is still a ways off, but publisher Namco Bandai is ready to roll out the first look at the game later today.

For the impatient, however, we have 10 leaked screenshots, which we’ve confirmed are legitimate, from Dark Souls II for the PlayStation 3. Namco Bandai plans to release the difficult role-playing game in 2014 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Check out the first images from Dark Souls II in the gallery below. We got the screens from the leak on NeoGAF:

Dark Souls II follows up 2011′s Dark Souls. It will bring along many of the mechanics and difficult gameplay that fans love about the original and its spiritual predecessor Demon’s Souls, but From Software also wants to make it more accessible.

It’s unclear what that means, but from these early screens — it just looks like more Dark Souls.

IGN has a 12 minute video of Dark Souls II in action along with commentary from the developers.

Additionally, Namco Bandai released the following in-game trailer:

Via NeoGAF

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Traditional console gamers are vehemently resisting a major change in the business: the increasing influence of online integration and microtransactions. The closer we get to the next hardware cycle, the more game developers and publishers seem to defend this vision of the future. Like all advances forward, the industry is probably going to stumble a lot before it, as a whole, really figures this out.

For a little while now, it seems like we’ve been looking at an all-out assault on the very idea of a video game as a singular piece of content or as a creative work for that matter. The latest stated intentions come from companies like publisher Electronic Arts and developer Crytek, which are basically saying they’re doing away entirely with the old notion in an attempt to get people to stop trading in their games, with seemingly no room for coexistence.

EA wants all of their future games to include microtransactions. Forward-looking statements like this rarely end up being 100 percent true, but I also don’t like the idea of EA moving on with a blanket approach to every game they publish. I could only imagine what Need For Speed, all EA’s sports games, and Battlefield will look like laden with microtransactions, but I believe Dead Space 3 (pictured top) was the most egregious example because of its history as an atmospheric, isolated experience with the series’ game elements focused on a narrative instead of profit in and of themselves.

Crytek’s statement that single-player games are going to disappear is just as much of a speculative blanket proclamation as EA’s. That says that the developer isn’t really going to think about whether free-to-play is really a good thing for this particular game or that particular game. I have no idea how it’d implement microtransactions into a single-player Crysis game.

Former Epic Games designer Cliffy Bleszinski recently tried to defend companies like EA, and he’s right in regard to how varied the free-to-play and microtransaction-based business models are. But very few developers have really figured out good ways to implement them. He also makes a point that, apparently, people do buy these microtransactions. The market has generally accepted them, which brings forth the point that core gamers so vehemently against these new business models are a minority. It’s actually kind of scary when you think about how only a small portion of gamers actually care about the idea of a game being a singular creative work rather than a service with which to generate revenue.

One game that a lot of people (including Bleszinski) seem to bring up as a great example of melding single-player and multiplayer is Dark Souls (pictured below). But I actually see Dark Souls as a great example of not ceaselessly pushing forward with online-connected gaming in every single product a company makes.

Maybe a reason I’ve gravitated back towards Japanese games a little bit is because Japanese developers don’t seem to feel the need to cram online into each and every one of their games. When From Software made Demon’s Souls and later Dark Souls, the company didn’t just slam token multiplayer or microtransactions into the games in order to keep people from trading them in. From Software actually thought up a genuinely unique idea for a game that happened to require an Internet connection. People have probably given Nintendo crap for not making enough online-focused games for the Wii U already, but I applaud them for simply sticking to what makes their games fun whether they be connected or not.

Maybe, however, this is because online gaming isn’t as big in the Japanese market. What is big over there is local multiplayer for handheld games as well as passive communication between devices. That’s why so many handheld games have tried out Monster Hunter-style local multiplayer features and why Nintendo implemented Streetpass as a system-wide feature in the 3DS.

Still, I think market differences like that — as well as the continuing demand for wholly single-player experiences — will result in a landscape in the next-gen consoles that’ll be a hodgepodge mix of such games alongside the fully connected ones. We already have publishers like Nintnedo, Bethesda, and Rockstar that still primarily make single-player games.

Nintendo and Rockstar can do this because their games sell well enough already. You never seem to find used copies of Nintendo games, and their prices never seem to go down at retail — even five or six years after launch. With a game that sells as much as Grand Theft Auto, you don’t really see Rockstar complaining as much about the second-hand market, either.

Bethesda is the kind of company that can put out Skyrim – a game with no online features whatsoever outside of a few rather large pieces of downloadable content — and sell over 10 million copies. You never see Bethesda complaining about the used market — likely because it made a game that people can spend 100 hours playing. Plus, you’re also probably still going to have a lot of indies releasing games of all kinds, including those strictly based around single-player.

The appearance of microtransactions and free-to-play on consoles next gen is inevitable, but what’s also inevitable is that we’ll see a greater variance of business models and price points for console games.

Originally Posted on MultiPlatform.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The big day is finally here. You’re ready to profess your love to your soon-to-be spouse in front of friends and family. But before you can seal the deal, a mysterious band of assassins barges through the church and tries to murder you. Meanwhile, your red-headed fiancé Toki transforms into a knife-wielding blonde woman who fights them off with ease.

At least you weren’t left at the altar, right?

Time and Eternity is one of three PlayStation 3-exclusive Japanese role-playing games that Nippon Ichi Software (better known in the States as NIS America) revealed at its annual press event this week in San Francisco. A new entry in the Disgaea series and another game called The Guided Fate Paradox looked okay, but it was Time and Eternity’s unusual wedding theme and the beautiful, hand-drawn animation that caught my eye. It’s a joint venture between NIS America and developer Namco Bandai, and it’s coming out this summer.

A weird relationship

You control Toki and Towa, the two “dual souls” of the bride. They are traveling back in time with the former groom (whose soul is now inside a pet dragon named Drake) to unravel the mystery of the wedding crashers.

“Normal RPGs have grand and epic themes, but I wanted to do something different, something unexpected,” said Namco Bandai producer Kei Hirono, via a translator, to GamesBeat. “Marriage is one of the biggest events that everybody — maybe not everybody [laughs] — that most people have. … [Time and Eternity] kind of just happened. It wasn’t planned or anything. My marriage and wedding happened around the same time [as development].”

The developers incorporate much of the story and personality between Toki/Towa and Drake into the gameplay. Toki/Towa will transform into either of the souls when she levels up from combat. While each side of her has a basic set of attacks, it also has its own powers. Later in the game, you’ll have more control over which soul you want to use. Drake just acts as an autonomous sidekick, attacking enemies on his own.

Battles in Time and Eternity happen in real time, resembling more of a fighting game than a traditional JRPG because of how fast you need to react. From the 20 minutes I played, a key part of the decision-making involved how far or how close Toki/Towa was to the enemy. Pushing up on the left analog stick causes her to rush toward the foe until she’s right in its face while pushing back down returns her to the original position.

The controls are simple: Ranged and melee commands share the same button (with your powers mapped to the others), L1 is your block (and if timed right, a counter), R2 pulls up a menu of items you can use, and rolling the left analog stick left or right makes Toki/Towa dodge in those directions. Unlike some fighting games, however, you can’t cancel a move once you’ve triggered it — the animation has to play out, making timing all the more important. The enemies I saw usually had an obvious tell to let you know what they’re about to do.

An interactive anime

Time and Eternity is a peculiar juxtaposition of 2D hand-drawn animation (with no polygons, textures, or cel-shading) and 3D levels. It’s jarring at first as the backgrounds look somewhat lackluster compared to the detailed characters that populate the world. But after a few minutes, you grow used to it and realize that the distinctive styles actually complement each other rather well.

“It was really challenging because for anything that’s polygon-based or 3D-based, there are a lot of resources that we can use,” said Hirono. “There’s a lot of middleware, and a lot of places are already doing it — it’s easier to make something like that. But since here everything is hand-drawn, we actually had to make the game around the animation rather than making the animation around the system itself.”

Jumping into Time and Eternity kind of felt like I was in the middle of an anime movie or TV series. Though I couldn’t hear any sounds at the event due to loud music playing and a lot of people talking, a NIS America representative told me that most dialogue scenes feature voice actors. The plot was fun and lighthearted from what I could glimpse of the subtitles: Drake seemed to act as a comic relief role with his short temper and exaggerated gestures, characters questioned whether Towa knew about Toki’s marriage (they’ve “talked” about it before), and I fought two wannabe assassins named Linus and Lucy.

For Hirono, the tone was a welcome change of pace from his work on Dark Souls, a JRPG known for its grim atmosphere and punishing gameplay.

“So just like how it is with your life itself, you want to have variation,” he said. “For me, I think it was a good balance to be able to work on something dark and serious like Dark Souls and then at the same time, [Time and Eternity] is more casual and happier. [It's] a good balance.”

Time and Eternity screens

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Playing Rayman Origins is sublime. The platformer is so full of joy and whimsy that it’s tough not to fall for its charm. It’s able to effortlessly tap into some “pure glee” part of my brain every time I play. The game is just fun.

But goddamn, the last stretch of levels is way too hard.

Rayman is all about precision platforming. Did you tap X to jump, or did you hold it? How long did you hold it? Were you holding the run button? Letting off a hair too soon or too late can mean having to restart an entire level. The level design often asks you to take literal leaps of faith. All you have to do is keep running to the right and jumping when needed, knowing something will be there for you to land on.

When you pull it off, it’s exhilarating. It feels like you can out jump and out pace anything the game throws at you, like nothing can touch you, like you’re invincible. But one wrong move, one little slip, one zig when you meant to zag, and it’s back to the start.

And it is so easy to slip up.

