Pondering my Dark Souls Addiction

Hello! I'm Erik, a guy in college who seems to always be doing one of two things- gaming, or writing. I figured I'd combine the two into one totally random blog where I can write about my experiences in the crazy world that is video games. Be warned, I write whatever the hell is on my mind at the moment and I sidetrack more than a squirrel caught in a pinball machine. But enough of the introductions, let's get started right away.

Addiction of the Year: Dark Souls
Admit it. If you're a gamer, there's probably one game in particular at any given moment that you're hopelessly addicted to. Be it Call of Duty or World of Warcraft, when you decide to sit down and play some games you're probably going to play that one. For me, for the past few months, my addiction has been Dark Souls. It all started, like a lot of my gaming interests these days, from a lets-player on YouTube playing it. This particular playthrough is being done by the foofin' hilarious Heartless, and from the get-go I couldn't stop watching. Something about the combat and the world drew me in, despite the rumors that it'll melt your brain from the rage-inducing difficulty before you reach the first boss. So when the playthrough went on hiatus, I really needed another hit of Dark Souls. The best way to get my fix would be to actually play the game, so I manned up and bought it. It did not disappoint. 80 hours of gameplay later, my magical katana-wielding iron-clad warrior made it through the end of the game, but I wasn't satisfied. No, I must be some sort of masochist because after struggling to beat every boss and recover from every frustrating death, the first thought I had was "Let's do it AGAIN!". So I did.

Challenge Squared
As any Dark Souls fan who goes anywhere on YouTube does, I discovered the legendary OnlyAfro and learned that people actually do fun things with this pain-fest of a game. That's a thing? Fun? Yeah, I was surprised too. So I decided I would play the game again, only with a sort of roman soldier/ spartan build. Kind of like this guy except shirtless:

Fortunately for my character I could fight without quick-time events.

Anyways, it added more difficulty to an already brutal game. Who needs armor when you have pecs? Dying in one shot made it pretty damn hard, but there is something strangely awesome about stabbing a giant lizardman repeatedly with your spear and then fist-pumping over his scaled corpse. So I hacked, slashed, and of course, died my way through the game once more.

What's Fun About Failing All the Time?
Good question. I'll be the first to admit sometimes a game like this makes a guy want to break everything within arms reach. But why did I stick with Dark Souls to the end and back again? I'm still trying to figure out why it's so fun. It could be because of the learning curve, not only in difficulty but in the type of learning you do. Remember those old-school boss battles where it was you against a towering dumb monster who knew a grand total of, say, three attacks? Remember how you kept dying to the same ones, over and over, until you could dodge those attacks with one hand pinned behind your back? Dark Souls provides that same experience every minute. Play through the second time and you'll know what I mean.  You feel like you've become the best gamer in the world. You remember all the timings for your rolls, all the locations of your favorite items, all the patterns of the bosses. This feeling of accomplishment is every gamer's favorite drug, and Dark Souls is the purest form of it. Once you go Dark Souls, you'll never go back.

Now let's see if I can beat Volgarr.