Draxyle

Beat me to it. The words "Destiny" and "Fate" are obscenely overused; they're completely meaningless in nearly every context I see them in.

I think we can blame Star Wars for that one. Yes, it was cool when Darth Vader said that one line, but it doesn't work everywhere.

Well I don't think it was part of the final product, but if you ever saw the Double Fine Happy Action Theater quicklook, they were quite explicitly putting Giantbomb stuff into the demo build of that game.

I'd believe it was deliberate. I mean, a Bomb Squad toy robot? I can't think of any other reason for them to be that oddly specific on the kind of robot unless there was a humor angle involved, which it doesn't appear to be.

It might be a stretch, but it wouldn't be the first time Double Fine puts Giantbomb into their games in some way.

Well, if you go to Lost Izalith first (the underground, lava place), you can find a hat that generates light if you search hard enough.

Other than that, if you've already reached patches, you're not terribly far from where you need to go in the Tomb. It just might take a bit of persistence and you'll eventually ingrain the route into your head; it's probably more worth it to just press on slowly and carefully with the lantern.

Great write-up! It's definitely not just the difficulty that sets Dark Souls apart from most modern gaming, it's the dedication to the atmosphere that every other big budget game can't even hope to emulate anymore, and that includes making you "feel" the atmosphere through its difficulty and sense of dread. It uses the medium's strengths to tell its story in a way you can't in any other medium, much like a lot of the best horror games out there.

I was an early adopter of Demon's Souls, and I will admit that the first level rubbed me the wrong way for a bit. I put it off for a month before coming back, and it finally "clicked" with me; the frustration I originally had and the pure satisfaction I felt upon finally defeating its first boss is exactly what the developers intended, and that's when the game turned into one of my favorites of the generation.

Not everyone has the patience to be pushed through the mud before experiencing joy, but for those that do, the souls games are the best out there.

Finally playing it for myself.. and yea, for certain. Makes it all the more tragic when you read that it was never supposed to have combat. I can't think of any other game where you could strip out all the combat and lose absolutely nothing, if not gain something out of it.

The broad spectrum of gaming could stand to have a lot less combat in general. Every individual combat scenario in a game should, ideally, be entirely unique from one another, or else you're just wasting the players' time (with room for exceptions).

That moment totally got me. I played the game entirely at night, so I was pretty on edge. It ain't a horror game, but walking through an empty house at night is still an unsettling experience in real life or not.

As for the actual topic at hand, for some reason it never even crossed my mind that suicide was a possibility for her, though I totally get why you would have felt that way.

FZero GX was definitely the highlight for me. Love that game, and it's crazy to see what insanity can be pulled off by an expert. Even on normal mode those missions were a bastard and a half to complete.

Still need to catch up on a lot though. Was really bummed to have missed the Super Metroid race; that sounded fantastic.

Felt sad to see my subscription run out for the first time in a couple years last month (and boy is it tragic to see the beautiful site design hit with advertising space). Still hoping a sale is coming soon, because I'm not in a position to drop down that kind of money at the moment.

Was going to put my donation towards 2poch, because it's amazing, but I had to go for RyanD when I saw it was so close. Amazing job, duders.

Looks like 2poch has a great chance to win anyhow.

I doubt it's entirely because of the game; it's dropped twenty to fourty thousand people every single night this week as it passed into the midnight hours for the east coast.

It's more of a shame that the run is ending in the middle of the night (for the US at least). SGDQ ended at a more reasonable hour last summer if I recall.