It’s not a huge problem in the early levels. They strike a good balance between wanting you to move forward quickly and demanding perfection, but in the last few stages I’ve been playing, right near the end of the game, the experience is getting maddening. Believe me when I tell you: Rayman’s whimsy is not nearly as charming the 30th time through the same level.

The demands are getting less forgiving, and the title is getting less fun as a result.

Boss fights are worse because you don’t even get the thrill of sprinting at full speed through an entire level. The encounters contain themselves on one screen, and they’re all about memorization and pattern recognition. It’s trial-and-error design in the worst way. I get a little bit further each time, learning the next phase of the fight before inevitably dying and retrying. Again and again.

Listen, I like a good challenge. I’ve beaten Dark Souls four times now, and that release is all about fiercely punishing you for making a single error, forcing you to memorize every inch of its world and inhabitants.

But Rayman Origins is not Dark Souls. So far, I’ve loved Rayman because it’s so colorful, cheerful, and fun. I’ve had a blast with it until now, and I don’t want it to end on a sour note because it randomly decided to ramp up the difficulty like crazy, forcing me to play each level over and over until I stop wanting to play at all.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Developer From Software is working on the sequel to Dark Souls right now, but it won’t release that game for months.

Perhaps you skipped the game that preceded Dark Souls in the loosely tied-together series, Demon’s Souls, but had trouble finding it in stores. Well, publisher Atlus is ready to help you hop into the challenging role-playing title when it releases Demon’s Souls on Tuesday on PlayStation Network for $19.99.

This is also good news for long-time fans of the game.

In May, Atlus planned to shut down Demon’s Souls’ servers, which would have disabled many of its most interesting social and multiplayer features. For example, opposing players can actually control one of the bosses in other people’s games.

At that time, Atlus backpedaled and decided to keep the servers running, but it didn’t provide a new shut-off date. This announcement ensures the servers will continue to run into the foreseeable future.

To celebrate the digital release, Atlus will set the game servers to “Pure White,” which lowers the Demon’s Souls punishing difficulty. This’ll make it easier for new players to get the hang of things, but it’ll also offer long-time players a chance to accomplish goals that are normally much more challenging.

Demon’s Souls is a fantasy role-playing game that focuses on combat against difficult opponents. Players collect souls, but they can lose them if they die and fail to return to the point at which they died. This turns the game into an interesting scenario of challenge management, where the gamer must remain aware of when to continue fighting and when to retreat.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you were around for the original video game revolution sparked by Nintendo back in the late 1980s (or have at least taken the time to backtrack, for those of us who weren’t there), then you probably think that some of the most challenging games from that generation deserve top accolades. In fact, it’s probably a safe bet that this same sense of challenge is not only what drew us into gaming but also what has kept us hooked. Battletoads, Contra, and even the original Super Mario Bros. were more than enough to keep us glued to our TVs, determined to win what seemed like a battle of life and death.

Fast forward about 10 years or so. While video games as a whole have advanced into a medium more revolutionary than some might have imagined, the challenge — specifically, the level of difficulty — that brought us to gaming in the first place may or may not be taking a backseat to a friendlier experience. Could this be an attempt to attract a larger crowd as the medium continues to grow in popularity? Don’t get me wrong — none of us are able to finish modern triple-A titles with a snap of our fingers, but we can’t deny the stark difference in difficulty when we compare them to many classic games. Some may see this as pure speculation while others can point out countless instances of decreasing difficulty in recent years. Something is holding video games back from satisfying those of us who seek a good challenge.

Tutorials are regulation

You want a real challenge? Try booting up a game from the last five or so years that doesn’t have an extensive tutorial within the first hour of the game. Nearly every title put out nowadays uses a tutorial mode to help the player along.

While these modes may have originated as optional missions separate from the main campaign, lately they have worked their way into the opening levels of our favorite titles. They’re now no longer an option. Take note that this may not be a bad thing in any sense. It’s actually quite convenient at times to be coached on the basics of a game before jumping into the danger zone.

If you remember, most games of past generations completely lacked a tutorial mode of any sort. We were given paper manuals (which have vanished in favor of the mandatory in-game tutorial), but unless we were willing to take the time to read through them (and, let’s face it, many of us were not), we had to figure things out all on our own. The tutorial in itself is a prime example — and perhaps the most obvious one — as to how video games are becoming easier for players to handle. Just keep in mind that many modern releases have also given us the option to turn off tutorial messages in the settings.

Short, highly scripted narratives

Something we can’t ignore whether we like it or not is that many of the big-name releases of the current generation use scripted events almost relentlessly at times. Not only that, but what used to be the 6-12 hour average has sunk to 3-5 hours for many titles.

While scripted events have existed in gaming for quite some time, never before have they been put to as much use. How hard is a game really if it holds your hand from start to finish? It doesn’t completely, of course. We can still lose, but there is almost no sense of strategy — no need to put your skills to the test nearly as much as we were required to in games on the original Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, or even the PlayStation.

Then, there’s length. Many games are, without a doubt, much shorter than those not too long ago, to the dismay of many. Again, how hard is it to beat a four-hour game, especially when scripted events guide you swiftly through the narrative? Some may not see this as a bad thing — it’s not the end of the world — but there is a reason why a game receives a huge amount of praise today when it reaches a maximum of 12-48 hours in content.

Overall easier gameplay

Remember when it was hard to complete a task as simple as jumping over a pit of death? As these objectives grow more and more commonplace, their initial impact begins to wear off, and what was once a feat to be reckoned with is now second nature.

For instance, remember when you needed to use a cheat code to bring a second player into your game because shooting an enemy from a reasonable distance was almost impossible? Now, many shooters of this generation feature an “aim assist” as a way to nudge players’ crosshairs in the right direction. What about the generous amounts of loot and ammo found in many open-world shooters? Many of you may remember a time when supplies were scarce, and the little that you had needed to be used sparingly. How about the skimpy amount of health given to your character in old games, where taking damage a few times — or even once — would lead to certain death? No such dilemma exists in many modern games, where regenerating health is a standard feature. And let’s not forget the many overpowered weapons within arm’s reach. We had to work hard to obtain what were once considered “power-ups.”

I’m not just talking about shooters here. Gameplay in general has become much easier to master. As video games continue to rise in popularity, developers continue to adjust their formulas to create something that almost anyone can do. Some of us may not like it, but we still have our tried and true difficulty settings available for when a game becomes too easy.

Conclusion

It really seems as though video games don’t present the level of challenge that they used to, but is this necessarily a bad thing?

Tutorials are convenient, gameplay tweaks can often be disabled, and short, highly scripted narratives are in fact a welcome addition for those simply looking for an entertaining and memorable experience.

Let’s try not to be too bitter about the increasing popularity of video games (that’s not what we’re here for). After all, there will always be a sense of community within the gaming universe. For those of us who still have a soft spot for a hardcore challenge, select titles such as Super Meat Boy serve as a tribute to what we treasure about our favorite, most challenging games. And I’m sure that titles like Dark Souls — games that go out of their way to revive that classic sense of frustration and determination — have not left our consciousness just yet.

Let me remind everyone out there that in many cases, a game is only as fun as you make it. While some titles may not always present us with the best challenge, our senses will never fail to assist us in finding new and improved ways to test ourselves. It’s one of the greatest aspects of playing video games.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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We thought we were so smart back in January with our release lists and RSS feeds. We really believed we knew what was going to happen this year. “I can’t wait to play BioShock Infinite when it releases in 2012!” we said. We were so naïve back then. It doesn’t matter how closely you follow the news or how often you refresh your browser; some companies can still manage to catch the gaming public completely unaware.

Here are some of our picks for the biggest surprises of 2012.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II

Contributor Rus McLaughlin

I hated the first Black Ops. Hated. It. I even went back and replayed parts of it just to refresh every design misstep and weak idea in my mind before its sequel arrived. You’d better believe that I’d sharpened all my knives in anticipation of carving up Black Ops II like a particularly ugly turkey who killed my dog. And then it turned out good … like, really good.

It’s as if developer Treyarch, a company that consistently churned out the worst entries in the franchise for years, suddenly ditched their old playbook and started fresh. The flow and encounters hit a sweet spot that I haven’t felt from the series since the first Modern Warfare, which came out in 2007. The branching storylines — often based on your in-game performance rather than flat yes/no answers — lock in unless you replay the entire mission … and every mission after it.

Very nice. Sure, the real-time strategy chapters don’t hold up as RTS games, and it’s still the bro-tastic Michael Bay of video games, but I can’t deny that I’m actually excited about Call of Duty again right when COD fatigue had fully set in. Can Activision deliver at this level every year? I’m still skeptical, but at least now I know that the possibility exists.

Rediscovering adventure games

Contributing editor Stephanie Carmichael

This was a momentous year for point-and-click adventure games, and Kickstarter played a huge role in that. Fans donated more than $3.3 million to Double Fine Adventure, making it one of the most successful video game campaigns on the crowdfunding service, let alone one of the greatest outpourings for the genre to date. Luminary Jane Jensen raised enough money for her Pinkerton Road Studio and the upcoming adventure game Moebius. And Telltale Games launched one of the hottest titles of 2012 with The Walking Dead. Those are only a few of the promising or excellent titles that found an audience in the past dozen months. Who said adventure games were dead?

Street Fighter X Mega Man

Contributor Samir Torres

Street Fighter and Mega Man turned 25 years old in 2012, and that calls for a celebration. Street Fighter X Mega Man is a free, PC-only, old-fashioned Mega Man adventure game in which you battle Street Fighter characters instead of Robot Masters. When you beat them, you acquire their abilities. It came out on December 17.

