A disease of unknown origin has inflicted the human race. Once contracted, it leaves you with something called the dark ring and you're sent to live out your days slowly losing your sanity and becoming a Hollow; an undead that has lost all its sanity and is now an extremely violent former shell of the person that it once was. Not the best of circumstances in any game but it's just downright discouraging to be starting a game known for its intense difficulty empty handed.  So, congratulations! You start your journey in an asylum prison cell where you've been sent to spend your days as an undead immortal. Besides the opening explanations that set the tone of what to expect, additional information is given by NPCs, that fleshes things out at times. Let's be honest here - once the game starts dealing out painful (and frequent) death, the story is going to be the last thing on your mind. Survival quickly becomes of paramount importance to the player.

Much like its predecessor, Demon's Souls, you are able to customize your character. There are a variety of starting classes to choose from that will effect your starting stats, weapons, combat choices and gear. You can also give it a name, choose it's sex, physique and there are a variety of faces and hair styles to choose from. This time around you also get to choose a starting gift.  If look closely you'll notice the thief starts with the master key automatically and still gets a bonus gift. Some are more obviously helpful then others in the descriptions but each one will eventually help you out along the way and all of them, except the master key, is available in game. Keep in mind  you don't need the master key to beat the game, it just means that you'll have to find the specific key for each door you want to open. Choosing your starting class will also set the bar for your fighting style for the first few levels. It's not going to pigeon hole you into any one category in the end but in the beginning each one will effect the stats you have and will determine your ability to use magic, use a bow and arrow and what kind of weapons you can use. You can't beat the game strictly using long range weapons or just clobbering your way through. As you level up your attributes you can customize your fighting style and your fighting experience.

There really isn't anywhere that can be considered completely safe. The Firelink Shrine acts as a central hub of the massive, interconnected world, similar to the Nexus from the first game, but you can still be killed here. As you make your way through the game for every enemy you kill you will collect souls. You can also find some laying around on pre-killed corpses. Souls are easy to come by, it's holding on to them that's going to be the issue. If, sorry, when you die you will lose all the souls you had gathered up to that point. You have one chance to go back and recover them, by to the exact location of your death and touching your bloodstain. The only exception to this is if you fall off something, your bloodstain will still be accessible, it'll will still be in the same area you died, just somewhere along a path you can reach it. Every time you die a new bloodstain is created and the old one erased so if you die again before reclaiming your stuff you're out of luck. You bloodstain will always contain the most recent soul count at your death. That said, souls are essentially the most important collectible in the game, right up there with having a weapon and shield. Souls pull double duty as both in game currency and experience points, which can be used at a bonfire to level up. Throughout the eerily beautiful scenery and insanely violent Hollow warriors, skeletons and other horrible enemies that are only broken up by boss fights against creatures whose weapons alone are at least two and three times your size you may be lucky enough to fine campfires. If you light one, it will act sort of like a check point and the next time you die you will respawn there as allow you to refill your health, level up your character and fill your Estus Flasks (essentially health potions). They aren't like normal player-friendly game checkpoints though. While they appear to be helpful in every possibly way they do have an evil consequence. If you use the campfire it will bring all the minor enemies that you killed up to that point back to life.

The music in the game plays a big part in making you feel alone. Whether you realize it or not the game is mostly silent. All you have to listen to is the sound of your character moaning as they get killed, the footsteps of enemies coming to get you and your own frustrations running through your mind. Each boss you encounter brings up an orchestra that essentially gives each of them their own theme to kill you to. The controls in this game are fairly straight forward and are progressively introduced to you as you work through the tutorial (which is about as nice to you as Dark Souls gets). The trigger buttons control their respective hands and allow you to attack or block in two different strengths. Scrolling through items and switching weapons is done using the D-Pad. Within the four action buttons you have the options to run/dodge, use an item, do action (open doors, read messages, touch bloodstains) as well as switch from wielding your right handed weapon (or shield) with two hands. There is a start menu where you can adjust the order of your items and equip armor and weapons as well as check your stats. Through this menu you should also be exiting the game, not the console menu, if you want to be sure your game saves properly. Biggest issue here, which goes away once you remember it's there, is remembering to fully exit the menu before trying to fight anything. There is no pause feature in this game so you can run around with the menu open or be attacked while you're looking though it. It starts as a little menu in the upper right hand corner, opens to full screen and then goes back to the little version so if you aren't careful, or used to it, you'll end up scrolling through menu options rather then swinging a sword.

After suffering through this on your own, you may start to realize that the only way to get through this is with some help (you can get through it solo, but it never hurts to get a little help from your friends). Free on the PSN, mulitplayer is persistently on. You may have noticed ghosts running through the levels with you, they are other players and if you spot a bloodstain on the ground (that isn't yours) you can touch it and you'll see the ghost of the player replay through their death. Whether you just need to know you aren't alone in this misery or to enjoy someone else dying for awhile as long as there are players in the same area of the game as you you'll see them running round. You also have the option to send out a request, or answer one, and join someone in their world and help them through the area. The guest will automatically return to their own world once the boss is dead, if the host dies or if they die. You can also summon other players that will come in as dark phantoms that try and kill you or you could get cursed, have increased enemy difficulty and have to go join someone else's world and kill them. Whether you want to help or hinder the people suffering the same fate as you it's also possible to leave messages or rate ones you find on the ground. A special item is needed but remember, there's a chance what you're reading isn't true and it's actually going to lead you to your death.

As a whole, Dark Souls is not the hack and slash title it initially appears to be. There is a surprisingly deep experience to be had here, and is bound to test the mettle - and patience - of anyone brave enough to enter the realm of Lordan. Dark Souls is staunchly against the sort of adaptive, accessible difficulty that has become pervasive in games as of late. As was the case with Demon's Souls, gameplay is not for the faint of heart or mind. Come in expecting a deliberately hardcore gaming experience, and you will not be disappointed. Even for the best players, death will be an often unavoidable occurrence. Novices, or anyone prone to rage quits, need not apply.

Dark Souls
Gameplay
The plot been put on the back burner to the mere difficulty of this game. Rich customization options and a fresh take on multiplayer round out this exciting Action/RPG.
Sound
Beautifully composed by Motoi Sakuarba, the soundtrack does an incredible job of evoking a sense of isolation. Voice acting is uniformly strong as well.
Graphics
Stunning landscapes and smooth action sequences, with little to no slowdown, regardless of the number of enemies on screen.
Controls
Well balanced and easy to learn. All items are mappable to the player's choice of d-pad buttons, and like Demon Souls there is no true pause option.
Overall
Dark Souls gleefully defies the conventional views on accessibility. Challenging, but never infuriating, patient players will be rewarded with an experience not soon forgotten.