Many years ago, it seems like it now, a little known game was released. Demon’s Souls. After the gaming press pooped their pants with excitement, and hearing about it for many months I decided it was time to actually invest in an annoying RPG.

I say annoying because of something I decided to do around the start of 2009. I wanted to actually give some genres a chance instead of just ignoring them and playing counter-strike or rainbow six. Following that I bought Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Borderlands, and eventually Demon’s Souls. I was intrigued by ME, but it was a bit underwhelming when the ending rolled around. I was a bit interesting in how a gigantic barren field could hold my interest in fallout. I was pissed off that I spent 40+ hours playing borderlands, because it was a useless waste of time that I want back. Then came Demon’s Souls.

I spent the first night messing about the first level. Impressed at how I had unlocked two gates as a means to keep track of my progress for future playthroughs of the level, and I sat and stared at a gigantic door for 3 minutes deciding if I was going to open it. It was late, I was tired, and I had to get up for work in the morning. I decided I would give it a go and if I came into trouble turn it off and that would be the end of it for the night. I destroyed Phalanx by figuring out what I had to do, running around and avoiding damage, and needless to say I had impressed myself with actually being able to beat a boss first go around.

I thought about the game the entire day at work, couldn’t get past how much the ambiance of the world had sucked me in, had interested me, and I wanted another taste of it as soon as possible. I spent that night running around some hub world, trying to find some “monumental” who was supposed to explain how it all works. After finding an image of them online I had actually walked right past them at least 10 times. Listened to the story bit, leveled up, and awaited my next play.

That continued for a month, I would think about the game constantly, having it nag at me in the back of my mind, working through ways to get around the world and replaying the game in my head over and over. It wasn’t an obsession, it was lust. That game had something about it, something I wanted, something that brought out the best of me, the worst of me, and made me realize a lot about myself as a gamer.

I had gotten to the second boss, probably stared at the third, and I had decided to move on to a second character. I flew through the first level, got to the same spot, and tried another character. It was getting to the point where the game had little room for my tomfoolery and I had to return to my starting character.

I sat down one day, Beep… Beep… Beep…, Black. “Ugh, what now” I thought. I looked at the ps3 as I turned it on, green, yellow…. Fuck. I spent the next month waiting for the RMA to get to my door, boxing it up, calling Sony and explaining shit for the 4th time. Apparently it was going to be $150 dollars to fix my 60 gb ps3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4CASA0vlXk). My UK friend had the same thing happen a month ago to him.

Well, no worries, everything was backed up to a spare drive, I had everything in waiting, I would soon play again. I get the box, start to import the data, but apparently some of it is “protected” to stop me from stealing trophies or something. Oh great, every single game with trophies is not allowed to be imported, it is there, but I can’t import it. Thanks, Sony. Fine, I’ll just redownload every single game from psn again, patch the games, restart everything, and enjoy my Demon’s Souls.

Good, back at Phalanx and done with the first world. I even tried to remake my characters, but it wasn’t the same. I decided to just stick with my main, get as far as possible. A few months later…. Bleep Bleep Bleep, flashing red. SERIOUSLY! Alright Sony, I’m not paying you money to fix this, you obviously can’t, let me just go buy a slim and be done with heat issues. I beg my dad to take me to the store, the one that actually has it in stock, and have access to my stuff again. I spent a week redownloading all of my psn stuff, repatching every disc I had, what a wonderful “feature”. Made me miss steam, just doing shit for me.

Things got busy with school, I had gotten to the bridge again, with that stupid dragon, but I wanted to level up a bit and try to take it down. I tried for weeks, barely doing anything, magic, bows, nothing…. Oh well. I pushed on, got to the second half of the first world, practically cleared it, messed around with just about every world, and finally gotten to explore the entirety of the game it seemed. I looked into special weapons, world tendency, and I even managed to get some cool stuff during events that unlocked them. I would intentionally die on the first world in order to cause tendency, just to unlock a gate on the left side. Man that lady was hard, oh well.

I went to work that day, seemed like any other day. I got a call, little brother, “The house was broken into, they took your ps3.” WHAT! FFS, it wasn’t…. Are you serious? Hold on… I walked outside, got the details. My mom was having knee surgery, what a great time for this to happen. “It’s weird,” my brother said, “they left flowers and candy in mom’s room.” Heh, no man, those were from me. Alright, I’ll see it when I get home.