The most interesting part is that Capcom is working with die-hard Mega Man fans to make the title — fans whom the developer has neglected in recent years with the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe and the Blue Bomber’s omission in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

The PlayStation Vita

Intern Giancarlo Valdes

Though I only bought the Vita a few weeks ago, I honestly think it’s the best handheld I’ve ever owned — with its gorgeous screen and sleek hardware design, it’s also the prettiest. Games such as Gravity Rush, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, and Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack are great — even when I’m not commuting and just playing on the couch at home. The proprietary memory cards are still ridiculously expensive, and game-wise, the lineup doesn’t look too bright in 2013, but for now, I’m happy with just catching up with all the gems that came out this year.

Guild Wars 2

Contributor Rob LeFebvre

I quit playing World of Warcraft a few years ago because, meh, I thought the third-person fantasy massively multiplayer online genre was over, and I was tired of it. After messing about with Star Wars: The Old Republic and Eve Online, I figured that Guild Wars 2 would just be another WOW clone. Instead, it’s much more interesting and compelling to play, has many different ways to progress in the game, and made me an MMO player yet again. Not having a monthly subscription is a big factor as well.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane

Copy editor Jason Wilson

I hadn’t realized how much I had missed Master of Magic, the fantasy equivalent of Civilization from the 1990s. I didn’t realize that I had been yearning for a game like this until I encountered Warlock: Master of the Arcane. It isn’t as deep as Civilization — the focus is more on combat than in Sid Meier’s legendary turn-based strategy series — but in some ways, it’s more fun. The factions each have their own personality (I love the voices of the goblin units or the flying galleons of the Undead), and Warlock’s A.I. actually knows how to play its game. If you enjoy turn-based strategy that focuses more on combat than on expansion and empire-building — and dig fantasy — check it out.

Guild Wars 2

Intern Mike Minotti

I’m one of those MMO players. You know, the kind who plays World of Warcraft casually, sometimes tries something new, but always returns to the welcoming arms of Azeroth. I never thought I would find an MMO that I would genuinely like better than WOW, but Guild Wars 2 hooked me with its beautiful world and innovative quest systems.

The Phantom Pain/Metal Gear Solid connection

Editor-in-chief Dan “Shoe” Hsu

Every year, the best part of Spike’s Video Game Awards — meaning the good part of Spike’s Video Game Awards — is all the world-premiere trailers for upcoming titles. 2012′s show was no different, and the announcement trailer for developer Moby Dick Studios’ The Phantom Pain was the highlight of the evening.

Even more interesting is the fan-driven speculation that the title is secretly the next installment in Konami’s Metal Gear franchise. The evidence is circumstantial at best, but if you think back on it, this is exactly the sort of thing that we’d expect from the stealth action series.

Dragon’s Dogma

Contributing editor Rob Savillo

Capcom’s underrated action-adventure caught me completely by surprise. I’d heard nothing about it until a few weeks before release when then-Bitmob staff writer (now at PC Gamer) Omri Petitte published his “A Series of Epic Events” preview. Instantly, I saw Monster Hunter- and Dark Souls-style gameplay dancing in my head, and I wasn’t too far off once I got my hands on the disc.

Here’s a game that makes nighttime feel dangerous and isolating, not merely a moonlight-blue hued palette swap. Here’s a game with a detailed, skill-based combat model that encourages creative solutions. Here’s a game that makes exploration feel grand and of consequence such that smart preparation becomes a necessity. Here’s a game that blends asynchronous multiplayer into an experience that’s not turn-based or on a phone. Here’s a game that doesn’t waste your time with bland, boring, and ultimately useless dialogue from cardboard non-player characters. Here’s a game that’s not afraid to challenge modern design conventions and show them to be a poor way forward for the medium.

The PlayStation Vita

Intern Jasmine Rea

I was all prepared to dislike the Vita based on how woefully under-supported it was at launch and Sony’s silly choice to make a 3G-enabled model. Since I really wanted to review Persona 4 Golden, I knew I’d buy one at some point, and boy was I shocked by how much I loved it. The screen is mesmerizing, and the increased size and heft fixed all the problems that I had with the PlayStation Portable’s shape. Most of all, I didn’t mind forking over money for digital versions of PSP games that I already own. They just look so much better on that pretty screen. The Vita deserves more support, and if you like Japanese role-playing games, you’re sure to adore this flashy little handheld. Just don’t buy into the touch panel gimmicks, and I think you’ll love it, too.

Alan Wake’s American Nightmare

Intern Evan Killham

Alan Wake, developer Remedy Entertainment’s Stephen King/Twin Peaks-fusion thriller with a dash of Lovecraft, was one of my favorite games of 2010. I was a little disappointed that the follow-up, Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, was a bite-sized Xbox Live Arcade downloadable title, but I checked it out anyway because, hey, more Alan Wake. And you know what? It is glorious.

Remedy drops the first game’s moody tension in favor of a more action-based, grindhouse dynamic, and while such a drastic shift in tone might be the worst thing that could happen to a franchise, somehow it just works for Alan Wake. It could be because this is a series explicitly about storytelling and creativity, and as such, it can include any genre Remedy feels like throwing in there. And seemingly as a test of this hypothesis, American Nightmare is a time-travel story.

The game has three levels, and you play through them three times. You could assume that this is a clever way to reuse assets and keep the game XBLA-sized, and you would be right, but on each time through, the characters around Alan remember bits of information about their experiences in the previous loop. For example, one time through, Alan has to go out to a character’s car to retrieve an item; the next time around, she remembers that someone will need that object and has it with her when you first (second?) meet, saving you the dangerous trip outside.

It’s really clever storytelling that keeps the repetition from feeling, well, repetitive, and it also serves as a fascinating commentary on game mechanics in general. What are checkpoint restarts, after all, but a form of time travel?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Speedrunning video games, especially challenging ones, has been a time-honored tradition for hardcore players. Completing a game from start to finish as humanly possible usually requires not only conquering every aspect of the rules and mechanics but sometimes also bending them in ways the developer never expected or intended (Super Mario 64 speedruns are an excellent example of this).

GamesBeat spoke with Canadian gamer Fred ”Thanatos” Vasquez — the 2011 Guinness World Record-holder for speeding through Demon’s Souls — about what it takes to compete at such a high level. Vasquez recently gained widespread acknowledgement for his Dark Souls run (video below), in which he completed the notoriously difficult action-RPG in less than a half an hour.

If you don’t know what Dark Souls is, this probably won’t mean a whole lot to you. …

GamesBeat: How long have you been in the speedrun scene? What attracted you to it?

Fred Vasquez: I became interested in speed running after a few years of watching other people perform speedruns of my favorite games. I was always left in awe of what they accomplished and always made me want to play the games again. I performed my first speedrun back in August 2010.

GamesBeat: Have you set speedrun records for any other games?

Vasquez: I currently hold the Demon’s Souls record at SDA [speeddemosarchive.com], first published on August 2010. Though it is still on the site, it has been obsoleted. That said, I’ve always been interested in reclaiming that record — I’m somewhat of a sore loser!

GamesBeat: Can you walk us through the preparation that goes into a speedrun — specifically, your Dark Souls run?

Vasquez: I’ve followed the same formula for both of my speed runs: Memorize the current speed run record’s path; attempt to imitate it, this is where most of the changes happen, the more I play I begin to spot mistakes or route improvements over the current record; once I’m comfortable running my improved path, run it indefinitely until I either a) get the record or b) am 1 second away from insanity.

People fail to realize that speed running isn’t as simple as merely ignoring enemies and running all the time. For a game like Dark Souls, you have to make sure how to deal with countless issues such as Stamina management, menu navigation — dropping/equipping items while on the menu screen while moving the character — knowing how to deal with all possible permutations of an enemy’s attack, et cetera.

GamesBeat: Starting from the beginning of the run, can you explain which character you chose and why?

Vasquez: The character I chose was the Bandit. The advantages of the Bandit are amazing early game damage and improved strength.

The reason I was interested in early game damage was because I knew that I would discard the starting weapon about seven minutes into the run, so picking up a weak starting weapon would prolong the time it would take to get to the new weapon.

The Bandit also offers one of the best starting shields in the game, since it has very high resistance to physical and more importantly to fire. as it can be used on Gwyn [Dark Souls' final boss] if desired.

GamesBeat: You seemed to use the roll a lot to avoid taking damage, even from falling. Can you explain how that works?

Vasquez: In Dark Souls, whenever the player rolls, the player becomes immortal for a set period of time, roughly 0.6 or 0.7 seconds. During this time, no damage nor conditions will be applied to the player, making it a better way to avoid damage than even the greatest of shields, assuming good reflexes and timing are used when rolling.

The reason I rolled after falling from long distances was not to decrease damage, but to avoid getting in the “staggered” state, where the player will be on his knees for a period of time and slowly get up. During this time, no input is taken, and naturally, would cost me a few seconds each time. By rolling, you can bypass that state altogether, if performed correctly.

GamesBeat: What was some of the key equipment you needed throughout the run, and why?

Vasquez: First, the Drake Sword is an extremely overpowered early game weapon, which is why I made it a priority to get it as it allowed me to have a near perfect Gargoyles fight and a decent Queelag fight.

Secondly, the Lighting Spear is also a mandatory weapon to obtain, since it will completely demolish the Iron Golem in five mere hits. It would have taken me much longer with the Drake Sword or any other weapon I could find along the way.

Thirdly, the Crystal Halberd was the final weapon to obtain. This weapon offers insane damage and resin can also be applied to it to further enhance damage.

Lastly, I decided to pick up the black knight armor for the Gwyn fight, since it would allow me to take hits from him like a champ and hand pick the attacks that I wanted to parry.

Sadly, I figured out that the armor is not needed at all and can be skipped by fighting Gwyn in a different way, but this all came about after I did the run, so maybe I’ll use it next time!

