The Winter Olympics are known for their collection of sports that only raise their head out of the snow once every four years. From the intense sweeping action of curling to the celestial tango of figure skating, families crowd around their glowing televisions to watch superniche athletes compete in these quadrennial events. In Vancouver 2010--the video game adaptation of this year's winter games--many of these uncommon sports have been removed, stripping away much of the novelty of the real Olympics. Curling and figure skating have been unceremoniously left out of the game--and don't get your hopes up for fast-paced international hockey either. The 14 included events are most notable for their lack of variety. There are seven ways in which you can race down a snow-covered mountain (skiing and snowboarding) and three ways to hurl yourself down a frozen chute (bobsledding, luge, and skeleton). This means you are left with only a few unique activities to take part in, which removes any sort of long-term appeal Vancouver 2010 might have offered.
At least most of the included events are well done, even if they do veer on the shallow side. The last Olympic video game, Beijing 2008, was plagued by an overload of events that forced players to frantically tap buttons--an activity that is the polar opposite of fun. That mindless control method is used only sparingly in Vancouver 2010, resulting in a much more enjoyable experience. The controls change little between skiing and snowboarding down a mountain, but they are responsive, so it can be fun to fly down an icy hill a few times. The problem is that there are only a few different courses (which change depending on the event), so you're forced to wind your way down the same path every time you replay the event. You only have to go down the hill a few times to memorize the layout, and after you know the exact route to take, there is little incentive to improve your time or play again.
The bobsledding events are even more repetitive. Two-man bobsled, skeleton, and luge are all represented here, but they all control in almost exactly the same way and all take place on the same frozen water slide. It is certainly fun to careen down that slippery track the first few times--making sure you don't slam into the walls that hover dangerously close to your sled while zooming up as high on the banked curves as possible without flipping over--but once you've done it a couple times, there isn't any reason to go back. And that is the biggest problem with Vancouver 2010. Skiing, snowboarding, and bobsledding events all control well and are pretty fun at first, but there are only a few different courses to go through, which severely limits the replay value. With a whopping 10 out of the included 14 events essentially boiled down into two unique activities, the entire package ends up being skimpy and forgettable.
The other four included events do inject a dose of variety, but they lack the fun of the racing activities. Ski Jump and Aerials, for instance, require players to tap a specific button at the right moment, but it takes only two or three practice runs before you master this technique. The 500-meter speed skating event forces players to frantically mash a button to maintain top speed, and though it requires a bit of skill to take corners at top speed, it's too tiring and repetitive to entertain for long. The 1,500-meter variety introduces a rhythm game mechanic for most of the race, but is too simple to make repeat runs entertaining. And that is the entirety of the included events. There is no score-based snowboarding competition, biathlon, or even the crazy mixed doubles luge. Even considering the reduced price of this game ($50), there is a dearth of content.
The Olympic mode continues the theme of a stripped winter sports experience by offering a very bare-bones take on the spectacle. You compete in a series of one-off events--without any commentary or special visual touches to make the events mirror the television broadcasts--and are then thrust on a podium afterward to receive your medal. There are only 24 countries to choose from (compared to the more than 80 that will compete in the real games), and you can't even customize the appearance of your competitors. Furthermore, the events themselves are lacking in presentation, diminishing the thrill of striving for a gold medal. Weirdly enough, many events blast rock music while you're trying to focus, which clashes severely with the otherwise serene, wintry atmosphere. There is little incentive to play these events more than one time in Olympic mode, which is awfully strange. One would think that the Olympic mode would be a key aspect of an Olympic game, but it feels like an afterthought in Vancouver 2010.