Just like that, a year long journey to enjoy a simple game was destroyed. Some asshole had taken everything, my ps3, some cables, thankfully he didn’t touch my rig. It seemed like a year and a half before insurance paid me for it…. A whopping 150 dollars, it was the 250 gb version.
I spent the next few years on steam, waiting for the time to buy a ps3 again, waiting for that moment when I would get a chance to try my hand at playing the game again. It’s been 2 years. Now I get news that there will be a sequel. Cool, but it won’t be the same. I wonder if there will be a pc port? Anyways, I wish I had my ps3 back. Back to Counter-Strike…

I spent many months, years it seems just wanting to buy the system, buy the piece of crap that died twice, that has all the shit I wanted as long as I pay them for “fixing their broken shit”. Piracy my ass, thanks Sony. I even bought Gran Turismo Collector’s edition, a strategy guide for dark souls, just to get a taste. I had to borrow a friend’s ps3 just to redeem the dlc code for GT5, so that it didn’t expire.

Annoying…

It’s strange how you can spend so much time, more time thinking about a game then actually playing it. The only reason I wrote this is because those thoughts, those experiences, that game, is changed forever. The servers are going down, it will be playable, but it won’t be the same. It has survived all this time on sheer fans dragging it to the front of people’s faces, forcing them to give it attention. Hardly any other game has done that. Heck, even got myself a PC port on the way of Dark Souls, that will be nice, but it isn’t the same, it is the original, it isn’t where it all started, not even the same company.

I guess the only way to end this is to say thanks, thanks Demon’s Souls. I’m sorry some people saw you as just a “difficult game” or something where you are “hardcore” because they play you. I’m sorry I never got the chance to find out what happens on 1-4, or at 5-2, but thanks for the memories. Thanks for taking the time to show me what some of the world has to offer, that even though the game may be an RPG, it isn’t. Even though the game has online integration, it’s something so much more. There isn’t too much I can say, except you are probably the best game this generation, probably the most important one since half-life, but no one will ever admit it. One day I’ll have a ps3, probably right after Sony decides to pull its head out of its ass, but for now… Keep enjoying the shelf. Thanks for everything…

-nabokovfan87

Last week was tragic, in a word. There were not only things going on in my life, but a much larger and more important issue that arose. Firstly, and most importantly, it is best for anyone who reads this to go and listen to the comments made in context of which they were made. Here is the video that you can view to hear the comments as well as a secondary news post with links to deeper discussion of the topic on the show. Here is the quote that concerns discussion and the entire reason this is even news at all.

“Rea: Can I get my Street Fighter without sexual harassment?

Bakhtanians: You can’t. You can’t because they’re one and the same thing. This is a community that’s, you know, 15 or 20 years old, and the sexual harassment is part of a culture, and if you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community--it’s StarCraft. There’s nothing wrong with StarCraft if you enjoy it, and there’s nothing wrong with anything about eSports, but why would you want just one flavor of ice cream, you know? There’s eSports for people who like eSports, and there’s fighting games for people who like spicy food and like to have fun. There’s no reason to turn them into the same thing, you know?

You can’t go to the NBA and say “hey, I like basketball, but I don’t want them to play with a basketball, I want them to play with a football.” It just doesn’t...it doesn’t make sense to have that attitude, you know? These things are established for years. That would be like someone from the fighting game community going over to StarCraft and trying to say “hey, StarCraft, you guys are too soft, let’s start making sexual harassment jokes to each other on StarCraft.” That’s not cool, people wouldn’t like that. StarCraft isn’t like that. People would get defensive, and that’s what you’re trying to do the fighting game community, and it’s not right. It’s ethically wrong.

I know that you’re thinking “what do you know about ethics? You say racial stuff and sexist stuff.” But those are jokes and if you were really a member of the fighting game community, you would know that. You would know that these are jokes.

Rea: So, ensuring that we alienate any and all female viewers...that’s the ethical thing to do?

Bakhtanians: Well, you know, there are layers here, if you think about this. There are layers of ethics. There are people who are racist and commit hate crimes, right? And then there are people who are racist but they have tons of friends of all colors and they have deep love for those friends. Do you think those people are one and the same? Absolutely not.”

They were badgering her, continuously and nonstop, making her feel extremely uncomfortable and doing so with little to no respect to the people around them, the gaming community, and most importantly human decency. He brings up two reasons for his actions. The first “if you were really a member of the fighting game community, you would know that. You would know that these are jokes” and the second is “That’s not cool, people wouldn’t like that. StarCraft isn’t like that. People would get defensive, and that’s what you’re trying to do the fighting game community, and it’s not right. It’s ethically wrong.” I think this is a much deeper issue than anyone is giving credit for. While I listen to the stream and the conversations quoted above the main culprit, speaking towards Miranda (after saying that he doesn’t know where the line is) states that it is a so cal line, and that is where it comes from.

