More people need to read Erik's stuff. He's a pretty fantastic writer. Also the end of the article maybe confirms the original article is just trolling?

Sorry guy, you reached point Godwin.

I have no other games to tether his argument to, and so I drift. I have Baudrillard and Jonathan Crary, inflexible systems and commentary on a false sense of community, but what I need is a map or a compass or a listicle. Anything to provide contour and shape to Thomsen’s argument.

Credit: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/04/25/why-is-dark-souls-ii-the-worst-game-ever-made/

I threw up a little in my mouth.

Forbes.com is currently a fancy name for a Wordpress-like site.

Each contributor flies solo with his own blog. He is responsible for conceiving and creating the content, ensuring its accuracy and building an engaged, loyal readership. Forbes provides the technology and compensates some of the contributors, but otherwise, like all entrepreneurs, contributors are left to sink or swim on their own.

Credit: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/173743/what-the-forbes-model-of-contributed-content-means-for-journalism/

Basically, you're a Forbes contributor and regularly bring hits to the site? You get paid. Whether you do it by parroting popular opinion (Hi, Erik Kain), or trolling them (Hi, Michael Thomsen), Forbes doesn't give a damn.

Internet message board users get a reputation for being abrasive, prone to exaggeration, and hyperbole. But where are the self-righteous internet warriors when an asshole like this writes an article for actual money?

Internet trolls just do it for the kicks. It's like a sport. This guy is getting click-payed.

Holy shit, that sentence is one of the dumbest things I have ever read. Ever. Also, it's one fucking sentence and it's that long, holy shit.

That sentence, while technically grammatically correct, is more complete fucking gibberish than chatspeak is. This writer is clearly seeing Dark Souls II from somewhere deep in the recesses of his own asshole.

@myrmicus: That was the point. Hyperbole for hyperbole.

They aren't exactly wrong. I've always said that if Demon's Souls but instead was made by Romanian developer and released by Ubisoft people would have laughed at it and said, 'Man...that sure is busted video game that tried to be Oblivion".

Even as someone who's dogmatically opposed to this franchise, I'd have to say there's a lot wrong with the way that review is written.

I read the whole article, and some of the comments section. I feel like there was a really good point in that article, somewhere, but he constantly undermines his arguments with criticisms that are either so broad and philosophical that they could be applied to literally any other game, or so vague and non-specific that I left the article not entirely sure why he hates Dark Souls 1 and 2. He identifies the insular nature of the zeitgeist, but doesn't really use it to make any clear point. And it's clearly far too verbose for its own good, almost as if he's trying to hide behind his fancy turns of phrase that are as meaningless as he perceives the game to be.

There's one really huge thing from the comments that frames the article in a slightly different light:

"I’d count Demon’s Souls as one of my favorite games of all time"

OK, now I have a better understanding of why he spent hundreds of hours playing games he hates - I think he wanted these games to be really great, but was so frustrated by the changes they made that he had to write at length about it. And the fact that Demon's Souls didn't resonate with a wider audience in the all-encompassing way that the two Dark Souls games has is probably another point of contention. But that doesn't suddenly make the article better, or the title any less needlessly inflammatory, or his writing any more coherent.

For everyone crying about the article:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

“Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.” – Mark Twain

@you_died: Yeah... that's clearly bullshit from someone reading way too much into how clever the author is

This guy clearly had the best Dark Souls 2 experience out of everyone. Pure hatred for 300 hours.

Man, I like the flowery language, but tone it down. 3,300 words, huh? That happens when you tack 3 adjectives onto every other word.

This is an article about video games in general, just think like you're reading an article about Super Mario Bros, and it practically works. I'm sure he flavored it with Dark Souls 2 because that's what he's playing, and also that headline is 100% clickbait.

Dude has a point, but also not really. Games, in their simplest forms, is a world with a set of rules. In Mario, you learn to jump, and then you do countless variations on the "jump" through the game. Calling out Dark Souls as "an open world combat game offering players a seemingly infinite variety of ways to do the same thing over and over again," is silly. A majority of video games (and board games, and games in general) are doing the same thing over and over again, hopefully with some variety!

Luckily, the indie scene has been really pushing that creative wall, and I know there's been some bigger budget releases that did it as well. If you're tired of killing dudes, you can stop playing Dark Souls. There are other games out there.