Thankfully, there is one mode in which to take solace in Vancouver 2010. Challenges let you take part in a variety of objective-based events that are the most interesting aspect of this game. Most of your goals involve tearing through an event as if you were a real life competitor, keeping your speed above a certain average in downhill skiing or taking corners perfectly in the luge, which forces you to master the intricacies of the courses and controls. However, there are a few objectives that seem flat-out game-y, sucking you out of the otherwise simulation atmosphere offered in the rest of the game. For instance, during one downhill skiing event, you must slam into snowmen to earn time bonuses, and in a snowboarding event, your controls are inexplicably reversed. Nevertheless, every one of these 30 challenges are fun, and it's rewarding trying to shave off a second or land a particularly difficult jump. It's a shame the rest of the game doesn't have the same care found in the Challenge mode because there is good deal of entertainment in these winter events.
Because of the lack of variety among the events, the multiplayer mode has only a little bit more appeal than the standard single-player competitions. You can play online or off, with up to four players, and it is fun striving for the best time against your buddies. But like every other element of Vancouver 2010, the fun doesn't last long. With only a few unique events and even fewer courses to choose from, everything becomes stale soon after you start playing. Only the difficult Challenge mode is really interesting, but with only 30 challenges to take part in that too is only fun for so long. Although Vancouver 2010 is vastly improved from Beijing 2008, it is ultimately lacking in many key areas. It's still more fun to watch the real lugers do their thing than take part in this shallow digital representation.
From the moment Bayonetta's prologue begins, it's made abundantly clear that you're entering a world of pure spectacle. As the prelude unfolds, you control the titular heroine and stylishly dispatch an angelic host of enemies while standing on the face of an exploding clock tower as it tumbles end-over-end from a mountaintop. This brief and over-the-top sequence is but a first step on the long road of delightful insanity that will follow, with each and every moment pushing the limits of ridiculousness even further. But however ludicrous it may appear, do not make the mistake of dismissing Bayonetta as all style with no substance. Beneath its glossy facade lies an accessible but deep and intricately nuanced combat system that allows you to perform impressive feats and feel like part of the magically empowered. This high-octane hack-and-slash is expertly paced and further enhanced by some subtle but brilliant tweaks to the formula. These include a powerful item concoction mode and comprehensive scoring system with online leaderboards. Though the core experience remains virtually identical to the Xbox 360 version, Bayonetta's PlayStation 3 port is hampered by a number of technical issues that disappointingly prevent it from reaching its potential. In spite of these issues, however, Bayonetta remains a bewitching adventure.
Five hundred years is long enough for an entire world to change, which is what the woman known as Bayonetta discovers after awakening from her slumber in a tomb at the bottom of a lake. With her memory understandably hazy, Bayonetta remembers little more than that she is an Umbran Witch and that she's looking for something called The Eyes of the World. On a tip from her informant, she heads to the isolated city of Vigrid where she begins to piece together her missing memories and learn about the downfall of her clan and its counterparts: the Lumen Sages. What ensues is a series of hilariously over-the-top moments--each of which somehow surpasses the previous--that loosely form a narrative amidst a plethora of sight gags, sexual innuendos, and gratuitously violent angelic deaths. Amidst all the absurdity is a coherent plot with some surprisingly sweet moments, but the main attraction is the combat, not the storytelling.
Having contracted with the demons of Inferno, who serve as a source of her power, Bayonetta is a mortal enemy of the angels of Paradiso who seem to emerge at every corner in Vigrid spoiling for a fight. Armed from the get-go with a unique set of four guns (two of which are attached to her high heels), Bayonetta punches, kicks, and shoots her way through the heavenly aggressors that hound her every step. Apart from the basics, she can also perform a number of stylish special attacks to punish her enemies in often mind-boggling ways. Bullet climax attacks can strike out at all nearby attackers with most or all of Bayonetta's creatively wielded guns; wicked weave attacks summon monstrous, demonic appendages in her hair for a magical sucker punch or heel stomp; and torture attacks that conjure pain- and humiliation-inducing contraptions out of thin air. You're able to dish out an incredible amount of hurt in Bayonetta, and it's hard not to be hooked after experiencing the pleasure of performing your first outrageous combo, which may or may not involve break dancing, ensorcelled guillotines, and dozens of bullets to bridge together your myriad punches and kicks. As you fight through the angelic choirs, a variety of new weapons, such as a cursed katana or an enchanted pair of ice skates, are unlocked through trade with the demonic barkeep/smith Rodin, enhancing your already impressive arsenal even further. Because both Bayonetta's hands and feet are her weapons, you equip both with your instruments of heavenly destruction and can even have two entirely different sets ready for action with the tap of a button. These two arsenals can be swapped midcombo, which offers a great deal of flexibility (particularly when fighting several different types of angels at once) and makes battle feel free-form and pleasing. Truly, angels will cry before you're finished with them.
