"Help mummy help, it's the nasty Pursuer!" *yawns* *swats*ĭo I really want to tap that vein? That's a tricky question. After all, it's just button pressing, right? Just mashing keys in the right order. Playing in silence helps me tap into the vein of collected, tactical, thoughtful gamer inside me, who can overcome whatever challenges an action game throws at me. That I get so het up about games is something of a weakness, I guess I'm not as good at games as I would be if I were always detached and calm. Whenever I find myself struggling to pass a boss battle, a tricky race or a nasty firefight, I walk away, take a break, and come back when my emotions are under control. This was a valuable lesson it's much easier to do anything if you're calm. I remember bursting into tears and being advised by an adult to sit and calm down before trying again. I died once passing an obstacle due to a silly error, and on subsequent attempts I failed over and over again because now I was nervous, angry and frustrated. The first game ever to drive me to rage quit was Quackshot, a Mega Drive platformer beyond my eight year old hand eye co-ordination. But you know what? I think I'm probably gonna get my monitor repaired. It's nice to feel like I'm steamrolling through a game widely considered to be really difficult. That surprised me, because I don't think of myself as terribly good at games.
I'm not very far into the game and I'm sure I've not met many really tough foes yet, but I did beat the Pursuer on my first try, just calmly controlling the fight. Instead of getting more and more tense in boss fights, flinching and jumping with every near miss, I may as well be smoking a bubble pipe. Playing in silence makes the game genuinely easier for me, because I stay calm and detached. I'm talking about the feel of it the sound and music in Dark Souls 2 uses common cinematic tactics to ratchet up the tension and get your pulse racing, so every encounter feels meaningful and consequential - which, when you've got all your souls, your humanity and a section of your life bar riding on survival, it is. I'm not just talking about the orchestral soundtrack, which is great (although maybe not as good as Demon's Souls, which I regularly cue up on iTunes), or about the way a good pair of stereo headphones can help enormously when you go in cold in a new environment and rely on every possible clue to warn you of threats.
Like most good sound design, you don't really notice it until it's gone. The sound in Dark Souls 2 (and its precursors) is pretty good, recycled sound effects aside. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Unfortunately, my monitor is on the blink, and refusing to output sound.
Dark souls sound files tv#
I loved Demon's Souls and played it to bits, but while I liked Dark Souls a lot it didn't quite resonate with me in the same way somehow the sequel is pushing my buttons, though, and I quite resent being away from it for even a few hours to earn my salary (you're welcome, by the way).īecause Dark Souls 2 is quite an intense game, I'm playing it in my bedroom, where my housemate's sudden return from work or passage in front of the TV won't cause me to drop 200,000 souls and scream so hard my lungs liquify and spray the opposite wall. I know, I know I'm a bit behind the times, but now that I've started it's eating my life. Brenna turns the sound off and has an easier time of it in Dark Souls 2, but somehow it feels like cheating. The more excited you get, the worse you play.