" It’s the worst and least ethical form of play, taking the naturally constrained single encounters of Chess or Go into the heart of an infinity spiral rotating out from the center of a box of microprocessors built out of a grand network of exploitive labor practices around the world, creating a transfixing hallucination sublimely disassociated from the networks of labor required to produce it."

Having almost adventured through this single sentence I can't help but think the author of this article would really get along with Leigh Alexander.

You cannot put hundreds of hours across two hardcore games like the souls games and not like video games. It is partially click bait but I also think he's venting his frustration about a game that he doesn't want to like.

I just... don't like hyperbole. Comments on the internet are ruled by it and what I appreciate about paid writers, at least good ones, is that they avoid that sort of overboard emotional nonsense. I understand that it's possible to feel very strongly about something even if one is a professional but this doesn't seem like a good way to express it.

There's certainly a whole lot of hyperbole in there, but in between the hyperbolic "worst game of all time" lines every third paragraph, there was a pretty good read. This guy obviously is an experienced Souls player, he understands the game but doesn't like it. He made sense when he went into more detail about what he didn't like about the games, I just wish he'd stuck with less of the "worst" this and that, but that's what I've understood the Internet is for. So if you're writing for a website, I guess that's how you must write?

And that kinda happened, Blade of Darkness was developed in Spain in 2001, and published by Codemasters. Though it wasn't panned by critics, it didn't exactly become a massive hit:

The one paragraph that really stands out to me is this one:

It’s the worst and least ethical form of play, taking the naturally constrained single encounters of Chess or Go into the heart of an infinity spiral rotating out from the center of a box of microprocessors built out of a grand network of exploitive labor practices around the world, creating a transfixing hallucination sublimely disassociated from the networks of labor required to produce it. The friendships formed in message boards and YouTube comment threads offset by the number of lives pinned in place by the economic conditions necessary for the creation of such hallucinatory machinery, offering the great thrill of achievement for having done nothing but press a few half-inch buttons, hypnotized by the unseen patterns passing through the screen, scrutable only to those others who’d undergone the same rite of initiation and spoke the secret lexicon.

So, this guy is basically just saying that video games in general are the worst thing ever. Why do I even care if he thinks that Dark Souls II is the worst of them all?

While I normally don't like to dismiss things outright, looking through his other works I have to say that I'm pretty sure this guy just says antagonistic things either to be iconoclastic or to get clicks (and I really hate the click argument, but it works considering how Forbes.com pays its contributors). I mean, he also wrote an article defending the clones of Threes while castigating independent developers for the sin of wanting to be paid for their work. Avoid him, he isn't worth your time and rage.

@chaser324:

You mean you can parse those symbols into something meaningful?

Forbes has been covering games for a long time. They usually have really well-written articles, and this, too, although meandering and totally misguided, is admittedly very well-written.

It's written like this was the first and last game he'll ever play and he feels the need to condemn it for not being anything and everything a video game could possibly be. Like it was his thesis for Psychology and the human condition. His criticisms are fucking ridiculous, and each sentence is dripping with gross pretentiousness. What kind of person would actually read that and agree with it/enjoy it other than people who barely ever play games and are looking for any reason at all to scoff at their existence?

One thing I get really annoyed with is writers who very very deliberately use very flowery and verbose language with large complex words and metaphors for no other reason than to make themselves look like better writers then they actually are.

This guys areguements are laughable at best and at worst illicit deep groans while reading them. I don't need to get "angry" at him because that would be suggesting that he has enough merit to get mad about his opinion. He is making everything he talks about way way to complex for what is at its core escapist entertainment.

Or is he the WORST Hitler?

If I'm correct, his argument is basically, "Dark Souls II is the worst game ever because it's filled with a bunch of esoteric meaningless bullshit that doesn't carry over as knowledge into the real world." Isn't that what most games are? I mean, he makes some good criticisms about the game itself, but his overarching theme of this being a horrible thing that our culture has sided with makes it really hostile to read.