GamesBeat: Can you explain why you dove to your death near Kingseeker Frampt and then manually restarted the game?

Vasquez: Essentially, I plunge to my death and await the loading screen; however, by quitting at the right time, you can decide what variables in the game get saved [overwritten] or not. The variable that I want saved is my location, x, y and z coordinate, and the variables that I don’t want overwritten are basically my health, and whether or not I have died.

When a game is loaded, the engine takes a look at the last position of the player, and based on that, will decide what map to load. Since my x, y and z coordinates belong to the Kiln rather than the map Frampt put me in, the game assumes I was in the Kiln, and therefore loads that map, and puts me in a default location.

GamesBeat: Ornstein and Smough gave you a bit of trouble. Why did you choose to defeat Smough first?

Vasquez: Ah … good ol’ O&S … I must admit that I begin to get nervous during this part of the run, since this fight is extremely reliant on good behavior from Ornstein and Smough. [The] reason I went for Smough first [was] because of the high lightning damage that a resin’d crystal halberd deals to him rather than Ornstein, making the first part of the run, and arguably the hardest, much shorter.

When I was performing the run, I was also streaming it for hundreds of people over at Twitch.tv, and I always had a little watch going that would tell me how I was doing. At this point in the run I was about 45 seconds ahead of my own record, which made me surprisingly nervous. I went back and looked at the fight, and I’ll be the first to tell you that it was garbage, pure garbage, but hey … even with such a horrible fight my time was still ahead of the record by minutes.

GamesBeat: You bested the final boss fairly easily with parries. Do you have any tips for players hoping to master that skill?

Vasquez: Generally, you want to press the parry button whenever the wind-up of the enemy’s attack animation has reached the middle point, not too early, but not too late, either.

GamesBeat: What tactics do you feel you could use to improve upon that battle?

Vasquez: I could have skipped the black knight armor and avoid getting hit by doing the following: Stand in front of Gwyn, without moving or attacking; wait for Gwyn to perform an attack and assume it is the fast swing; raise my shield in case it is the fast swing, in which case I will simply block it fully, since I would have the Spider shield, and parry the second attack. If it’s the slow swing, just parry it.

It is imperative to not raise your shield too early, since Gwyn’s A.I. knows whenever the player has its shield raised and will select other moves instead of the swings, such as the kick or grab.

This method is proven to work and will save 15 seconds by skipping the armor.

GamesBeat: Do you think your run can be improved upon? By doing what and how much time would be saved, roughly?

Vasquez: Yes it can, I have already improved the 32 minute, 47 second-record by performing a 29:27 run, and even that record can be improved to at least 28:xx by doing some newly found route changes and improvements.

When I performed the 29:27 record I changed the following things: I no longer leveled up health, but instead leveled stamina, for longer running, as well a dexterity for greater crystal halberd damage, roughly 150 more damage per swing. This means a much more risky route, since most hits from Queelag and O&S will kill me, but also a faster one. I no longer picked up the black knight armor for Gwyn. I fought him naked. Much better O&S fight — pretty much any fight can be better than the one I had in my 32:47 run, but with the greater damage from the halberd, they went down really fast. Picking up the Ring of Favor and Protection — this ring increases your health but most importantly increases stamina, which is much needed for longer running as well as more sword swings.

GamesBeat: Lastly, do you have any tips for players just making their way through Dark Souls, including all of the areas and optional bosses? What are the keys to dominating one of the hardest current generation games on the market?

Vasquez: Summon two people to help you out in your travels. The game becomes trivial if you get lucky and an experienced player joins you.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Turning a completely single-player game into a multiplayer experience doesn’t have to suck, but most of the time developers choose the quickest and most jarring and disruptive options. Persona 4: Golden proves that you can introduce an online community into an offline world without shoving in unnecessary options like competitive battles.

But Persona 4: Golden is much more than online connectivity. With all-new characters, items, and locations, the Yasogami investigation team has a lot of work cut out for them as they look into a chain of grisly supernatural murders taking place in the sleepy rural town of Inaba.

What you’ll like

Smart online components
Persona 4: Golden is all about subtle yet brilliant online flourishes. As you guide the main character through the murder mystery in his new high school, you can occasionally tap on a little bubble in the top-left corner of the Vita screen. Doing so pops up tons of messages revealing what other players did with their after-school hours. Since both versions of Persona 4 follow a fairly strict calendar schedule, succeeding at the game means carefully budgeting time day-by-day. Seeing what other players did might reveal new strategies or overlooked side quests.

But the online functionality isn’t limited to thought bubbles. Once you enter a dungeon in the TV world, you have the option of sending out an SOS message, similar to the notes you could leave in Demons’ Souls and Dark Souls. If you find yourself trapped in a dungeon with little to no healing capability or escape items, other players can find your SOS and heal your party.

This is that multiplayer component I mentioned before. Even though you are playing through the game on your own, the fact that you can fall back on other players when you’re in a tight spot is a very endearing and helpful mechanic. The developers didn’t have to work social and online components into Persona 4, but how they did it is completely unobtrusive, optional, and ultimately very useful if you take advantage of it.

Other developers should learn from Atlus’s example here. Gamers don’t need multiplayer shooting matches to interact, and sometimes anonymous companionship is preferable to building up friends lists.

New content
If you’re concerned that Persona 4: Golden is just a port of a PlayStation 2 game, you worry too much. Atlus knows its fans and knows that new characters, scenarios, and explorable locations mean the world to players returning to their favorite games. So Persona 4: Golden is simply bursting with new content.

The one most notable changes, besides the online connectivity, is the inclusion of a new side-story character named Marie. She’s a grumpy yet intriguing girl who doesn’t seem to like the protagonist much when you first meet her, but eventually she softens. Marie’s story is integral to many new components in Persona 4: Golden, so hanging out with her is an absolute must if you’ve played the game previously.

Players also have the option of exploring a new neighboring town called Okina after they learn how to ride motorized scooters. This gives you access to more shops and unlockable goodies. You can even buy new outfits to wear when you’re exploring dungeons in the TV world, some of which are very silly.

More forgiving dungeon mechanics
When you die in the original Persona 4, you start from your last save. This is a frustrating role-playing game holdover from the dark days before autosaving. Every gamer probably has a horror story about finally making it through a tough dungeon only to die in a boss fight before saving their progress.

Well, Persona 4: Golden breaks the save-reload tradition by letting players start from the beginning of the floor or stage of the dungeon they died on. So, if you perish in a boss fight, you’ll pop up just outside the doors leading to the fight in the same condition you were in before the battle started. This is a lifesaver, especially when you realize how unprepared you were for the boss in the first place.

The developers also tweaked Persona’s card-based battle reward system. After some battles, players get the chance to pull a tarot card from a spinning deck that gives them a new creature to summon in battle or various stat boosts. Originally, you would look at the cards and try to keep an eye on the one you wanted as they shuffled in front of you.

In Persona 4: Golden, the cards shuffle before you see them and now have various secondary effects. Some cards diminish how much money or experience you earn in a fight, but choosing that card might grant you the chance to pull two more from the deck. Since new Personas are often found in the shuffle, sometimes taking a debuff can lead to a greater reward.

What you won’t like

Chie’s new voice
When Chie Satonaka’s voice changed for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 fighting game Persona 4 Arena, I feared that the new version would make its way into the Vita rerelease. With all the added content in Persona 4: Golden, the localization team opted to rerecord all of Chie’s lines with the same voice actress from Arena, and in so doing irreversibly changed how players will think about the character.

I’ll be honest. I wasn’t crazy about Chie’s original voice. She was sometimes a little too hammy, but when she needed to sound terse or extremely emotional, all her lines fell into place. The new sound is very jarring and cloyingly bubbly compared to the tough, Kung Fu movie-loving girl in the PS2′s Persona 4.

This change probably won’t bother people playing through Persona 4 for the first time on Vita, but returning fans will likely wrestle with the difference. Rather than sounding very commanding about her meat infatuation, new Chie is whiny and overtly girly despite her interests. The new voice simply doesn’t fit when compared to the old one.

But Atlus’s only alternative was to just add new dialogue to the game and leave a glaring vocal discrepancy between the original voice actress and the new one. So rerecording everything makes sense, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Seemingly endless exposition
This complaint is a holdover from the game’s original PS2 release, but Persona 4: Golden takes forever to get going. If you want an RPG you can hop into quickly, I suggest you avoid the Shin Megami Tensei series entirely.

The beginning of Persona 4: Golden is a 90-minute-to-three-hour slog through the main character’s arrival in the rural town Inaba and an introduction to the murder mystery hanging over the populace. Along the way, you meet the first three members of your party, realize Chie has an unhealthy obsession with steak, and fall into a television. None of that seems dull, but for most of this introduction, you’ll be clicking through dialogue screens and moving through scripted events instead of exploring the world.

Even though Persona 4: Golden is a fantastic adventure, heavy exposition is frustrating for many players and will certainly turn away some prospective Vita owners looking to break into the series. Japanese-RPG fans sometimes accept these narrative tools too quickly and forget that not everyone wants to watch a game play itself for hours at a time.

Conclusion

Persona 4: Golden is a beautiful and content-rich bundle of joy for Vita owners looking to dust off their woefully undersupported handhelds. The subtle incorporation of new characters, scenarios, and even online connectivity takes full advantage of the new hardware without compromising content or story quality.

But Persona 4 isn’t for the faint of heart. Playing it is a very long but ultimately rewarding journey full of unforgettable characters. It’s just a shame that Chie’s new voice can sometimes distract from her depth and place in the story.

