Game chosen: Dark souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin

Game Description

Dark souls 2 is an action role-playing game. The game itself is predominantly single-player, with the addition of player vs player (Pvp) and coop elements at short intervals spread throughout the experience. Scholar of the first sin adds existing expansion maps to the game, making the story more complete. The game, being a role-playing game, allows players to customize their avatars extensively, as well as providing various ways to defeat bosses / monsters, which is ultimately the main focus of the game. The enemies offer challenge despite the player’s level; Dying in the game has been a main staple of the series, and a single misstep can be a costly one in terms of endogenous value with the experience.

Website: http://www.darksoulsii.com/us/

Gameplay Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSCcRirneos

Lens #9: Elemental Tetrad Lens

Aesthetics (Excellent) – Game is aligned with the dark / undead theme as with previous titles, visuals are appealing and very detailed with regard to the environment. Character and Equipment design both fit the theme well but yet offering unique artistic directions, as in the case of unconventional armors. Audio is engaging, such as within boss battles, or the sudden ambush of an enemy.

Story (Okay) – Despite being called Dark souls II, the game has little semblance to the previous title in terms of story line. When I was playing the game, a personal opinion was that I did not care about the story. The game attempts to string together events from various non-playable characters (NPCs) in order to immerse the player more in the world. It works to a certain extent, though limited interaction with NPCs results in the dwindling of these connections as well.

Mechanics (Excellent) – Mechanics for this game can be divided into 2 broad categories, game system mechanics and combat mechanics. Game system mechanics such as the character progression, equipment progression, level progression in the multiple areas has been comprehensive and yet not overwhelming.

Combat mechanics are also very fluid, with various fixed weapon types for the player, and very interactive AI on the part of enemies, especially the bosses.

One very important mechanic that this game offers, is the loss of all souls when the player dies, dying can be as simple as falling off a cliff (environment hazard), and even mobbed by basic enemies. Because the enemies’ AI act independently, it introduces a slight randomness to the equation, which makes it more addictive to try again. The loss of souls makes death a lot more punishing, and increases its endogenous value.

Technology (Good) – Being also offered on the PC, it can be expected that it works moderately well with a mouse and keyboard, but the results are abysmal when faced with the challenge factor of the game. However, with a game-pad controller, it changes everything; It feels a lot more connected to the game world when the controls flow smoothly, and the controller reinforces that.

I don’t believe that story is integral in this game, the other 3 elements are very well implemented, except perhaps the native keyboard/mouse control issues.

The 4 elements work very well together in creating an AAA title that succeeds the previous one well,  improving on the existing tested and proven system.

Other Lenses chosen:

Lens #80: Lens of Help

The game offers a way of helping other players, which is in the defeating of bosses. Players can place down summon signs for other players to use to establish a connection. Depending on the helper’s alignment or “religion”, the helper can gain additional benefits for both of the involved parties for items that cannot be gotten from monsters. Besides helping other online players, helping NPCs will also advance their own story lines in the game, and in return, these NPCs will become summon-able by the player should help be needed in defeating hard bosses.

Lens #6: Curiosity

Right from the start, the game plants the player in an unfamiliar environment where he/she has to set off on a journey through the unknown land.The many weaknesses / varied drops each monster has also helps to place more ways the player can navigate through obstacles presented in the game; It becomes just a game by itself to collect equipment and upgrade them throughout the adventure. Pvp has also been a very important aspect, as the game calls it “invasion”; Pvp can happen at anytime, both self-initiated or not. This makes the game more unpredictable and fun.

Lens #40: Triangularity

The most striking instance of triangularity would be in the difficulty or monsters versus the amount of souls they possess. Because the player loses all souls upon death, this is a very cautious decision to make. There are also many other instances, such as traps that guard a chest (risk vs reward), chests that turn out to be mimics, shortcuts that are infested with monsters, optional areas that offer additional gear not obtainable anywhere else. This even includes pvp / coop, which are optional but can offer souls and other rewards. However there is a “religion” that makes the game difficulty twice as hard without offering immediate rewards, but rather prestige in terms of a leader-board.

Lens #73: Story Machine

In this game, the player has the option to kill NPCs, which can present changes to the story lines associated with these NPCs. The main story line ending is also affected by certain NPCs that the player helps / punishes along the way. But besides that, the game does not have much of a story to go about, players can tell “mini-stories” by writing messages on the ground which are transmitted to other players on the server. These are generic messages such as “Ambush ahead”, “Hurrah” etcetera.