From the very beginning of the game, dozens of different combo attacks can be performed with the right recipe of button presses and timing, but even more advanced techniques are available for purchase from Rodin as well. In a clever move, the between-level loading screens also double as a practice mode of sorts where you can play around with each of Bayonetta's attacks. Complete with a handy onscreen move list, this feature is invaluable for learning the differences between the many different combos and finding the ones that work best for you, and you can even turn it into a full-fledged practice mode at the touch of a button. Even with this helpful mode, though, it can be tricky to grasp the subtle nuances of combat. If complex combos or elaborate attack dances aren't your thing, Bayonetta's easy and very easy difficulties equip everyone with the means for performing even the most impressive of attacks almost effortlessly. But for those clamoring for a challenge, Bayonetta does not disappoint--on normal difficulty, even lesser angels can prove to be fatal, and there are two harder levels to unlock for the most skillful of players to brave.
The core mechanic that fuels Bayonetta's combat complexity is your instantaneous ability to dodge enemy assaults: Pulling the right trigger at almost any time--including midcombo--will cause Bayonetta to pirouette out of the way without any downtime to avoid an attack. Enemies hit hard and rarely drop bonus health, so it is in your best interest to exploit your dodging prowess as often as possible. Indeed, the combat system is not only built around avoiding damage altogether, but it also rewards you for doing so in more ways than one. If you dodge an attack at the last possible moment, Bayonetta activates a powerful ability known as witch time, which temporarily slows time down to a crawl for everyone else and allows her to thrash her foes and circumvent their sometimes considerable defenses. By making dodging so accessible and utilitarian, developer Platinum Games has transformed each battle into a fluid, continuous dance, with your performance graded and compared against other players via online leaderboards. This grading system judges your angel-slaying aptitude based on time spent in combat, combo damage dealt, and damage taken for each battle and stage. Obtaining the coveted "pure platinum" grade in a complete level or even a single encounter for your speed and skill is both challenging and rewarding. Going for them all is a great reason to replay and drive your scores higher and higher.
Each of the 16 chapters in Bayonetta is broken down into a series of self-contained enemy encounters called verses. When not actively killing the agents of heaven, you maneuver your witch through Vigrid, as well as its surrounding areas, solving simple environmental puzzles, finding ingredients to concoct health and support items (all lollipops, naturally), searching for hidden challenge rooms, and watching as the pleasantly preposterous story unfolds one cutscene at a time. When the moon is full and visible--which happens more often than you might think--Bayonetta is able to witch walk on walls and ceilings to move about or fight. These situations are among the most memorable moments in Bayonetta, and being able to run across a collapsing wall to avoid an incoming wave of molten lava or leap from floor to wall to ceiling to continue a furious assault is not only freeing, but it also adds a new dimension to the genre. Action peaks when the most powerful of angels--the personifications of the cardinal virtues--appear and try to stop Bayonetta, and you'll need every one of the powers at your disposal to defeat these titans of heaven in awesome multipart battles. Each boss fight ends with an aptly named climax attack that summons one of the many infernal demons Bayonetta has contracted with (and seems to keep in her hair) to brutally finish them off and drag them down to hell.