Score: 98/100

Persona 4: Golden was released on the PlayStation Vita on November 20, 2012. Atlus provided a digital download code for this review.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I have never, ever played a Fable game. I always intended to throw on one of Peter Molyneux’s fantasy epics and take it for a spin, and hey, I still do. Someday. Really.

But the simple fact is this: If you game, you’ve got a pile of shame … that list of titles you haven’t played yet but fully intend to. Someday. Really.

Nobody likes to admit it, but few of us have the money and time to play everything we’re interested in. In fact, the number of missed opportunities just grows and grows as shiny distractions (work, family, newer games that look really cool) come into the picture. So as we come out of the summer doldrums and into a very busy gaming season, we asked some of most influential names in the industry to publicly humiliate themselves by telling us what’s still on their piles of shame.

And they didn’t all answer. But here’s who did.

Cliff Blezinski: former design director, Epic Games (Gears of War)

I’ve yet to go back to Batman: Arkham City because I can’t find the darned disc in my cluttered setup.

Jenova Chen: cofounder, Thatgamecompany (Journey, Flower)

I haven’t played Deus Ex: Human Revolution after the first boss. It’s the game of the year for our lead engineer, John Edwards, so that means a lot. But I haven’t got time to go back to it yet.

Dan “Shoe” Hsu: editor-in-chief, GamesBeat

Mass Effect 2. I don’t understand what all that hub-bub was about the ending to the Mass Effect storyline. We’re still not even halfway through the trilogy, right? Right?

Sigh … yes, this is my big shame game. I’m not even finished with Mass Effect 2 yet. I know it’s something I need to get through — Mass Effect is a major franchise in gaming, after all — but I just can’t seem to find the time. Actually, that’s not true. I somehow scraped together 188 hours for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

I honestly don’t know what it is about this series. I loved the first game, but it took me over a year and a half to beat it because I was constantly leaving it, then coming back, and then leaving it again. For all of 2012, ME2′s been sitting next to my TV, beaming subliminal messages to my brain: “Play me … play me. …” But it hasn’t worked. Now that Borderlands 2 is here, and all the other fall games are arriving soon, I’m afraid part two of this sci-fi trilogy will just have to wait a bit longer.

Morgan Webb: co-host, X-Play

Spec Ops: The Line. Everyone tells me it’s really good. Everyone tells me about the crazy tough choices you have to make. And I even bought it. It is still in the plastic and will likely remain so until about January. It’s not a very large pile. I try really hard to keep up with things. And seriously, Shoe needs to play Mass Effect.

Frank O’Connor: franchise development director, 343 Industries (Halo 4)

Working on Halo is a pretty  involved process. There’s the work, of course – story, universe building, endless meetings, travel … most developers know the score there. But you compound that work with home life, raising an angry 3-year-old, taking out the trash, fixing the sewer, making dinner – there just aren’t that many hours in the day. And so when I do play games in my downtime, they tend to be Halo. Take-home tests, matchmaking, just a ton of Halo stuff. So my pile of shame is almost limitless. And to prove that point, my main shameful miss is a couple of years old, and I still haven’t gotten around to it properly. It’s Red Dead Redemption.

Hardly unusual, but when I did finally put it in my drive, I immediately knew this was a place I wanted to inhabit. And I got as far as the first horse race, couldn’t beat Bonnie around her ranch, and that’s where I left it. Right back to Halo stuff. I also have a miserably small completion ratio of Forza, and in fact I have not unlocked the Halo Warthog that’s squirreled away in there. The least dusty, still-shrinkwrapped item on that pile is Borderlands 2.

I still haven’t seen the new Batman, either, and I only saw Cabin in the Woods because it was on my plane. I genuinely feel actual shame because part of my job is to understand why other games are cool and expose myself to new experiences. I feel like I should really just take a couple of months off to reengage and immerse myself in what’s new and what’s awesome.

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If you follow VentureBeat but don’t regularly check our GamesBeat site, here’s a list of the best video game stories we ran over the last seven days that you may have missed.

This week, Zynga lost three more executives, Sony revealed a new slim PlayStation 3, and BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk retire.

We also have reviews for the action-role-playing games Borderlands 2, and Torchlight II.

News:

• The DeanBeat: The BioWare doctors built games the nice way
• Kickstarter lays down the law: ‘We’re not a store’
• EA draws fire for consulting SEAL who wrote tell-all about killing Bin Laden [updated]
• YoYo Games lands Microsoft as a supporter of its cross-platform game engine GameMaker
• Add to your collection of classic game collections with Midway Arcade Origins
• How Activision uses Salesforce.com for engaging with (complaining) gamers
• Expanded Dark Souls content from the PC coming to consoles in October
• Bunchball’s sales gamification 2.0: Easier to learn, easier to customize
• Making every gamer famous, Twitch raises $15M to expand its eSports webcasts
• The PlayStation 3 continues to slim down with smaller console this fall
• Microsoft set to boost original video content on the Xbox, hires TV exec
• BioWare cofounders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk announce retirement
• Torchlight debuts on Linux along with the rest of the latest Humble Indie Bundle
• Badgeville gamifies Salesforce.com to make salespeople more productive
• Chasing more engaged users, Zynga acquires ‘midcore’ social game startup A Bit Lucky
• Sega: Sonic Adventure 2 and Nights into Dreams HD remakes coming in early October
• BioWare confirms Dragon Age III: Inquisition in the works that runs on Battlefield 3 engine
• Bohemia Interactive: ‘Insinuations are completely false’ about employees’ alleged spying [Updated]

Mobile News:

• Moga game controller for Android devices to debut Oct. 21 for $49.99
• With a veteran startup team, Scopely raises $8.5M for social mobile games
• Sharp and Fujitsu join Sony’s PlayStation Mobile program; new games debut Oct. 3
• Ludei can convert HTML5 apps into speedy mobile apps in minutes
• Pickmoto simplifies sports betting on smartphones
• Nvidia loses its mobile chips chief
• Comic book guru Stan Lee moves into mobile games

Zynga troubles:

• The exodus continues: Zynga’s chief security officer resigns
• GSN snatches up former Zynga chief marketing officer
• New departure from Zynga: Omgpop’s chief revenue officer (exclusive)
• Zynga alleges EA’s chief executive proposed an anti-competitive ‘no hire’ pact or he would ‘rain hell’
• Zynga strikes back hard at EA in copyright infringement case

Reviews:

• Torchlight II is a poor man’s Diablo that’s rich in content but not originality (review)
• Borderlands 2 nearly perfects the blend of shooter and role-playing game (review)

Interviews:

• Borderlands 2 dev on creating the canonical sequel to James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ (exclusive)
• This year’s Halo/Call of Duty killer: Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (interview)
• Facing down the giants: CEO Max Schaefer talks Torchlight II and its competition
• Nintendo VP Scott Moffitt dishes on the Wii U’s $299 price, living room strategy, and more (interview)
• Activision is finally swinging for the fences in mobile games (interview)

Features:

• The story of MarioBART: How one artist finds gaming inspiration in transit maps and lawn ornaments
• The good, the bad, the Minecraft: All the inspiration and clones you’ll ever need

Pieces of Flair:

• A working Aperture Science Sentry Turret from Portal
• Cel-shaded Lilith cosplay from Borderlands (gallery)
• Breaking Borderlands 2: Easy money, XP, Eridium, boss fights, and tokens
• Gotta mold them all! Clay versions of the original 151 Pokémon
• 15 baffling Street Fighter II mysteries

Namco Bandai’s Dark Souls isn’t finished killing its console players quite yet.

The publisher announced that it’s releasing the Artorias of the Abyss content for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 23. It’s the same extra content in Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition for the PC. This downloadable content includes new weapons, armor, areas, and bosses for the notoriously difficult role-playing combat game.

Artorias of the Abyss is still set in the world of Lordran. An evil from the forests of Oolacile threatens the rest of the kingdom. It’s up to the player to fight back the encroaching darkness.

In addition to the extra content, this DLC enhances the game’s player-versus-player component. Namco claims it has improved the match-making, so the game should quickly pair you up with an opponent.

Dark Souls is an action open-world dungeon-crawling game that its fans adore for its engrossing atmosphere and punishing gameplay. Namco Bandai released it in late 2011 for Microsoft’s and Sony’s respective consoles. In August, the company released the Prepare to Die Edition of Dark Souls on PC.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I had just convinced Chie to let me out on her apartment balcony by giving her the Weird Old Doll I found in another room. Chie stood on the left side of the terrace, and I spied a handgun sitting on the rail on the right side. As I stood there overlooking the devastation of the city, my role-playing game instincts kicked in.

Clearly, the trigger would be talking to Chie. I decided to check every pixel of the area and pick up any available items just as I’ve always done. But when I grabbed the weapon, Chie suddenly disappeared. My heart sank and my stomach twisted in knots. Fuck. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just made the wrong choice.

Lone Survivor, an adventure-horror game for PC by Jasper Byrne, is filled with moments like these — seemingly unimportant instances that may or may not force unseen and unknown consequence. I’ll never know whether picking up the gun first was the right decision. I’ll never know what Chie wanted to say. I’ll never know why she was so insistent I give her that doll before she’d let me out on her balcony. I’ll never know my relationship with Chie. She was gone in that moment, and I couldn’t bring her back.

WHAT YOU’LL LIKE

Narrative and surrealism
Before I went out on that balcony, I had just run through horrifyingly dark, dank hallways covered in blood and deformed flesh while dodging “thin man” creatures whose heads moved erratically like the demons that haunted Tim Robbins in Jacob’s Ladder. I entered Chie’s place as if walking into an oasis.

A couple of people were in her apartment, partying hard. I couldn’t believe my eyes. What’s wrong with you? I would ask. Don’t you see the monsters out there? Aren’t you worried about this disease that’s ravaged the world? They just told me to chill out. Have a drink. Groove to the music.