While I can sit here and debunk every word of his sentence, let me just state the facts. I live in southern California, have played in what little arcades are here, and have been for over 20 years. I know what the arcade scene is supposed to be, what the mentality and atmosphere of the arcade generation is. Around 2 years ago a few friends from work decided we would go to a local restaurant during lunch and play Street Fighter during lunch breaks. We had a blast, we talked smack, but most of all we had a deep respect for the other person, whether it was with Blitz, Street Fighter, or anything else. Not once did it come to putting down the other player, or making someone who lost feel like a terrible gamer for doing so. That is the same way it was when I was a child, and it still is the same way today, for myself and those around me.

The entire purpose of the arcade is to compete with one another right then and there, nothing regarding multiple matches, but simply you will get to play as long as you do not lose. Anyone can walk in the door, be it a fighting game champion, or the neighbor, and every person has the same opportunity to take the person on the stick out. In my opinion, that directly counters the comments made above, and any sentiment that harassment, put downs, and disrespect are part of the game. Heck, the NHL playoffs is one of the most bitter rivaled games in sports, but after every match the players stop and shake eachother's hands, whether they are bleeding, broken, or bruised from the battle, there is a deep and meaningful respect for the journey.

Ethics, the study and attempt to understand what is right and wrong, essentially it has everything to do with this topic. Saying something is ethically wrong because someone is suggesting it be changed, is like demanding that slavery be reinstated because it was the norm, or that whaling, shark fining, seal clubbing, deforestation, and many other practices be allowed to continue because they are what happens even though there are laws preventing them from occurring. I cannot see, or agree with, the logic presented in what he was trying to communicate. There isn’t a law saying that women cannot be president simply because it has always been a male, but it hasn’t happened yet. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen, it simply means that it hasn’t. It is legally wrong to own a slave, it is legally wrong to assault someone, berate someone, and harass someone, but it does happen. I really wish the person who did this takes a deep and hard look at his own thoughts, and really sits down to contemplate what is right and wrong.

The side issue of all of this, and the main reason I am posting this right now is because this isn’t just the standard for street fighter. It is a standard of all games that are online, co-op, or whereby multiple people get together to play a game. Someone didn’t ask a female Pikachu to smell them as a punishment, someone in counter-strike doesn’t get t-bagged after every death, but it happens more often than not on the Xbox and Playstation platforms. This is not a PC vs. Console discussion, simply a discussion of maturity. Are PC gamers more mature? Forum threads would suggest not, but then again the loudest 10% post on forums, while the rest of the community simply plays the game. 9 times out of 10 when I hear someone in the press describe how they play online, they say that they turn off voice chat. I know from my own experiences, voice chat is an extremely key aspect of enjoyment, competition, and sportsmanship. When playing gun game in CS:S often you give the person who won the match crap because you were 2 kills away. You call him a hacker, or say it was a bullshit kill, but that is the extent of it. Nothing personal, nothing extremely negative, or harsh, but simply commenting lightly on the situation. It is to the point in games like Gears of War, Halo, Killzone, Call of Duty, etc. that if you have voice chat, someone of young age who quite honestly shouldn’t be playing an M rated game will give you crap for sucking, being older, being a girl, or simply not being them. It isn’t a matter of age, it is a matter of respect for one another, maturity, and most of all it is a matter of not having the people in the servers to boot out deviants and to set standards. Everything is on autorun, text based, and quite honestly lazy. The CS community thrives on differences of opinion. One person may want to play surf, gun game, standard, arena, or zombie modes, and those are available to them. They may want to play with beginner level players, on smaller server sizes, with specific weapon restrictions, rpg mods, stats mods, low gravity, or in a server of a specific clan, community, or group of friends. Any which way you can imagine, the game presents the opportunity to do so, and the players in the game can remove deviants by verbally telling them to leave, team killing them until they leave, voting them out of the server, banning them by vote, getting an admin to control the situation, or simply leaving themselves. Again, choice is the key here.

The main difference between CS and Halo is the average age of the gamer. If you look into the ESA and other video game groups you will find that the average age of the PC game is 10 or more years higher than that of the console crowd. This means people with much more life experience and whom know what is right, wrong, and how to handle a difficult situation.

