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Demon's Souls: Black Phantom Edition (PS3)
by Bobbeh
Don't let the bizarre choice of apostrophes in the title put you off, this is a game which has almost slipped under the radar of mainstream gaming, which is a shame because there really is nothing like it out on the market!
The story can be seen as a predictable cliché of the fantasy genre, you know the sort, the mystical ... kingdom in this case 'Boletaria', falls into darkness besieged an unspeakably evil demon army, and yes! You guessed it! It's up to you to put the world to rights again. The story is driven through defeating bosses, each boss defeated grants you access to further parts of the story.
But the real beauty of this game doesn't lie in its narrative, or the flashy cut scenes, but in the gameplay itself!
You start out creating your hero or heroine from a pre-set of characters, which you can then tweak to your preference, what's that? You really want to be charging into battle as a barbarian with spiky purple hair, lipstick and green skin? Then this my friends, will satiate all of your desires!
You set foot into the game world, via a short tutorial level that explains the basics to you, so even a gaming novice can get to grips fairly quickly. From here on in, you are fast removed from the safety of tutorial playground into big school!
The gameplay itself revolves around puzzle solving, sword +shield combat, Archery and flinging magical spells at your foes. The combat is fantastic! It is most certainly not your run of the mill hack'n'slash adventure such as Dynasty warriors. Combat feels really gritty as you go toe to toe with your enemies, it really gets the blood pumping with each swing of your sword, and clashing blows against your shield reverberating through your controller! You better remember all you learned in tutorial though, because this is a rather tough game, one poorly timed swing of your sword, can mean instant death.
What sets Demon's souls aside from other titles available out there is the difficulty.
It is heavily focused around risk heralding a greater reward. As you cleave, shoot, or blast your way through the legions of foes, be it a knight, a dragon or a 30ft tall demon with a big hammer, you collect souls from your fallen adversaries with which you purchase weapons, armour, spells and upgrades. The further into a dungeon you get, the riskier it becomes, and this is where it sets the men from the boys! If you die during your adventure, the souls you have collected on your journey now hang upon a knife edge! You return to the start of the level, and you must fight your way back to where you fell before to collect your soul hoard! Not only this, but each foe you killed is back, and stronger! To rub salt into the wounds, you die again before you reach your souls and POOF! They're gone!
It would seem that these days, online play is tacked onto games these days as a necessity; this is a title which goes against the grain by approaching online play in a whole different way.
It is very much about teamwork! You can leave prewritten messages in the world to warn unsuspecting adventurers against traps, treasure and to give general advice.
Through the use of items acquired in game, you can be summoned into other player's worlds to work together against bosses or other areas of difficulty. On the other hand, should you have less noble intentions; you can invade their worlds and fight them for their very souls! Effectively becoming the boss in another player's game!
There are a few downsides to the game. The frustration factor is VERY high in this game, and you will die A LOT! Visually, it does not push the PlayStation 3 to its full potential as the likes of Call of Duty and God of war do, and the voice acting is rather hammy, but these are the only negatives I have come across.
To summarise, Demon's souls is a unique title which brings a thoroughly enjoyable fantasy experience into the hands of the player, with heaps of replay value, it is a title I will be playing for months, even years to come! A diamond in the rough, but a diamond nonetheless!
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Afro Samurai (PS3)
by Siibillam-Law
Afro Samurai tells the tale of Afro, voiced by Samuel L Jackson, in his quest to hunt down Justice - the man who killed his father when he was a boy, for the number one swordsman headband. The story is pretty cliched, but like its original TV incarnation, you're probably playing this game for two things - Samuel L Jackson, and the insane ... swordplay. The game does expand on some bits though, giving a few insights into some characters, and filling out the odd plot hole.
The game is pretty much faithful to the anime, in quite a lot of ways. The gameplay is exactly like you'd expect, with the main focus being the hack-and-slash fight sequences that made the anime so popular. It's pretty much simply button-mashing and from time to time you feel a bit in the dark about the things you're meant to do, which can get quite frustrating, but for what it's worth, the fight scenes and the the gory aftermath makes the game a hell of fun. As you would expect there's nudity and violence just about everywhere in this game, which is all well and good but from time to time the game does feel kind of basic, with some pretty basic puzzles thrown in probably to add something else to the otherwise repetitive gameplay.
The graphics are done cell-shaded, and bring back the cartoonish feel from the original series, and every character looks right. Like in the anime, as well, the soundtrack is largely hip hop beats and everything goes very well hand-in-hand, especially with some great voice acting by Samuel L Jackson as the titular hero, and the chattier Ninja Ninja (who has considerably more lines than Afro).
As good as this game was, and as entertaining, I can't help but think that there are some much better games in the genre and some parts of the story might even be lost on newbies. For that, I'll have to say that Afro Samurai is probably best played by fans.
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