The dichotomy expressed here reveals a playfulness with narrative and meaning. Lone Survivor isn’t the type of game that banks on a literal reading of events. In fact, the surrealism of the whole world demands that I look a little closer and deeper at what’s transpiring in front of me. It’s a wonderful embrace of the mysterious that subtly harkens back to psychological thrillers like Silent Hill.

Chie would inexplicably reappear later on with some other guy, but I never got a chance to find out the answers to any of my burning questions. Instead, I pretended to know the identity of a man whom I would not name, and the duo broke out into a psychedelic dance routine. Oddities like this are quite commonplace in the game, and I’m again encouraged to look for conclusive information to even more inquiries that I may not yet even know I have.

Narrative blends with gameplay
Two recurring scenes dream sequences that probe the game’s narrative meaning while simultaneously innovating a traditional item-management system exemplify this.

In Lone Survivor, I have two primary resources: bullets for my handgun and batteries for my flashlight. Both seem critically necessary, though, their required application is much lesser than initially expected, which undermines a gameplay trope from survival horror games.

I obviously use bullets to kill hostile creatures. For the most part, I can avoid encounters (and only a few times did I actually have to fire my weapon), but I did find myself shooting at unexpected enemies in moments of sheer terror. When I ran out of ammunition for the first time, something very intriguing happened: Lone Survivor faded to red and acted like I’d just hit “game over.” Like with Chie’s disappearance on the balcony, my heart jumped.

I awoke in a materialization of my subconscious. There, I found myself on a stage with the Seated Figure. He asked me a single taunting question, responded to my answer, and then sent me back to the waking world — this time with some extra shells in my pocket.

Similarly, when I ran out of power for my light (which is necessary to interact with objects and locations in many parts of the game), I again collapsed in a fading-red screen only to be whisked away to a foggy realm where the Man Who Wears A Box stood with his back to me. He likewise inquired about something vague, responded, and threw me back to the wolves with a couple extra batteries.

The neat trick here is that you can revisit these places whenever you need or want to, which means that you don’t ever have to be hurting for firepower or light. Lone Survivor is not dependent on item scarcity to keep tensions high, much unlike genre staples.

But your choices here — and throughout the rest of game — have unknown ramifications.

Narrative and mystery
I recall at one point that both the Seated Figure and the Man Who Wears A Box told me that I hadn’t learned anything. Immediately, I engaged in silent introspection as I thought out what this could mean. Had my past answers to these gentlemen’s questions influenced the course of the narrative? Quite possibly.

At the end of the game, Lone Survivor unmasked part of the mystery and judged my performance. It told me how many times I slept on an empty stomach. It told me how many times I unnecessarily took the green, blue, or red pills. It told me how many monstrosities I killed, how many times I fed a stray cat, and how many wholesome meals I ate. And, yes, it told me whether I answered the Seated Figure or the Man Who Wears A Box correctly. All of these seemingly insignificant decisions fed into the conclusion to my story.

This is not unlike an Eastern European approach to narrative. Tom Bissell, author and game critic, observed that CD Projekt’s The Witcher 2 silently tracked dialogue responses and 4A Games’ Metro 2033 similarly kept note of seemingly inconsequential actions, which later influenced their stories’ progression and endings. And like Bissell, I agree that this method is far more interesting to experience than Western developers’ tendency to use ham-fisted morality systems (see: BioShock, Infamous, or Mass Effect).

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The opening cinematic for Armored Core V is a foreshadowing of hardcore hardware porn. Heavy industrial behemoths known as armored cores drop into an urban warzone. The massive firepower from their weapons of immense proportion rips through tanks and helicopters with ease. These are specialty machines piloted with deadly precision.

The next sequence follows a convoy going through the desert as engineers and technicians test out bare mech parts. A pair of giant-sized Gatling guns shoot into the distance. Shells whizz through an ammo belt. A sniper cannon’s recoil shakes a nearby barbed-wire fence. A bunker-busting rocket explodes beyond a protective wall in slow motion. Interspersed between these shots are quick glimpses of gracefully maneuvering armored cores.

This introduction does two things: establishes a machine aesthetic and teases the expectations that game has for the player. The former is rather obvious and blunt — you can’t avoid noticing the industrial feel with all those hard edges, hanging cables, and exposed rivets and bolts, all tinged in a film of grit under an overcast sky. The latter is a peek of fluid motion amid a flurry of hardware for your gawking eyes. Momentary glances of elegant armored cores quietly dance to a measured pace of focused destruction that hints at their pilots’ mastery over these humanoid shells.

From mechs to muscle cars

The imagery of Armored Core speaks to a very American sentiment in my mind: the glory days of manufacturing. And no era better represents that idea than the auto industry’s heyday of the muscle car: those gas-guzzling biceps carved from blocks of aluminum that enslaved the pavement with a combination of style and power.

I have two uncles who probably spend more time in their garages than they do with their families. These guys grew up in the ’60s and became men in the ’70s. My Uncle Joe restores classic Corvettes. His most recent is a ’66 Fastback Coupe. Uncle Mick puts together race cars, and from this endeavor, he holds close a picture of his cherry red ’55 Chevy Dragster flying through air during a competition. It’s a scene that is at once thrilling and a point of pride for Mick.

Joe meticulously rebuilds his current obsessions with an eye that I find myself having while playing Armored Core V. I spend a lot of time in the game’s workshop, tuning my machine with new engines, boosters, and fire control systems — this short list hardly covers all of the available options. I pore over new weapons as they become available. I reassess my armored core to adjust to my evolving play style. I’m dangerously close to becoming a “mechhead.”

Mick upgrades his vehicles with the biggest and loudest equipment he can get his hands on. For that ’55 Chevy, he removed the stock 283 V8 and installed a 454 big block in its place. It’s the kind of engine that makes a statement by sticking out of the top of the hood. He added two four-barrel carburetors on a high-riser and straight-pipe headers, making the Chevy a track-only racer designed for screeching down the quarter-mile dragstrip.

In Armored Core, I also create such specialized machines. Like my high-mobility core that has fast movement, great energy recovery, and quick boosting. Or my tank-track core that is a wall of impenetrable steel and super-heavy weaponry. Or the long-range, sniper-cannon-wielding sharpshooter on quad legs for reduced recoil. All the while, I’m carefully paying attention to the gameplay-defining attributes of the parts that comprise my cores, like stability computation, muzzle velocity, and energy conductivity. It’s a depth of tuning that I’m sure my motorhead uncles could appreciate.

Becoming an instrument of destruction

But I can’t just coast my way to victory by relying solely on the machines I’ve constructed. Armored Core puts a premium on skill and proficiency, and learning and mastering the wide array of systems that govern movement, speed, acceleration, turning, evading, and targeting takes practice.

Armored Core V developer From Software is no amateur in this regard. Michael Abbott, who runs the Brainy Gamer blog, applied the Japanese concept of kendo, “the way of the sword,” to From’s Dark Souls and observed that the studio similarly focused on the practice-to-perfection concept. Abbott writes that “the world of Dark Souls functions as a kind of virtual dojo, a stern but playful host for rigorous lessons in persistence, patience, discipline, precision, mastery, and charting an optimal path.” Ultimately, Dark Souls players aim for “Ki-ken-tai-ichi,” which means “spirit, sword, and body are one.”

This idea isn’t even new to the Armored Core series (V represents the 14th console installment). Ollie Barder, editor for mech-enthusiast blog Mecha Damashii, argued that Japanese mecha is a futurist interpretation of the samurai, the social class of feudal Japan from which kendo originates, that emphasizes this melding of mind and body into one to become a single instrument. Your armored core, ultimately, becomes an extension of your body because you reach a level where you transcend the controller in your hands.

When you start your game, you have the option of organizing two types of “sorties”: Order missions and Story missions. Order missions are short exercises with one goal — usually to eliminate all threats. These enemies are mechanically asymmetrical to the player, such as tanks, helicopters, and single-purpose cores. They aren’t particularly challenging. Other Order missions pit you against one or more fully functional armored cores; these are symmetrical fights that I view as a sort of practice arena to try out mech configurations in a live environment.

Story missions are longer affairs, and depending on whether you’d give up part of your cash payout to refit your machine midway through, they’re also endurance tests for your armored core. Like with the Order missions, their purpose is to give you space to practice. Mostly tellingly, the game scores your performances in all these exercises with the traditional Japanese ranking system (the highest “S,” then “A,” “B,” “C,” and the lowest “D”).

Ultimately, you’ll work toward excellence in execution, and what’s possible can be a breathtakingly beautiful show of skill. Through these test chambers, I gain the expertise and confidence to participate in online, ranked duels or five-on-five (up to four cores and an operator who manages the engagement from an abstracted, overhead view) conquest battles, where teams invade and defend territory on a map of fluctuating ownership. I’m satisfied in the knowledge that I earned these parts, that I built this core, and that I won or lost based on my piloting decisions.

It’s the kind of intensity that reminds me of a cherry red ’55 Chevy flying through the air.

Armored Core V was released on March 20, 2012 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The publisher provided GamesBeat with a PS3 copy of the game for the purpose of this article.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Sometimes petitions can seem a little pointless. Lots of names on a list, but no-one listening to the message. This week though, a petition by gamers, to convert the critically acclaimed action RPG Dark Souls for the PC, may actually have hit its mark.

Over 68,000 names are now on the ‘Dark Souls for PC’ petition, which was started in response to a forum comment by Namco Bandai Community Manager Tony Shoupirou:

“There is (sic) always possibilities to have games adapted on PC and the good news is that Dark Souls is not a 100% typical Console game, so the adaptation is possible. Now to make things happen, let’s say the demand has to be properly done. someone to make a successful petition?”