I am not going to try an conclude anything, but leave you with this. The following video was linked to by Miranda (Super__Yan) with the words:

@ProtomCannon's article on SRK (http://shoryuken.com/2012/02/29/back-to-basics-getting-beyond-the-drama/) made me remember why I love the fighting game community so much.
...
In short: my coach was a jerk, he doesn't represent the entire community. I'm not ever leaving. See you at NCR. I'll leave this here: http://vimeo.com/13324213

Thanks for reading, and remember, in the words of captain planet, “the power is yours” to do what is right, wrong, and to let others know that what they are doing is wrong or right as well.

Keep on keeping on…
-nabokovfan87

In the past, I have played slightly more than zero RPGs. Feel free to view the “Hi, I’m Nabokov” blog for more info on that, but the point here is that RPGs have been a relatively new thing for me, starting with Demon’s Souls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Earthbound when I was very young. I was intrigued by the ME universe ever since I stepped foot into it, and quite honestly I couldn’t wait for a second game in the series.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, and seeing what happened with Dragon Age 2 had me vehemently expecting a dramatic letdown. This isn’t the point of the post where I tell you how awesome it ended up, but you would expect it to be wouldn’t you? When I finished the second game I was extremely disappointed at what I had played. Moreover, I was confused at what to even think about my experience. I made a thread over on another forum, and the summary of the thread is simply the following; The first game had dramatic experiences, encounters, and stories that were compelling simply because it was all new and because the world had so much tension, but with the second game, there was hardly any tension, and players of the first knew what to expect. The shooting was worse, the story was horrible, and the ending mission was a joke.

After that, I wanted to play the game again after I had time to remove it from my subconscious and play the game for what it did rather than basing my opinion on anything I had played before. I also was able to play the game with the DLC. I wanted to know if the game itself had simply removed the good stuff, or whether I was simply out of it for my first playthrough. So I bought 35 dollars of DLC for the game I had paid 20 dollar for a year ago and booted it up. 25 hours later I was finished, I had done all of the loyalty stuff, all of the DLC, all of the upgrades, and touched just about every aspect of the game that was remotely possible.

Did I enjoy it? Well, I think I have right around the same opinion, I have no idea what to think about this game. I think that the design of the game is broken. The video cutscenes are at such low resolution and severely distorted on PC that they bring you out of the experience, the FOV of the game is severely broken, especially considering the constant battles inside complexes and cave buildings, and the ending should have been something along the lines of the lair of the shadow broker ship mission, which parallels the citadel end mission from the first game very well. I really dislike how cookie-cutter the ending of the game actually is. If you want to play it correctly then you have to get the IFF at the very end, and instead of being about something interesting, the survival of your squad ultimately relies on how many bullshit loyalty missions you ended up playing. Moreover, the developers have Mordin set to die first beyond all other crewmembers, even though he is a scientist, not a fighter, right? I broke down the other DLC on the latest episode of the Damnit Slam Show, feel free to listen if you want to hear more (http://www.damnitslam.com).

I guess the summary of my experience is that the game isn’t finished, and the only reason I played it again was to get the right character and decisions for the third game. I am invested, but I don’t feel like paying double for DLC that should be in the game especially considering how empty the experience feels compared to the first game. Every building, area, and aspect of the game feels much smaller than the first. The citadel feels like a shopping mall, rather than a hub, and places like Illium are so poorly designed that you spend the majority of the time walking to where you want to go, then actually doing something interesting. For a franchise and developer that automatically receives 10’s whenever someone things they are coming out with a new game, it is a big letdown. It isn’t as shit at Dragon Age II, but it is pretty bad.

-nabokovfan87

Well, I am amid a computer-tastrophe of sorts. I have no idea why my PC restarted itself a few weeks ago. I took off my OC that I had been running for over 9 months now. I cleaned the dust filters which were immensely dirty and airflow wasn't possible on any of my intakes. I re-applied some AS5 to the GPU and it dropped temps around 8C and resulted in the HS/F screws no longer having heads on them and an order for 100 size 2 screws.

I am going to chalk it up to voltage issues on my motherboard, this gigabyte board has always given me issues. I bought a dremel for my senior project, and essentially am ready to mod my Antec 1200 Case so that it has room for the Asetek 2011c cooler, so the CPU bracket has easy access, removing the mesh on the door and replacing it with plexi, and removing the gigantic 200mm dust hole that annoys the living hell out of me on the top of the case.