Unfortunately, as entertaining as the stylish action combat of Bayonetta is, it's plagued by a number of technical issues on the PS3 that distract and spoil some of the fun. Not only are the visuals grainier and more washed out than in its Xbox 360 counterpart, but there are also noticeable frame rate dips that occur when the action gets too heavy. Most commonplace, however, are the frequent, excessively long load times. While the loads between levels are partially mitigated by the useful practice mode, it can only cover up so much and doesn't do anything at all to help all of the other loads. You're met with an immersion-breaking, several seconds long loading screen every single time you want to pause the action, access your inventory or switch between submenus there, save or load your game, or pick up a new item. All together, these problems notably affect your enjoyment, and in a game where high-energy combat is king, these are pretty significant.
Though technical difficulties take some of the fun out of Bayonetta, the core combat experience is still very entertaining, and it's clear that a great deal of effort was spent in making everything look as stylish as possible. Each of Bayonetta's ridiculous, hypersexualized poses are expertly animated, and watching as she suplexes a dozen angels at once or jumpstarts a motorcycle by using her middle finger as a key is delightful. Even the more mundane actions are carefully detailed--Bayonetta doesn't so much bleed as she blooms roses, double jumps are assisted by the butterfly wings that sprout from her back, and so on. Angels have a fantastic yet grotesque art direction that blends together elements from classically beautiful Greco-Roman statues with avian, insect, or even technological bases to form unique designs. Some of them, such as the virtue Fortitudo--a twin-headed dragon whose central body is itself yet another inverted head--stand out more than others, but all are memorable. Though the dynamic camera generally does a fine job of ensuring that the action is front and center--particularly during witch walk sequences--there are a few enclosed areas where it seems unsure as to what to do. This is a rare occurrence, however, and it's overall a minor annoyance at worst.
Matching the over-the-top action of Bayonetta is a suitably ridiculous soundtrack that is equal parts annoyingly catchy pop, epic chorus, and retro arcade synth. Like the rest of Bayonetta, the soundtrack is very tongue-in-cheek, particularly an upbeat remix of "Fly Me to the Moon" that is used throughout the entire game, and most often as you gleefully dispatch angelic foes in a whirling dance of death and display. Accompanying the soundtrack is an all-star voice cast, the real star of which is, of course, Bayonetta herself, who is voiced with just the right combination of sultry, sass, and self-confidence to bring her to life and keep her from devolving into the realm of stereotype and cliche. With nearly every ridiculous stunt, she delivers a double entendre in her feisty British accent (all the time with a wink in her eye), the complete spectacle of which brings a smile to your face.
With its flexible fighting engine, innovative use of bullet time and wall-walking mechanics, and the competitive online scoring system that is weaved into its very fabric, Bayonetta isn't so much a sister to other combat-oriented action games as it is an evolution of them. Though frame rate issues, frequent and extended load times, and less-crisp graphics make the PlayStation 3 version inferior to its Xbox 360 counterpart, it is nonetheless still a very enjoyable experience. Combat controls feel natural and responsive from the very first moment you experience them, and the magic remains throughout the journey; whether you're throwing a bus at a boss or hitching a ride on a ballistic missile. Chock-full of often silly but always memorable moments, Bayonetta can stay with you even after you've stopped playing it. Regardless of which version you play, its host of hidden items and secrets, multiple difficulties, competitively balanced scoring system, and charismatic heroine make Bayonetta a game that will be revisited time and time again.
The Kingdom of Boletaria is an unforgiving place. Entering it means embracing a seemingly endless cycle of death and resurrection as you slowly tread through sullen swamps, scavenge dark caverns, and sneak between looming castle walls. It's dark and dreary, as if the residents of hell have plunged a dagger into the very idea of happiness and left its lifeless form to wither away. Developer From Software's action role-playing game Demon's Souls houses this kingdom, and you should not expect the game to welcome you as an old friend and willingly share its deepest secrets. This is an uncompromising RPG of the highest order--and a brilliant, atmospheric, and visionary one. It is at once old-fashioned and innovative, a stubbornly difficult dungeon crawler loaded with wholly unique mechanics. Perhaps the game's greatest triumph, however, is that it takes qualities normally associated with frustration and discomfort--constant trial and error, slow progression, harsh enemies--and makes them virtues. It may have an unusual and unforgiving set of rules, but it stays true to them and, in the process, draws you in like few RPGs can. Demon's Souls is a stark and sulky beauty and is one of the finest games of 2009.