Also, I know others here have pointed it out already, but it really rubs me the wrong way that someone would play a game for hundreds of hours that they know they aren't going to like, especially a sequel similar to the previous game that they hate. Look at Jeff. He hates Dark Souls. He doesn't think it's fun. He tried to play each of the games for a little bit before deciding that they weren't the games for him. Is this person the Jeff who decided instead to play the game for hundreds of hours despite that hate and had to come up for some condescending reasons for why he did this? He punishes a game that he thinks is meaningless and arbitrary because there's something about it that makes him keep playing it despite that.

I don't think there's a correct way or a wrong way to play games. I just think this author wasn't really playing.

btw, the Forbes website publishes all kinds of stuff. Don't take their articles as the website's point of view. Forbes isn't like Gamespot.

I love this article. Good job author.

There should be a hidden disclaimer for all hyperbolic proclamations. "This is the worst thing!!!! Disclaimer: Worst of the things I've decided to expose myself to which in the grand scheme of things is a pretty small sample really."

As far as I am concerned, the man is due his opinion. Even more so, if it is said to ears that for a broad range of reasons are not receptive. ButI lost sympathy for a very evident problem. Was he writing his master thesis here?, Jeez! His description sounded accurate for the PvP of DS, but man does he go on! I finally gave up.

All those 100's of hours of playing, I would say look at it as he took a BiiiiiiiiG hit for whatever team this article is meant for. Being Forbes and all. I know there are and must be good observations in there, but it seems there might be also a failed attempt at stifling the vengefulness in wanting to pass his pain along.

Hey, maybe Pat can interview him. I think it that would be good idea, honestly. Especially for this site, Giant Bomb, non-paid defender and apologist for the Dark souls series. And he ( Michael Thomsen) could cover his points without the requirement of covering X number of (virtual I guess) magazine pages with ink.

He even starts off with a quote by Thucydides. I think he was on crank. Going to try to read the rest now.

It's a very well written piece with a perfect title. He clearly both loves and hates the game. Completely valid opinion.

@humanity said:

Yeah, the two of them should get together and make out at some point.

Anyway, everybody accusing this guy of "trolling" is wrong, because trolling is insincere and nongenuine. I imagine the author believes in what he is writing, but that doesn't change the fact that it's bullshit. Like Ms. Alexander and others of her ilk, he seems to be disappointed that even the critically lauded video games are generally entertaining escapism, and often not trying to make any deep artistic point. Why he arbitrarily chose Dark Souls II as his hill to die on is baffling, as he could've picked just about any recent game aside from Gone Home and other indie walking simulators and his point would've worked equally well.

If you want to write an article about the state of video games and how they aren't intellectual enough for you, then write an article about the state of video games and how they aren't intellectual enough for you. Don't write that article and then randomly pretend it's about Dark Souls II.

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

I thought it was clever. A good, literary exercise in conveying mood through form. The guy is trolling a lot of people right now, which I'm on board with.

The entire thing looks like he wrote it in much simpler terms and then used a thesaurus to replace every word with a bigger one. It's pretty much unreadable.

@you_died said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

I thought it was clever. A good, literary exercise in conveying mood through form. The guy is trolling a lot of people right now, which I'm on board with.

Meh. Not really. If he wanted to convey something about the difficulty of Dark Souls through form, he shouldn't have done it with sentences like some of the ones posted here. Dark Souls is about patience and learning and figuring out how to approach a challenge, and it's about taking simply-understood mechanics and doing everything possible with them. The form of this article is either overly long or confusingly complex, two characteristics which Dark Souls doesn't have. You could make a fine argument for Dark Souls' lack of tutorial making the game confusing, but the two don't really correlate and I doubt that's what the author was going for anyway.

He's definitely trying to be clever, this isn't solely trolling clickbait (though there is some element of that). He's not succeeding, whether he's imitating Dark Souls's form with writing or just trying to sound brilliant.

Yeah, I think you're definitely right about what he is trying to say. I think the reason he chose Dark Souls is because (to him) it presents the sense that it has these wonderful depths to discover and savour, but the further in he gets the more he begins to feel that it is all so self-contained and inward that the experience of getting to grips with it is like filling his hands with water. Or maybe that it is a process of consumption rather than true discovery (in the sense of something that expands your horizons); once you have mastered the world of Dark Souls, it lacks any connection to anything else that prevents it from dissipating. The entire thing put me in mind of a Hermeneutic Circle with only one point of reference - there's mental pleasure in circling around it, but because you only compare the thing to itself, and nothing is transferable.