In a subsequent comment Shoupirou added:

Honestly, I think this is an interesting request and that it deserves to be pushed. Namco have no position for now on this topic: PC versions are considered for many games but as PC is rarely the lead platform for the games released by the company, making PC version very often depends on signs that could come from users or from market globally.

Not long after those messages appeared, a petition had been started, and the number of names on the list grew rapidly. With the petition numbering over 60k, some members of the Namco Bandai forums were concerned that they had received no further response from Shoupirou. To their delight though, he appeared again yesterday, to express his amazement at the success of the petition:

Damn you are amazing! I honestly wasn’t expecting such a massive support. My boss(es) even came to talk to me about this, after it explodes all around the world. If you wanted to have the attention of Namco Bandai Games, now you have it. The future is in your hands, and I hope you will keep supporting this. I make a personal objective to make sure every relevant people in Namco Bandai Games is in touch with this formidable effort. Great Thanks!

So it seems that the petition has been seen by all the right people, but will this influence Namco Bandai’s decision? Shoupirou tried to keep a lid on expectations, saying, “I can’t say it’s going to happen (I wish I had this power ^^), but I can assure [you] management of the company will know about it, and I think that [is] already a good achievement and a good step forward.”

We contacted Namco Bandai, but a spokesman said there is no official comment on Dark Souls PC or the petition at the moment. It will be interesting to see where this story leads, and whether player power will be enough to persuade Namco Bandai to bring Dark Souls to the PC arena.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Below are all the reviews from GamesBeat in 2011. They are listed in reverse-chronological order by the date the review was posted, NOT the release date for the game.

12/19
Minecraft
Star Wars: The Old Republic

12/15

Grand Theft Auto III: 10th Anniversary Edition

12/13

Gears of War 3: RAAM’s Shadow

12/01

Infinity Blade II

11/29

Saints Row The Third

11/23

Sonic Generations (3DS)

11/22

King of Fighters XIII

11/20

Need For Speed: The Run

11/19

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

11/17

Super Mario 3D Land

11/15

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
Kinect Disneyland

11/14

Assassin’s Creed Revelations
Rayman Origins

11/13

Kinect Sports: Season 2

11/10

The Elder Scrolls V: kyrim

11/05

Dark Souls

11/03

Forza Motorsport 4

10/31

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

10/27

Battlefield 3

10/21

Batman: Arkham City

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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And the final tie-breaker vote went — for the second time since 2009 — to the Uncharted franchise.

It was a more democratic and contentious process than we’ve ever had. But it’s the least we could do, considering game companies are spending scores of millions of dollars on games, and consumers are spending billions of dollars on them. This year offered some of the best games we’ve ever seen. We hope you enjoy reading our selections, and please let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree with our choices. Be sure to take our poll at the bottom of the story.

Without further ado, here are our top 10 games of 2011:

1. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: Nov. 1
GamesBeat review score: 91

In 2009, we gave Uncharted 2: Among Thieves the honor of game of the year. And in 2011, Uncharted 3 has taken the top title again because of its cinematic story, realistic characters, outstanding graphics and unbelievably action-packed combat scenes. As the treasure-hunting hero Nathan Drake, you have to battle your way through a burning French château as it collapses around you. You have to survive a firefight in a cargo plane as the aircraft’s cargo empties out the open ramp in mid-air. And you must dispatch your enemies as you outrun the flooding of a capsized cruise ship. In every scene, you see the spectacular effects from just the right angle, and you have to time your response right to survive in the nick of time. After you play this game, you close your eyes and see the memorable images — like those damn spiders — that take you back to the immersive experience. This is what makes Uncharted the crown jewel in Sony’s portfolio of great video game franchises.

As our interview with Naughty Dog’s Justin Richmond revealed, the developers focused on creating movie-like set pieces, or action sequences that took our breath away, much like blockbuster movies do. The beginning of the game took us deeper into the character of Nathan Drake and his relationship with fellow thief Victor “Sully” Sullivan, who is both Drake’s corrupter and savior. You feel the emotional tugs as Drake parts from his companion Elena, whose eyes sparkle as she holds back tears. You can feel the hatred as Drake seeks revenge against Katherine Marlowe, a memorable villain who runs an army of thugs in a secret society.

Nobody aspires to create such a high level of emotional engagement in games, particularly in the genre of shooting games. The title has its flaws, but it overcomes them by making you feel like an actor inside an adventure movie where your actions make the difference between life or death. The action is backed up by humor, witty dialogue, and a symmetry in the story that links the beginning and the ending. That is what makes this title appealing to much more than just hardcore shooting fans.

“An airplane losing its cargo in mid-air. A château falling apart in an inferno. A cruise ship sinking from a hole in its side. Only Naughty Dog considers staging gun battles in such places. They are defining moments in a game that really delivers a game-play experience that is like no other.” — Dean Takahashi

2. Portal 2
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Platform: PC, Mac, PS 3, Xbox 360
Release date: April 19
GamesBeat review score: unrated

Valve’s Portal 2 was built upon the strong machinations of the massively successful original. To be honest, Portal 2 is rarely more than a series of standalone test chambers, some of which are not particularly clever, or enjoyable. That said, it’s not the mind-bending, space-shifting, goo-riding puzzles that elevate Portal 2 far above the competition, but rather its unrivaled writing and voice acting. GLaDOS, Wheatley, and J. Jonah Jameson deftly propel the voiceless Chell along on her journey with their insane ponderings, diabolical aspirations, and undeniably witty banter. With developers constantly struggling to push their games to some arbitrary 10, 20, or 50-hour playtime predominantly listed on the back of the box, Portal 2 proves that a shorter, concise, and well-made masterpiece is infinitely more valuable than a 100-hour game that wears out its welcome long before the credits roll.

“The last game before Portal 2 that I willingly beat twice in the same day was Resident Evil 2. To fans of either series, that is the highest recommendation I can bestow.” –Sebastian Haley

3. Batman: Arkham City
Developer: Rocksteady
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows PC
Release date: Oct. 18
GamesBeat review score: 89

Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski once promised that Gears of War 2 would be “bigger, better, and more bad-ass” than the original. Whether or not that was accomplished is up for debate, but Rocksteady could have easily applied that PR catchphrase to this year’s Arkham Asylum sequel. Taking to the streets of the makeshift Arkham City, players can experience the crime-fighting and crime-solving aspects of the World’s Greatest Detective like never before. I’m not sure why it took so long for someone to finally get it right, I’m just glad that they did.

The writing and voice acting is sketchy at times, but the brilliant and plentiful Riddler puzzles are easily the most well-thought-out diversions in any game I’ve ever played. At first I scoffed at the addition of a playable Catwoman, expecting nothing more than a half-assed mutation of Batman (you know, like Robin and Nightwing ended up being). But Catwoman ended up stealing the show, in my opinion — her combat moves are downright awesome, while her wall-climbing and whip-swinging traversal make an excellent alternative to the Dark Knight’s.

“Rocksteady has managed to not only create one of the greatest pieces of Batman culture, but has also elevated Catwoman to the upper echelon’s of gaming’s most able-bodied females. It’s not a perfect game, but it’s also hard to imagine where Rocksteady can go from here.” — Sebastian Haley

4. Minecraft
Developer: Mojang
Publisher: Mojang
Platforms: PC, iOS
Release date: Nov. 18 for version 1.0
GamesBeat review score: pending

Minecraft takes players into a blocky, procedurally generated world, complete with mobile monsters (mobs), farm animals, and an underworld called the Nether. It runs on the Java platform on PC and Mac, as well as within a web browser. The game provides an open world with day, night, and weather cycles. Players must dig deep into the skin of the world, gathering resources to craft ever more complex items and contraptions, and can also build high into the clouds, making Minecraft one of the most addictive and innovative games of the last couple of years.

Released as alpha software in May 2009, and as beta in December 2010, the game made waves across the internet as geeks and gamers discovered this sleeper hit, spending $20 per license and making original programmer  Markus “Notch” Persson enough money to start a company, Mojang, and bring the game to full 1.0 release just this past November. Minecraft had surpassed 10 million registered users by July, 2011, and over 4 million purchases by November 2011, even before release. It has never been commercially advertised, only passed along by word of mouth. There is an extensive YouTube presence of the game, with Minecraft video creators like Minecraft Dad building what seems to be a lucrative channel on the video service, all based on this game.

“Minecraft combines the joy of building, the thrill of discovery, and the mechanics of video game survival into one fantastically compelling game made all the better by its staunch indie cred.” – Rob LeFebvre

5. Dark Souls
Developer: From Software
Publisher: Namco Bandai
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Release date: Oct. 4
GamesBeat review score: 89

Yes, Minecraft and Dark Souls are tied. These games couldn’t be more different. Dark Souls arrived in style towards the end of the year, offering gamers what is essentially an evolved form of its spiritual predecessor, Demon’s Souls. With its deep character creation and weapon crafting systems, and virtually load-free open world, the game provided the opportunity for players to engage in a highly immersive and personal journey.

What made Dark Souls stand out this year, to my mind, is the care and attention to detail that From Software put into crafting the game world. Playing the game, I was constantly surprised and astounded by what I saw, making my steady exploration seem like a real adventure, in the truest sense of the word. While Dark Souls offers a level of difficulty not seen in many current-generation games, it is perfectly beatable, given the right amounts of patience and tenacity. There is no denying that you will die, a lot, while playing the game, but the brief moments of joy elicited by success, against seemingly insurmountable odds, are second to none.