Demon's Souls' uncanny ability to ensnare you in its web starts with its five gloomy, meticulously crafted worlds. It takes some of the usual elements of dark medieval fantasy--roaring dragons, demon knights clad in well-worn armor, crumbling stone castles--and then molds them into a cohesive and enthralling universe. Every element is in exactly the right place, from soaring demons that look like manta rays to rows of fiends using their pickaxes to unearth unspecified valuables. Each world feels and looks authentic, as does the hub world (called the Nexus) from which you access them. There isn't much narrative to speak of, just some basic but intriguing backstory regarding the giant beast called the Old One and the demons infesting the kingdom. But you'll barely notice how thin the story strands are, for the kingdom itself weaves a story of its own as you slowly investigate its nooks and crannies, and the characters you encounter seem totally within their element. When you kneel before the Maiden in Black and she prays in her halting, affected speech, you believe in her conviction. When Blacksmith Boldwin sneers at you that he needs your business, you hear the contempt in his voice. Their lips don't move when they speak, but it hardly matters: these world-weary people, and the frightening realm they inhabit, are immediately believable.
The game doesn't just look and feel unforgiving--it plays that way too. You may tackle any of its five main regions at any time, but that doesn't mean you will easily slice your way through each one. If the first few minutes of the tutorial don't betray the challenges in store for you, the same level's gargantuan end boss certainly will. You are meant to die, and you are meant to die often. When you do, you return to the archstone at the beginning of the area and do it all again. When you are resurrected, you get to keep most of what you had on your person--your weapons, your armor, your healing grasses, and so on. However, you lose the most precious commodity you possess: collected souls. Souls are the game's currency, and the primary way of accumulating them is to kill demons. You can't sell looted weapons that you don't need, nor can you put souls in the bank for use later. You can hold onto them, spend them on important items like spice (which replenishes your magical energy), or use them to improve your core attributes (such as endurance, strength, and so on).
Should you die on your travels, the souls you've amassed aren't necessarily gone for good, however. You can return to the location of your death and touch the bloodstain you left behind, which returns the lost souls to you. Be careful, though: if you die on your way to your bloodstain, it will disappate and be gone forever, along with all your hard-won souls. The whole thing may sound incredibly harsh, and on the surface, it is. You'll cautiously traverse the same hallways and stairwells to find your bloodstain, only to have a lamp-carrying demon shock you with electricity, lift you into the air with the tentacles growing from its face, and take half of your health away with one fateful stab. The constant specter of death means you should plan how you want to spend your souls in advance. Once you get enough, you'll want to hightail it back to the Nexus and improve an attribute, upgrade your weapon, or repair your armor. Eventually, you'll make a breakthrough, and enemies that seemed so dastardly the last time will be mere speedbumps the next. Yet even when you accumulate thousands upon thousands of valuable souls, and you know that the sensible thing to do is to return to the closest archstone and teleport back to the Nexus, your curiosity may push you onward. There always seems to be a terrific surprise lurking around the bend, in the way of awesome new enemies (a giant blob made up of flailing corpses), amazing environments (the thin suspended walkways hanging over Latria's murky swamp), and precious loot (stones used to upgrade your crossbow).
The monsters may be tough, but the game grants you the flexibility you need to take them on as you see fit. You'll create your character using Demon's Souls' robust customization options and select a class when you first begin, but you aren't stuck with one particular play style. As long as you meet the necessary statistical requirements and own the requisite item (a talisman for casting miracles, for example), you can use any weapon, any armor, and any magic you please. It's a good thing, too, for certain circumstances may dictate that you follow an unplanned path. Perhaps you had no intention of using magic, but a simple soul arrow spell can come in mighty handy when you're dealing with flaming bugs fluttering about in the sky. You may plan to pour all your souls into your strength attribute, only to realize that leveling up endurance is the better idea, because you'll be able to absorb more damage with your shield before losing health.
