Obviously if Demon’s Souls is going to be here, Dark Souls has to be.  This was a very different game than the first, but nearly the same as well.  One great thing this game had was a single, seamless world.  If you never played this game, or the one that came before it, you must go get it.  I’ll try not to spoil anything here.  This game is currently my all-time, number-one favorite game I have ever played.  The feeling of death waiting around every corner is chilling.  As you play the game, you repetitively run each area over and over, dying less and less, and learn it.  Now the really interesting thing to me is, I HATE games that use death as a mechanic to learn levels.  It is one of my arguments against most games that “surprise you” with death waiting around the corner.  However in this game, it works.  That is because they incorporated player death into the experience of the game.  Dying is a part of the fun.  It isn’t a load screen; it is literally an element of gameplay.  And it works.  As you become comfortable in an area and can run it flawlessly over and over, you feel really good about yourself.  You feel in command.  Then, you open that fog or step through that threshold into an unfamiliar level and the terror takes hold again.  You have no idea what to expect!

I remember vividly the sense of utter despair I had when I was heading to the swamp.  I had just made that first campfire in rickety Blighttown.  That was such a cruel area.  All of those tight bridges you had to fight on in the dark.  I wanted out.  I wanted to be back at the safety of Firelink Shrine so I could go anywhere I wanted.  I wanted OUT!  But there was no way.  Going back?  Damn.  I had no idea how to get back.  I mean, I felt I knew it coming in.  After all, it took me about 6 tries to get here.  But what the hell was it going to be like facing those enemies in reverse?  No, that meant a ton of backtracking as well.  The only way was forward into the unknown.  More bridges, more death, then the swamp.  And it looked huge.  I had no idea how long it was going to take.  It felt like it would be hours – and it was.  I recall, quite vividly, standing there, by that campfire, about to head into the dark maw of death for my 6^th time, and for some reason I looked up.  Way up there, I saw sunlight.  As I stared, I saw the bridge I’d fought on what seemed like years ago.  I recalled those days, fighting Black Knights and hollows.  I used to think that was hard.  I used to think that was scary.  But no, now I know.  Now I’m in the belly of the beast and I can’t get out.  There are people up there.  If only they could hear me.  If only they could know that I needed someone to come save me.  It was chilling.  Then, determined, I donned my mantle of a true hero and I set out to conquer the impossible.

You know what?  I have a ton more games I could talk about.  However, next week I want to talk a little about Lichdom.  Yes, next week I am going to tell you a little bit about my game…

-Michael McMain

WoW is a very polarizing game.  But any epically scaled MMO has great things going for it.  My most memorable moment was when we killed the Lich King for the first time on 10-man.  I played an affliction warlock, Khros, for nearly my entire WoW career.  Yep, you guessed it, spell caster again. In this particular part of my career we were struggling to beat what was, to date, the most complicated boss fight in WoW’s history.  It was kind of a “put 5 different boss mechanics into one boss” kind of boss.  We got him down to about 25% health, and people started dropping like flies.  Before you knew it, there were only 4 of us left, me (DPS, obviously), two tanks and the healer.  Everyone on vent was saying “Come on Khros, you can do it!”  I thought they were nuts, but that didn’t stop me from trying.  When we hit 15% health the healer dropped.  I didn’t know the healer had spent most of his time sucked into Arthas’ sword before he died.  I have no clue how those tanks stayed alive.  At 15% everyone was screaming “Khros, Khros, Khros” in vent.  Then, at 10%, we all died and I thought “Crap!  So close!  I thought I had him”.  I was so caught in the moment of pure epic fantasy that I forgot 10% was his death!  We beat him.  We talked about that moment for weeks!

As a spell caster, one thing that really impressed me about WoW was how much work they put into each class.  The warlock was definitely the most interesting class for me – and I played nearly every one to max level.  The way spells synergized and the management of stacks was, to me, very interesting.  Any game that can have that amount of theory crafting come out of the public community is doing something right – in a really big way.

