Dark Souls

1up.com review
, putting all the responsibility in your hands -- that each player will find a strategy which works best for them. Success in Dark Souls can only be found through experimentation and thoughtful reflection on said experiments, and while this may require a much greater deal of investment on the player's part, knowing you personally orchestrated every element of your victory brings forth an amazingly rewarding feeling that's far too rare in video games. It's tragic that not all of us have the time or temperament to play through Dark Souls, but one truth remains clear: if you're ready for it, it's ready for you.
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gamepro.com review
These moment-to-moment duels imbue the world of Dark Souls with a powerful sense of terror; not the "gotcha" type scares of most modern survival horror games, but the kind where it feels like the world is closing in around you. At one point, I was sprinting blindly through a church, completely out of healing potions and near death. I rounded a corner and only narrowly dodged a massive knight with a heavy mace, then sprinted out a door and toward what turned out to be one of the game's bonfires -- the new checkpoints that serve as impromptu hubs in each of the world's areas. It was an unscripted moment that left me feeling completely exhilarated, which I would argue is the holy grail for any game developer.
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incgamers.com review
Bosses in Dark Souls do not arrive in the usual videogame manner of a flashy, fast-cut, multiple lens filtered FMV. Instead, bosses in Dark Souls either arrive unannounced or are unwittingly stumbled upon. Inevitably, the first time this happens you’re unprepared and quickly succumb to the attack in a manner resembling a fight between Mike Tyson and Elton John; you get torn apart and you look like an idiot throughout.
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telegraph.co.uk review
It’s not the sense of disempowerment, although the feeling as you set out time and again to penetrate a little deeper into the medieval world of Lodran with its cliff tops patrolled by skeletons and dragons and valleys guarded by ice giants and hydra is one of banging a weak fist against overwhelming odds. Games are so often power fantasies that allow us to play superhero in the evening after a day in the office being forced to play underling. Dark Souls is a game that will crush the ego as often as inflate it.
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gamespot.com review
Dark Souls requires intense focus. This isn't a lighthearted romp in a bright and colorful fantasy world; it's a methodical journey into the frightening unknown. And that's what makes it so riveting. Some games try to scare you with bump-in-the-night shocks and far-off howls, but Dark Souls doesn't require such predictable methods of terror. Its terrors emanate from its very core, each step bringing you closer to another inevitable death. How amazing that such a terrible place could be so inviting. The game's world is so memorable, and its action so thrilling, that it might invade your thoughts even when you aren't playing, silently urging you to escape the real world and return to this far more treacherous one. Dark Souls doesn't just surpass other dungeon crawlers; it skewers them with a razor-sharp halberd and leaves behind their soulless corpses.
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