What makes extreme difficulty and incessant trial and error such wonderful qualities in Demon's Souls, when they are so loathsome in other games? It starts with the deliberate and wonderful combat, which doesn't seem complex at first, but reveals its subtleties in time. Rarely will mindlessly hacking and slashing get you anywhere, unless death is your ultimate goal. You need to contemplate every move, swing only when you are sure you won't be countered, and switch weapons or use items only when you are sure your window of opportunity is wide enough. You'll encounter all sorts of awesome and unnatural beasts, from tumbling skeletal fiends to frightful three-faced larvae, and while they have a set number of attacks, they still behave unpredictably. You will undoubtedly take a lot of damage until you learn the subtleties of fighting each enemy, but combat feels just right. You move with the right amount of weight, combos take time to pull off, and animations are silky smooth. Everything moves and interacts in the way you'd expect. If your sword hits the wall instead of the enemy, it will glance off. If a demon knight rears back just before you do the same, his sword will make contact at the part of your body that you left unprotected. These touches may seem small and unimportant, but when every second counts, and when life and death are separated by a millimeter or two, you rely on such consistency.
The challenging combat is enhanced by a number of innovative online features that invite players to interact with each other. To survive, you not only need to pay careful attention to your environs, but you must be mindful of the clues other players have left for you, both purposeful and accidental. The game's online integration is nothing like you've ever seen, and it's a core component of the Demon's Souls experience. The signs and indications of other players are everywhere. You'll see translucent white ghosts roaming your world, moving about and swinging their weapons, though you can't directly interact with them. These spirits are actually other players. They are fighting the same enemies and sprinting across the same bridges, but they inhabit their own worlds, not yours. You see only their apparitions, but those apparitions may be enough to clue you in to a surprise ambush up ahead or a bit of hidden loot around the corner.
These ghosts are only one of several ways other players will be assisting you on your journey. You'll notice plenty of bloodstains coating the ground; by activating them, you'll witness an instant replay of another player's final few seconds before the unfortunate victim succumbed to death. These bloodstains may warn you of an upcoming drop into nothingness, a particularly difficult enemy encounter, or a deadly trap waiting to be sprung. If you wish to assist a player more directly (after all, self-sacrifice might drop a helpful bloodstain for your fellow players, but it doesn't do you much good), you can leave a note. You must choose from a preselected list, but there are dozens of messages to choose from, and you'll likely find a sentiment that communicates exactly what you need to share. If there's a deadly drop ahead, leave a note (which appears as a rune on the ground) warning your fellow players. Not only will it help them out, but if they find it useful, they can rate it. When a note is rated, it replenishes some of the note-givers health. Low-rated notes fade away quickly, while high-rated ones stick around longer. It's a superb system of give and take in which the writer and the reader can both benefit. Those who offer and receive true help are rewarded, and those who provide incorrect, pointless, or misleading information are simply wasting their own time.
The most direct way of helping other players, however, is to join them on their quest. Demon's Souls' ingenious implementation of co-op play is hardly straightforward, though it is incredibly imaginative. Players exist in one of two forms: body form and soul form. If you are in body form, you have full hit points, while in soul form, your hit points are generally halved (though a terrific ring you can find early on will give you a boost). You start your adventure in body form, and when you die, you are resurrected in soul form. Because you are only restored to body form when you defeat a boss or use a relatively rare stone, you'll spend most of your time as a soul. When in soul form, you can drop a soul marker; a player in body form can then activate that marker to summon you to his or her world. At that point, you join the player in his or her realm and tackle the challenges at hand together. If you are in body form, you can summon either one or two players, for a maximum party of three. There is no way to invite a friend, and no voice chat to communicate strategies or warnings. Yet while that sounds limiting, this imaginative system works in the context of Demon's Souls' harsh world and backstory. You feel as if you occupy a single node on a vast web of interconnected realms that mesh and overlap in mysterious ways.