If I want to upgrade the ram, then I must upgrade the processor. If I want to upgrade simply the mobo, then I need to purchase a copy of windows 7. I desperately need a new video card, and the work I did on my 4850 last week has resulted in some image issues in Mass Effect 2 (could just be the game). I want to get an x65 Saitek HOTAS Flightstick as well, that is $340. I also have been waiting for over 2 years to get a new pair of 2-3tb hard drives, and then they whole flood thing happened.

The issue with all of this is that I am also in the middle of waiting and hourly checking for the MSI Lightning 7970 which should be up for sale any time within the next 3-10 days.

So that could be:

7970: $600-$650
CPU Cooler: $70-$100
New Mobo: $100-$200
Windows 7 Pro: $140-$200
Possible Ram Upgrade: $50-$150
Possible CPU Upgrade: $200
Possible Flightstick: $340
Possible HDD Upgrade: $200-$400

The long and short of it, I love my rig, and I will never stop being a PC gamer. I will spend any waking second this weekend playing ME2 and recording my gaming podcast. While I am not writing this to ask for help, or anything similar to that, I would just like to put my thoughts down, where my head is at, and just sort of take a moment to think about it all. There are many wonderful things to having a PC and being able to upgrade the hardware. I can spend hours just cable routing or cleaning the dust, testing the system itself, or half a dozen other things. I very much enjoy my rig, but at this point it is a massive headache of issues that I didn't have a month ago.

I need the GPU, I need the new cpu cooler to replace my h50, I more then likely need a new mobo/windows, and I want the flightstick. That's, over the price of the rig itself. Just ironic...

-nabokovfan87

Kickstarter double fine stuff happened, I listened to podtoid, and a lot of thoughts have been going through my head. Let me elaborate, I am a PC gamer. I am told constantly that games are going to be 60 dollars instead of 20-40, ports are impossible to make, and that my platform of choice has been dead for the past 10 years.

It makes me laugh to consider those things as truth, but you get the idea. PC gamers exist in a world where no one wants them and it is by the grace of pure passion and love of the craft that anyone enjoys it. I don't know how many times I have heard the media say they hate playing things with 10 year olds on Xbox live, only to tell them that it is far better on PC because of moderators and maturity of the player base, but they just keep paying for online because they think that is where everything cool happens and they can have their cool t-shirts and cool games and everyone else is stupid for not joining them. OK, obviously some background behind that, but let's just move on.

There have been hundreds of indie games on Kickstarter in the past. It is amazing that this is getting press because double fine did it, but by all means I am glad that it has. Immediately my mind spinned towards what could be possible, and what SHOULD be happening right now.

So, imagine a world where (this would be far better in the movie guy voice, but...) the next time someone tries to petition for a port, the HD remake everyone wants doesn't happen, a developer takes a shit, or your favorite developer just doesn't want to localize that brilliant title from somewhere on the other side of the globe, it was actually possible for you to do something about it. The people purchasing the products themselves were ACTUALLY given what they wanted. Fucking brilliant right? Yeah, but it will take 10 years for this to actually happen, and I know 5 companies right away that simply could do it right now and have a bazillion buyers. Let's see.

1. Demon's Souls PC Port
2. THQ games... (Metro 2033: Last Light, SR4. etc.)
3. GR/RS HD remakes on PC
4. RARE being bought out by the fans
5. Psyconauts 2
6. Earthbound 2
7. Pokemon Fully 3D PC RPG with super HD graphics (not fucking cell shading)
8. Red Dead: Redemption PC
9. MvC3 PC

Obviously I can keep going, but that isn't the point or the question I am going to even discuss. The reason all of these will never happen is because the developers are in the assholes of publishers who want to make a piss-ton of money. They don't give a damn about anyone but themselves, and they will literally step on babies just to make a dollar. Maybe not, but I think you know they would deeply consider it.

All I am saying is imagine a world where the stupid bitches making decisions now, weren't. It would be amazing as a gamer, specifically a PC gamer, if we were all a little more open to the idea of some 14 and 17-year-olds making a game have having someone help them out to get it released (Side note, please support the 14 and 17-year-old who are trying to make a survival horror PC game that has a bitching soundtrack).

I really wish less publishers owned great companies and licenses like MvC, RAREs games, Demon's Souls, etc. which all will take either a long time or hardly ever exist on expanded platforms simply because people want to sit on them and not do a damn thing with them. I would love to see Super Mario World 2 exactly in the SNES style, or an actual DKC4 SNES port exist in today's world, but because someone at wherever doesn't want to even give it a shot, it won't happen.

