![]() ![]() You could even say it’s got first person shooter influence if you use a bow and sit with your face really, really close to the screen. It’s the culmination of decades of innovation and progress in the RPG and fantasy genres with a great combat system and really nice scenery to boot. Yes, both have a certain legacy within their respective niches but Dark Souls is a dragons and wizards fantasy hack and slash open world RPG, and there’s influence from absolutely bloody everything in there. I’d also say I had a generally more engaging experience with Undertale, which isn’t on the list because Undertale’s graphics couldn’t be used to flog Geforce GTXes to people and as such triple-A gaming media has little time for it.īut if I was asked to enshrine one and only one game to hold up as the exemplar of all gaming, I’d probably want something that was representative of as much of gaming as is possible. Going over the other games on the shortlist, I dunno if I’d say Dark Souls was my favourite overall experience with the highest density of good bits. And it is kind of stupid how it’s basically impossible to figure out how to craft the boss weapons without an FAQ open in the other window. I’ve always thought the level design goes downhill in the second half when the bonfire warp ability removes the obligation to make the areas all intricately connected and shit. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t really get on with Dark Souls, it’s certainly not beyond criticism. ![]() Then again, the Supermega Awesomest Game in the Universe award is always going to be a subjective matter. I’ve let it bugger me across the banisters so many times over the years I probably can’t be objective on this. Deep, rich, dark and gooey like how I like my chocolate brownies. It has that rare combination of being both expansively broad and dizzyingly deep. Would I agree with that? Well, it’s worth analysing. But let’s be less of a semantic pedant and assume that Golden Joystick meant in their sputtering, overcaffeinated way, that Dark Souls is the best game that’s ever come out SO FAR. ‘Cos it’s newer, and therefore more valid, apparently. I mean, it wasn’t THAT long ago that everyone always cited Ocarina of Time as the best game ever and that didn’t even make Golden Joystick’s shortlist in today’s enlightened age. More likely they’re setting themselves up to look stupid in about fifty years when Bloodborne 9 comes out for the Sony Direct Neural Interface Noggin Tube and our socks all get blown off anew. Maybe the apocalypse is nigh and the Earth is about to crack open and give birth to the flaming brood of the galactic chaos spider. Maybe the Golden Joysticks know something we don’t. So I guess video games are done, we’re wrapping it all up, weighing up everything we learned and figuring out which one was the best. “Ultimate” technically means “Final,” after all. ![]() Semantic pedant that I am, I’m a little bit worried by the way the phrasing implies that we’ve reached the end of video games. “Ultimate game of all time?” sounds less a serious acknowledgement than something that would be bellowed out by a platoon of drunken sports fans in front of a TV news camera. Did you like that sentence? I thought it turned out rather well. Now, award season must by nature bring with it a certain amount of hype but for me this is the point where hype becomes hyperbole.
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