The result of this unique and amazing set of online features is a curious sense of camaraderie. On one occasion, we joined two other players in the host's instance, and using Demon's Souls' built-in emotes, all three players bowed to one another at the same time. That friendly moment was a microcosm of the sense of community that the game's tightly balanced cooperative features create. By dropping your soul mark, you are not only offering your service to a player in need, but also reaping rewards in the way of souls, as well as learning new combat strategies in your own realm. This is particularly helpful when it comes to Demon's Souls' exceptionally difficult--and exceptionally rewarding--boss fights. The first main boss you fight may give you an idea of the awesome character designs you'll see elsewhere, but its relatively low level of challenge won't prepare you for the dual monstrosities known as maneaters or the nail-biting and exciting storm king battle. Not all of these boss battles are as hard as the gameplay that leads to them, but they are tough nonetheless, and the boss designs are deliciously grotesque.
Nevertheless, other players aren't always your best pals; sometimes, they may be your worst enemies. Once you've progressed far enough (and procured the necessary item), you can invade another player's realm as a black phantom--and other players can invade yours. Don't worry that you'll suddenly be attacked by another player many, many levels above you: your invader must be around the same level as you, so you should be on more or less equal footing. Even so, the presence of an enemy player changes the very nature of your exploration. Not only must you cope with the array of demons seeking to slaughter you, but you must also be on the lookout for the telltale blood-red shimmer of your intruder. As a result, you'll move ahead much more cautiously--and when you do finally meet, the ensuing encounter is tense and exciting. Don't be surprised if you let out an audible gasp when you receive the notification on your screen that another player has penetrated your realm; no matter how often they happen, invasions never lose their potency. If you're the one being invaded, the intrusion is exciting and a little bit scary; you'll look around, wondering if you're being followed, and listen for signs of your foe. When you're the invader, you'll feel vaguely evil scouting about, trying to stay out of your victim's sight, and looking for the best opportunity to attack. And there may be surprising moments in which these various systems coalesce. For example, you may join another player in his or her realm, only to have a black phantom appear. The unspoken (there is no voice chat) partnership between you and your collaborator makes banishing a black phantom from his realm almost as satisfying as banishing one from your own. Of course, the souls you earn sweeten the deal.
Amid all of its elegance, Demon's Souls has a few small but noticeable flaws that bear mentioning. The game's targeting system is picky, so you may find it a chore to lock on to certain enemies when you need to most. The camera is occasionally hard to control when you're targeting demons, like when you need to deal with multiple flying gargoyles as you simultaneously climb a narrow, suspended staircase (there's no death in Demon's Souls more heartbreaking than a falling one). And there are a few areas where the frame rate tends to stutter, though these occurrences aren't frequent and are never overwhelming. Of course, the game's greatest potential drawback is its level of difficulty. If you are easily frustrated, or looking to unwind for the night, Demon's Souls isn't going to fit the bill, though that doesn't mean it's generally cheap: it always abides by its own laws. When you die, it's because the section is legitimately hard--but when you die, you learn. And you can minimize death by paying close attention to the tools you're given: player spirits, notes on the ground, bloodstains, and the cackles and groans emanating from around the corner. You know that walkway that crumbled underneath you and dropped you in the middle of some menacing fiends? Chances are you simply didn't read the note another friendly player left urging you to sprint across.
Demon's Souls harbors many more intricacies as well--nooks and crannies loaded with extra loot, a mechanic known as world tendency that changes the difficulty level depending on certain actions you take, and additional benefits (and risks) should you rescue (or kill) certain non-player characters you encounter on your travels. There's a lot to discover, and the game wants you to figure it all out on your own. But while Demon's Souls doesn't serve the answers to you on a gilded platter, it gives you a number of refined and inspired tools to help you succeed, and its astounding, oppressive world will cast its spell on you. If you crave true innovation, a fair but relentless challenge, and gripping exploration in which every step has consequences, then you crave Demon's Souls.