Here is my idea...

A website that isn't called Kickstarter, where gamers and companies can actually discuss things and gamers can propose ideas to developers (not publishers). Gamers can back it, the developers post a number of sales they must require to work on it, once it is reached it goes to the approved section, and then the developers go to whomever and get it made. It isn't a perfect system and I am sure there are some tweaks to fix it, but in all honesty, something like that needs to happen.

Thanks for hearing my rant, please post your thoughts below!

-nabokovfan87

There are literally millions of games, a plethora of genres and a bazillion different typed of gamers. Obviously one of those folks is going to come across something that he or she hasn't played before, therefore they have to learn how to play it.

The first issue most people come across is understanding the rules of the game. Let's take a turn based strategy game, say magic the gathering, when you first boot it up the first thing that you are given is a tutorial on how to play the game in question deeply going over the rules and actually showing you step by step how to play the game in question. Action based games have taken these to show you "the rules" by laying out the controls. Half-Life: Opposing Force did this by having the player go through an obstacle course.

Modern games, Witcher 2 for instance, show you some of the controls, but not all of them. This brought tons of criticism and personally I am still stuck on the final "tutorial" level since the first week of release. It is ridiculous to think that simply not understanding the basics of a game can have such a drastic impact on player enjoyment, but it does happen and it is a true statement.

So, how do you fix this? Let us use Counter-Strike: Source as an example. CS:S is an extremely competitive game and that alone puts many gamers off from even attempting to play it. The basic way to "learn" CS:S is to simply do the following...

PLAY IT!

Ok, this may seem a bit simple, but in all honesty there are games out there that you can only learn by doing. CS:S has a mode called "gun game", you may have heard of this in other popular FPS games on the consoles, but this is the original form of that game. Being so, it has been adapted for easy mode and to present more difficult challenge for higher skilled players. The first mode that is available in other popular shooters is simply gun game. You start with the pistol, get the next best pistol, then the SMG, etc. The second is called reverse gun game, where you start with the strongest weapons and get weaker and weaker ones, giving the advantage to players whom don't know exactly what they are doing, or joined late. It is a brilliant solution to a problem that has plagued many attempting to get into CS:S.

What you don't realize is the amount of hours it takes to get comfortable with the different weapons, with the mouse you are using (ensure it is set up correctly, see note at end), even the keyboard can take some getting used to. Try playing with lower sensitivity to reduce twitchy mouse movements and provide more fluidness to your shots, remove mouse filters that introduce lag, try shooting the chest and let recoil result in the headshot. As you can see there are vast differences between playing a game and expecting to be good, and actually learning how to play a game.

Once you get the weapons down, and you know your rig, you will have to put time into each map, to learn the intricacies of the layout and learn the choke points, statistical likelihood of someone going a direction, how to tap fire instead of spraying, crouching to avoid being hit, and just where and when to expect to get shot at. Again, it isn't as simple as starting up a game and being good because you know the controls, or have played a shooter before, if you want to be great at anything in life you must put time into it.

What about other games, like non-competitive or single player experiences? Let's take a look at Serious Sam, a game whereby you have dozens of enemies coming from every which direction and level design is going to be rapidly changing. You need to know how many shots it takes to get an enemy down, you need to know how they attack, the ins and outs of the combat itself, but everything else is secondary.

If we put those two together, CS:S and Serious Sam, you need to know what it takes to kill someone, not only the aspects of the gun itself, but the damage model of the game, and give the game a chance to teach us these things. This isn't something that can be put into a tutorial, it isn't something that can be explained, it is something that every CS:S player has put hours upon hours into learning, mastering, and perfecting.

Granted there are dozens of games that you start knowing nothing at all and have to resort to the folded sheet of paper with the controls, somehow they call that a manual, and attempt to interpret everything about the game based on a controller layout picture. It is amazing that some games release half-broken, unfinished, or simply bad, but it is far worse in my opinion to have a great game hindered by lack of understanding because the developer didn't explain the rules or the basics of the game. That being said, for some games there is no tutorial, but it isn't as easy as stating the controls and saying blatantly obvious things the player can do in the game world. It may take time to understand completely and it will take time to adapt at each different game, even ones in the same genre or by the same developer all have different feels to them. But, if you approach it with an open mind and actually give the game a shot rather then simply rushing into it and being pissed that you died a lot, then you will be surprised at how compelling an experience it and many other games you overlooked can become.

Something like Demon's Souls? Yeah... Go give it a shot!

-nabokovfan87