I'll repeat though, I found it interesting, but I don't think I agree particularly, mostly because I think the foundation of his argument isn't unique to Dark Souls enough for what follows to really make sense. I also think that under the surface there is a quite conservative belief that there is a single style of narrative that has meaning and everything else is gibberish to be thrown away, a view I can't disagree with more.

I also think that ultimately some of the things he says can be connected with Dark Souls in really meaningful ways that actually destroy his entire argument - The idea of a loss of identity through an endless cycle seems to be exaclty the problem most of the NPCs in Dark Souls II grapple with.

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

I thought it was clever. A good, literary exercise in conveying mood through form. The guy is trolling a lot of people right now, which I'm on board with.

Meh. Not really. If he wanted to convey something about the difficulty of Dark Souls through form, he shouldn't have done it with sentences like some of the ones posted here. Dark Souls is about patience and learning and figuring out how to approach a challenge, and it's about taking simply-understood mechanics and doing everything possible with them. The form of this article is either overly long or confusingly complex, two characteristics which Dark Souls doesn't have. You could make a fine argument for Dark Souls' lack of tutorial making the game confusing, but the two don't really correlate and I doubt that's what the author was going for anyway.

He's definitely trying to be clever, this isn't solely trolling clickbait (though there is some element of that). He's not succeeding, whether he's imitating Dark Souls's form with writing or just trying to sound brilliant.

Sorry guys, but this is just how this guy writes. He's been around a long time and has always written like this. He's not trying to be ironic, he's not trying to make himself sound intelligent. This is his honest opinion, and this is how he knows how to express it.

Doesn't mean it isn't dumb.

We should create a fake Giant Bomb persona and then crowd-write troll articles to put up on Forbes. We would be famous. I mean hell, they already have over a thousand shitty authors, what's one more?

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

I thought it was clever. A good, literary exercise in conveying mood through form. The guy is trolling a lot of people right now, which I'm on board with.

Meh. Not really. If he wanted to convey something about the difficulty of Dark Souls through form, he shouldn't have done it with sentences like some of the ones posted here. Dark Souls is about patience and learning and figuring out how to approach a challenge, and it's about taking simply-understood mechanics and doing everything possible with them. The form of this article is either overly long or confusingly complex, two characteristics which Dark Souls doesn't have. You could make a fine argument for Dark Souls' lack of tutorial making the game confusing, but the two don't really correlate and I doubt that's what the author was going for anyway.

He's definitely trying to be clever, this isn't solely trolling clickbait (though there is some element of that). He's not succeeding, whether he's imitating Dark Souls's form with writing or just trying to sound brilliant.

I disagree with everything you wrote. He isn't imitating the form: he is using a deliberate style to convey his mood while playing the game.

@you_died: Oh, well, I must have misread what you wrote. In either case,

@spoonman671 said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

I thought it was clever. A good, literary exercise in conveying mood through form. The guy is trolling a lot of people right now, which I'm on board with.

Meh. Not really. If he wanted to convey something about the difficulty of Dark Souls through form, he shouldn't have done it with sentences like some of the ones posted here. Dark Souls is about patience and learning and figuring out how to approach a challenge, and it's about taking simply-understood mechanics and doing everything possible with them. The form of this article is either overly long or confusingly complex, two characteristics which Dark Souls doesn't have. You could make a fine argument for Dark Souls' lack of tutorial making the game confusing, but the two don't really correlate and I doubt that's what the author was going for anyway.

He's definitely trying to be clever, this isn't solely trolling clickbait (though there is some element of that). He's not succeeding, whether he's imitating Dark Souls's form with writing or just trying to sound brilliant.

Sorry guys, but this is just how this guy writes. He's been around a long time and has always written like this. He's not trying to be ironic, he's not trying to make himself sound intelligent. This is his honest opinion, and this is how he knows how to express it.

Doesn't mean it isn't dumb.

Spoonman here says he's always like this, so his form still isn't imitating Dark Souls.

(Also, the article's obtuseness is, in any case, pretty undeniable. This is bad writing).

