An IGN article on Skyrim and Dark Souls was brought to my attention this morning and I've got to say it's by far the worst article I've read in a long, long time. It's entitled "Top Five Reasons Dark Souls Will Eat Skyrim's Face" and that's something that'll grab immediate attention to anyone who calls themselves a gamer on multiple fronts:
- Fans of The Elder Scrolls series.
- Fans of Demon's Souls.
- Gamers in general who enjoy reading and/or starting flame wars.
As you might have guessed, I fall in the first category but it's not so much the taunt that grabbed my attention but, like some others (I hope I'm not alone here), I noticed that a title like that promises a lot of biased and unfounded nonsense.
Maybe Dark Souls deserves the praise, but not in this fashion. If this article represents some form of "victory" (because, you know, it's important for some folks to have a winner in this stupid debate - because the debate needed to exist in the first place) then it is very much a shallow one.
Let me go out of the way and say "TLDR: I think the article is a pile of shit written by an uneducated tool". You might be thinking "relax man, there's just doing it for attention". Well, yeah! It still sucks and now I'm convinced that I should never find myself reading an IGN article ever again. Mission accomplished, I suppose.
So here we go with the dissection:
"Here are five reasons why Dark Souls will save gaming"
Wow! Just wow. That quoted sentence alone establishes the tone of this article and I don't even need to elaborate. I could stop my ranting right now!
1) So the first argument that Dark Souls is supposedly better than Skyrim is that it offers and "TRUELY innovative" multiplayer. The article even goes as far as demean Bethesda for trying (and failing) at implementing any at all.
My first thought is that "well, yes! It's definitely easier to implement multiplayer in a DUNGEON CRAWLER!". Of course multiplayer is going to be one of the most compelling features of Dark Souls and if it compromised the single player experience IN A DUNGEON CRAWLER then From Software fails at basic game design.
"From Software has innovated while others have passed on making the effort."
You need to play more games, dude. That's all I've got to say. Multiplayer in RPGs is a very difficult thing to do both from a design and technical standpoint. I can't think of any good ones that actually pulled it off. You can't fault Bethesda for playing on their strengths.
"Hey! This game has a feature that the other lacks! Then it must mean that it's more fun and, therefore, way better, right?"
2) Oh god! That's the second "Top list" I've read/heard in two days that had "DLC and pricing" as an argument. Although, to IGN's credit, they seem to know a little bit about the games they're talking about.
You either have a good game, or a bad one. Content that may or may not exist (or pricing for that matter) doesn't change that fact. It might be an incentive to purchase, true, but it doesn't magically make the game better or worse. Do you know what's the most shocking part of all that is? The writer of the IGN article says that Dark Souls won't have any DLC and, because of that (and a lower price point), the game will be better.
Mind-blowing fail!
Enough of stupid shit, I say! Let's move on!
3) The size and scope of the games. I'm going to give some credit here merely due to the fact that I honestly don't know how each will measure up compared to their respective predecessors and from one another.
To me, this was an okay argument despite being more subjective than anything or going purely based on speculation. That is, until they mentioned that Dark Souls was better because the game showed improvement over it's predecessor while Skyrim looked (to them) very much the same as Oblivion.
I'd argue against Skyrim's scale but I really don't have to. That's a stupid point to make and is completely irrelevant. Besides, let's give the benefit of a doubt that Dark Souls is as vast and unique as IGN claims. Does the quantity and size of the game really matter? Sure, it helps but it (again) doesn't make or break a game. It merely puts more VALUE to the purchase and we've already established (see #2) that this was a mind-blowingly stupid argument.
Using his argument, does this mean that Daggerfall trumps Dark Souls? How old is that game, 1992? Solid argument, there IGN, bravo! /sarcasm.
4) The difficulty and combat. See, if the writer had entitled this article as "The one reason why I think Dark Souls is better than Skyrim", then all he could've written was how much he preferred old-school gaming and how challenging they were and I would've nodded in respect. Hell, mention how Oblivion was obnoxiously holding our hands with quest message pop-ups and quest markers while you're at it and I still wouldn't have flinched.
The Elder Scrolls have been plagued with sub-par combat and, as much as I love the series, I'll be the first one to admit that. But then, by #3 logic, Skyrim should prove to be superior because it has improved (and the IGN writer even confirms that) while Dark Souls is pretty much on par with Demon's Souls. Do you guys see where I'm getting at? The article is just everywhere and any form of logic that was used to write that garbage can be used to counter a different argument... And I'm not jumping forward either; I'm using previously established logic (set by IGN) and using it against the following point.
Enough of that, though, the article brings up a good point so I'll give it to them.
5) "Some fans are praising the game, simply because it has Dragons. Have they seen Dark Souls?"
You mean, "Have I seen scripted boss fights involving dragons before?" Yeah! Plenty! The reason why people have been praising Skyrim for their dragons is due to the improved Radiant AI that's making them "go".
Idiot.
Anyways, the main argument here is that Dark Souls is better because the designs are more exotic and varied. Sure! Have a cookie. Now go away; you're giving me a headache!
It's not a BAD argument, really. It's just that the way he shrugs off Skyrim's dragons just seems like he didn't do research on the game. Maybe it's the The Elder Scrolls fan in me that's crying out this time, I don't know. We won't know Skyrim's dragons until we see them in our own games and Skyrim might fail to meet our expectations just like Oblivion did based on the 2003 E3 demo.
Besides, the dragons showcased in GuildWars 2 are the ones I'm REALLY interested in.
So just how much of Dark Soul REALLY is better than Skyrim? We just don't know. What we do know is that the writer of the IGN article has a preference to more challenging and action-oriented, twitch-based combat. Sure, Skyrim might be action-oriented, but we're here for other things... For me, that's playing an RPG where I can be and do whatever I want without having the game punishing me from playing it my way.
"There's your bag of chips. What more do you want?"
Your resignation, that's what!