“Dark Souls offers a vast and mysterious game world, beautifully crafted and filled with magic and wonder at every turn. It offers a level of challenge that is missing from most games, inviting you to explore and discover its secrets for yourself. The mixture of RPG, action and subtle multiplayer elements is truly sublime, and is a great example of how to incorporate multiplayer features into a largely single player experience.” — Dan Crawley

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Dead Island: trailer of the year?

Few game trailers have elicited as emotional a response as this one, for Dead Island. Moody, subtle and emotionally rich, it turned out to be everything the game was not. Luckily, beating zombies around the head with an oar still proved a lot of fun. As a means of grabbing the attention of the gaming public, this trailer certainly proved its worth, helping Dead Island achieve healthy sales this year, with a possible sequel on the way. Don’t even look at this one if you’re under age.

Mario Kart hits Paris

French comedian Remi Gaillard decided to give the real world another taste of Mario Kart this year, following up his previous turn as everyone’s favourite Italian plumber, back in 2008. Taking to the streets (and shops) of Paris, with bananas in tow, Gaillard somehow survives his madcap race intact. Kids: don’t try this at home.

LongLivePlay

Sony rolled out all its stars, and then some, for this great advert, which manages to perfectly communicate the visceral thrill of becoming immersed in a gaming world. Not all the characters on show are exclusive to the Playstation brand, and there are plenty of cheeky cameos to look out for. A reward from Sony, for ‘Michaels’ everywhere.

Reworking the Angry Birds theme

Pamplamoose is a California based indie duo centered around musicians Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn. Here the duo present their unique take on the Angry Birds theme tune, which has over 3 million views on YouTube. That means only 497 million more Angry Birds players are yet to hear this gloriously chaotic version of the contemporary classic gaming theme.

Stunning Portal live action short – No Escape

Surely a contender for best ever fan made film, Portal No Escape is a wondeful sideways look at the Portal universe, by filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg. If Valve ever think of getting into the movie business, they should seriously think of signing this guy up. Breathtaking stuff.

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You’ll see a number of changes now and in the near future: New writers, new areas of coverage, more in-depth features, even deeper events coverage and a new scoring system for our reviews.

Over time, you’ll see us add more writers. We’ve already introduced more game reviews and game news stories from a number of talented writers. They include Sebastian Haley, Daniel Crawley, Stefanie Fogel, David Smith, Joe Sinicki, Nate Ahearn, Jacob Lopez, Matt Weinberger, Cassandra Khaw, Jacob Siegal, Rob Wyatt, Heath Hooker and Andrew Webster. Haley has been creating a stir with unflinching critiques of the season’s major blockbusters, but we’ve had some offbeat reviews like Weinberger’s review of the Humble Voxatron Debut indie game bundle too.

More new bylines will appear over time and we hope to expand our coverage of social and mobile games in addition to the expansion we’ve already undertaken with the console games. Our aim is to cover the spectrum of the game industry, from startups to the big companies and all manner of games and game platforms.

You can always see our game coverage at a glance by clicking on VentureBeat’s GamesBeat channel. We’ll run stories on the GamesBeat channel from time to time that won’t run in other sections, as appropriate.

We’ll expand the scope of our coverage in a variety of ways. We come at the topic from VentureBeat’s core focus on technology and business coverage, always looking for innovations in the market. But we’re also providing consumer-oriented coverage, such as our game reviews, as well. The types of stories we’ll cover include game startup fundings, corporate earnings reports, game sales reports, developer and publisher interviews, individual game reviews and previews, top ten lists, hacker attacks, new game technologies, market phenomena, new game frontiers, and industry scoops such as our story on Will Wright’s new game startup, HiveMind. Our goal remains to provide coverage you won’t see elsewhere, like our annual list of the top video game fundings of the year.

I’ve started my own DeanBeat weekly perspective column on games, which you are reading now and can subscribe to at this link. It appears on Thursdays as an email newsletter and shows up on the web site on Fridays. My aim with this column is to look back on events that have happened and add some perspective to them.

We approach the topic of games as journalists. We were proud to write a lengthy retrospective on the making of Microsoft’s Xbox game console, with a decade of perspective. The first part focused on the making of the Xbox from conception to launch. The second part focused on the creation of the Xbox 360 through the launch of Kinect. This was our most extensive story since we wrote about the Red Ring of Death problems in 2009.

Much of that story came from reporting I did for my two books, Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution (2002), and The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: the Real Story Behind Microsoft’s Next Generation Video Game Console (2006). We hope to turn the two-part series into an eBook that folks can download. That story was particularly satisfying for me to write because I was able to get back in touch with people who I have known and written about for a long time. Since I’ve been covering games for more than 16 years, I enjoy running into the same characters over and over again.

As we go, we’ll take your suggestions on how to improve our coverage and our focus. If you notice that we write about some subjects a lot — such as Zynga versus EA or EA versus Activision — it’s because people have responded well to that coverage in the past. But we hope to bring you plenty of stories that you won’t see anywhere else.

We’ll grow gradually over time and add new categories as we go. We hope to have coverage of topics on a global basis, and hope to add writers in other countries over time. We welcome guest editorials from experts on subjects as well.

We plan to cover the major events of the game industry, from the DICE summit in February to E3 in June. And we’ll see what else we can get to as we add more writers around the world. Our next stop is the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in the second week of January.

And we have our own event, too. We have already set our fourth annual GamesBeat 2012 conference for July 10-11 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. I’ll also be  a judge in an upcoming mobile games contest, Get Discovered, sponsored by Trinity Ventures, Hooked Media Group and Best Buy. (More on that later.)

Here’s some recent game reviews that we’ve already done this season. Some review scores have been adjusted to make them consistent with the universal grading scale that we are establishing at GamesBeat. We consider it very important to get the scores correct in terms of the relative comparison among the games, so we are making this one-time adjustment now.

We won’t review every game that comes out, but we’ll focus on the ones that consumers want to play, or, from our perspective, should play. We aim to create fair, thorough, and high-quality reviews that serve you, as a consumer, and help you decide what to buy and play. Please check these reviews out if you haven’t already.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 91
Uncharted 3 Drake’s Deception 91
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer 90
Batman Arkham City 89
Dark Souls 89
Forza Motorsport 4 89
Skyrim 89
Gears of War 3 88
Rage 88
Resistance 3 87
Super Mario 3D Land 87
Rayman Origins 87
Halo CE Anniversary 82
Assassin’s Creed Revelations 80
Kinect Disneyland Adventures 70
Battlefield 3 69
LOTR War in the North 60
Kinect Sports Season 2 59
The Humble Voxatron Debut Indie Bundle (not rated)

[illustration by Tom Cheredar]

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It is dark. I have spent the last two hours stumbling and falling down a seemingly endless series of wooden platforms, facing off against attack dogs and ghouls, and being shot with poison darts. Finally reaching the ground, I find myself in a poisonous swamp, surrounded by giant mosquitoes and spiders. Somehow, I manage to cut a swathe through my enemies, only to be invaded by a dual-cleaver wielding phantom. Standing knee deep in swamp water, and barely able to move, I just manage to defeat this new foe. I struggle on, now poisoned and losing health fast. In the darkness, I see a tunnel, and inside is a bonfire. A safe haven in the gloom. A chance to replenish my health, and most importantly, a checkpoint of sorts. I am yards from the fire when, in a cruel twist of fate, I am invaded again, in retaliation for a previous transgression. This time there is no surviving. The phantom is upon me, and cuts me down where I stand. I must start my descent again. Welcome to the cruel and beautiful world of Dark Souls, one of the year’s big budget fantasy role-playing games created by From Software and published by Namco Bandai Games. While other blockbuster games are getting a lot of attention, this one could well be worth your time.

Dark beginnings

The spiritual successor to the 2009 PlayStation 3 exclusive Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls makes its way onto both Xbox 360 and PS3, bringing with it much of the twisted fantasy look and feel of the previous title. With an understated approach to storytelling, Dark Souls greets the player with a brief and suitably dour cut scene (like a short animated film), followed by a tutorial level of sorts, during which you are pitted against an Asylum Demon the size of house, whilst armed only with a broken sword. This initial encounter sets the tone well for the game, with the realization that it is best to run, and resume battle when in a better position to put up a fight.

As you progress through the first few hours of the game, small hints are provided to help cope with the bleak world in which you find yourself, but the game never overtly extends a helping hand. In many ways this is the antithesis of popular trends in modern video games. Dark Souls doesn’t provide invisible walls to stop you falling to your death, it doesn’t throw constantly respawning enemies at you, until you reach a checkpoint, and it doesn’t present you with glowing platforms, that will light your passage through the game. Instead Dark Souls is gaming in perhaps its purest form, where a minor mistake can cost you your life, and even the weakest enemy can be a threat, if you approach it without due diligence.

Character Creation

The underlying mechanics to Dark Souls are those of a role-playing game (RPG). Your character, which is initially defined by one of the pre-existing characters at first, can be developed in any number of ways, by investing the souls that you reap when defeating enemies into various categories, such as strength, vitality, intelligence and dexterity. By leveling up certain characteristics, you can design your character to excel at any combat style that you choose, including melee combat, magic or pyromancy.

Running in parallel to this character development is the huge range of equipment that can be found, bought or earned during the game, which will play a huge part in defining your playing style. Most of the weapons in the game can also be upgraded along certain paths, with the use of Titanite, and the kind assistance of blacksmiths. Towards the end of the game, I was regularly swapping the weapons, armor and rings that my character had equipped, to deal with different situations and enemies. This freedom to experiment and develop your in-game character plays a huge part in making them feel like a personal creation, rather than just a generic action-hero. It also helps heighten the emotional impact of the heartbreaking failure and very occasional sublime success that you will experience during the game.

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