"Is this title the best way to get a ton of people to click it ever?"

Real article or not that is very clearly some gross bait.

His writing made very little sense to me. I skimmed through it and I was mostly thinking what the hell is he even writing about at the end. From what I gather he seems bad at Dark Souls.

Inside him was the last ounces of his humanity in an attempt to reach out to anyone of his lethargic struggle. His slowly fading mind presented words of profound distaste. Believed to be chosen, now lost and hollow for another to be the one.

The world was able to hear out but couldn't understand. Was it his goal all along?

Excuse my crappy item description-like lore attempt. Well if he doesn't like it fine and all. The language is more or less inappropriate. Surely people will read and probably forget about it and digest the more direct areas of review.

@believer258 said:

@you_died: Oh, well, I must have misread what you wrote. In either case,

@spoonman671 said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

@believer258 said:

@you_died said:

For everyone crying about the article:

That's what I thought it was at first, but I don't really get a hint of irony from this. Instead, I just get a bunch of verbose sentences and a repeat of the phrase "Dark Souls is the worst game ever made". If "I played this game for 300 hours" is that hint, then it's an incredibly weak one.

Literal or ironic, nothing about this article is particularly clever, which is where I really take issue.

I thought it was clever. A good, literary exercise in conveying mood through form. The guy is trolling a lot of people right now, which I'm on board with.

Meh. Not really. If he wanted to convey something about the difficulty of Dark Souls through form, he shouldn't have done it with sentences like some of the ones posted here. Dark Souls is about patience and learning and figuring out how to approach a challenge, and it's about taking simply-understood mechanics and doing everything possible with them. The form of this article is either overly long or confusingly complex, two characteristics which Dark Souls doesn't have. You could make a fine argument for Dark Souls' lack of tutorial making the game confusing, but the two don't really correlate and I doubt that's what the author was going for anyway.

He's definitely trying to be clever, this isn't solely trolling clickbait (though there is some element of that). He's not succeeding, whether he's imitating Dark Souls's form with writing or just trying to sound brilliant.

Sorry guys, but this is just how this guy writes. He's been around a long time and has always written like this. He's not trying to be ironic, he's not trying to make himself sound intelligent. This is his honest opinion, and this is how he knows how to express it.

Doesn't mean it isn't dumb.

Spoonman here says he's always like this, so his form still isn't imitating Dark Souls.

(Also, the article's obtuseness is, in any case, pretty undeniable. This is bad writing).

He doesn't always write like this. He used to write for IGN, so you can find more of his articles without much trouble. It is bad writing - if you take it at face value. I believe there is more to it than that. I'm sorry that you disagree.

@believer258 here's an example: http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/04/20/dad-is-dead-rebutting-roger-ebert

No matter the article's content, that's a horrible headline. It feels tawdry and manipulative. If the author flat out said "This is the worst game I've ever played and here's why," then I might give it a read. He would at least be taking a hard stance on something rather than shuffling between hyperbole. I would disagree with him (and suggest a few truly terrible games he could play), but would chalk it up to difference of opinion and leave it at that. But articles asking whether something is the "worst" or "best" just baits people into heated arguments. If the author doesn't know what his own opinion is, then he shouldn't write a lengthy column about it.

I came to know Thomsen's work from his piece for The New Inquiry, which while I didn't entirely agree with, I think he makes some excellent points about what passes for "play" in video games versus what "play" is supposed to mean. So, going into this one, again, I see what he's getting at as it relates to his TNI piece, even if his point gets muddied and distracted partway through. I think that the fact that Dark Souls is so popular would make something that he views as bad worse because it has such a broad reach and potential effect, moreso than that the sequel is simply a worse game. But this is me interpreting a text that is pretty convoluted, so take that FWIW.

Clearly the reviewer doesn't play many games. ahah

That is better written (as is something I skimmed through that he wrote on Forbes recently), but... eh. At this point I don't care. I just know that this article makes the reader sift through a lot of screwy sentences and unnecessary adjectives to get to anything resembling a point, and that's bad writing. He's writing an essay, ostensibly, not a piece of art. If we want to classify it as art, or art first and essay second, then you can talk about form and subjectivity (I still think it's bad in that respect, too) but whatever. On to more interesting things!