-Michael McMain

A good friend of mine, Craig (who is also our producer) told me about this game.  He said it was considered one of the hardest games you will ever play.  That made me immediately want it.  I mean IMMEDIATELY.  I went to the store right then – one of the perks of being the boss – and got it.  What a deep, immersive experience that was.  The world felt alive – even though it was mostly dead of course.  The game had some buried content in it.  Worlds could be pushed to either a black or white tendency.  Only on reaching pure-white or pure-black would you see certain bosses appear that would get you certain loot.  The boss fights were very well done too.  I remember fighting that second boss fight – the Tower Knight – took me about 10 minutes to figure out.  That might seem excessive, but I loved the fact that for that entire 10 minutes I was playing, running, testing, staying alive and – eventually winning.  That is a lot more fun to me than looking at loading screens!  This game also has the most enjoyable PVP elements I have ever seen.  I am not normally that keen on PVP in a PVE game.  Still, it was pretty exciting to see “XXLegionXX HAS INVADED AS A BLACK PHANTOM!”  That made your heart race!

I remember showing some guys at work the game.  This was in the early, early days of Lichdom when it was just barely an idea in my head.  I invaded another player’s game in World 2: Stonefang Tunnel, and we started fighting.  He was in heavy armor and I was, of course, a pure mage.  I took a big hit early.  So big, I thought I would lose.  So I ran deeper in to the dog room.  Do you remember that one?  Once you clear the general area and the crusty stuff on the dog room’s door is broken, you can lure the dogs out one-by-one.   On your first time through, however, the dogs break the crust and come rushing out as a pack.  Dogs were vicious in that game.  Vicious! And when I got there, the crust was unbroken… So there I was, standing behind those goblins, with 6 people sitting around me watching, as I whispered “Come on, a little farther, come on!”  Sure enough, he inched one step too far.  The dogs came rushing. I charged, hitting with all of my magical might, and he went down.  The whole room erupted in cheers!  The cheering wasn’t for me — it was for the game.  The fact that the game allowed you to have this incredibly exciting one-on-one experience really made it unique.

Another fond memory in that game was invading another player’s Old Monk.  What a great mechanic that was.  Invade another player’s world as the final boss, beat them and get a highly coveted spell-caster hat.  Granted, you didn’t want to show that hat to your friends (it looked somewhat silly), but what an incredible idea!  Our fight took almost 20 minutes.  Dancing, rolling, hitting.  Epic!  Then, after 20 minutes I finally beat him and got the hat.  Keep in mind, that player spent about 30 minutes – give or take depending on his experience with that world – to get to that boss, then fought me for 20, only to be defeated and have to start all over again.  What a cruel but wonderful game.

I realize that I have stressed some serious PVP action here.  Lichdom currently contains no PVP content.  The only reason I stress it here is that they did something unique with it.  Many games develop PVP content.  However this game made the PVP part of the PVE experience – optionally of course.  You could always avoid PVP by either playing offline or staying a spirit as much as possible.  I like games that take a unique approach and successfully deliver on that.  It is what we have tried to accomplish.

-Michael McMain

EQ is an interesting one.  Of course, it had a lot of problems, but buried in that game are some real gems.  The first, for me, was just after I created my initial character in the town of Qeynos.  I walked to the docks — stumbled, really, as I didn’t know what the hell I was doing — and I saw another character go walking by.  It was a low-level enchanter with his “floating shield and dagger” pet in tow.  I was mesmerized.  I understood that there was more to this game, this world, than my brain could comprehend.  Another cool moment that stands-out is when I tried to hide from the Dark Elf during a train in South Paw (what was his name?).  I was charmed, killed two friends and somehow in all of that chaos, I lived! Again, this made the game feel huge to me.  One final memory I have is killing my first dragon.  What a rush.  There were a lot of less-enjoyable, artificial mechanics you had to employ – spamming chat for heals, 30 minute buff queues, etc.  However, the sheer human effort it took made me feel like, for the first time in my life, I actually killed a dragon and it was truly dead!  Well, it was dead for a few days anyway!  It is amazing what was accomplished back then before people could all talk on Vent.

-Michael McMain