Recent reviews by The Dude Who Was 420 on 9/11

Like a deadbeat hooker doped on morphine, I grew ever so excited upon hearing that the sequel for Dark Souls was announced. Days went on as I watched videos and pleasured myself to the one aspect that I had waited for since the release of the first Dark Souls: to play a ported game that actually works properly.

Well, From Software didn't disappoint in the "playability" factor.

However, something about Dark Souls 2 doesn't settle in my stomach very well. It's like when you eat an entire pizza that's not from your usual pizzeria after not having a meal in a week. It's amazing; you enjoy every texture, the smell and feel are familiar but somewhat new, and you're willing to scarf it down without complaints.

But after a while, once you let it settle in your stomach, you kind of regret a few things. First, you just ate an entire pizza pie, you slob. Second, you were so into the pie once you got it, you didn't notice or chose to ignore the mold on the crust and tell yourself, "That's just extra parsley baked into the dough." And finally, the bathroom trip afterwards is no fun. You'll sit there for hours, constipated and upset by this pizza, trying your best to tell yourself, "It was a good pizza," over and over again.

That's not to say Dark Souls 2 is bad. Quite the opposite. It was rather good. The game looks beautiful, the fighting mechanics are solid, and the fact that multiplayer works properly now is phenomenal. My problem is that I started Dark Souls 2 expecting nothing to have changed. I was expecting the fluid, fast paced fighting from the original Dark Souls, being on my toes at all time, expecting enemy ambushes around every corner.

But Dark Souls 2 failed to pull that off. Instead, I got a couple enemies that faked being corpses and the occasional ridiculously hard boss battle out of no where before I was supposed to officially fight him. IT seems that the game was dumbed down for newer players. I get it: you want everyone to be able to play, From Software. That's cool. What's not cool is holding my hand throughout the game like I'm a child after the experiences I've had with the first Dark Souls. That's downright insulting.

And the lore. Dark Souls had a wonderful story and background to it. Not much info was forced down my throat throughout the game, From Software felt that there was no need to force a story into their original game. And to be honest, I think that was the best way to do it. To figure out the lore on my own while playing the first Dark Souls was amazing. It felt like I was actually a part of it, something a lot of RPGs fail to pull off nowadays. But Dark Souls 2 fell short on this aspect. I get that you wanted to center the story on me; that's cool. But don't water-down the characters around me.

Aside from that, the game itself was great. The PvP works flawlessly, so I finally enjoy being ganked and backstabbed like the casual scrub I am. Though the new fighting mechanics take a little getting used to and don't feel as nice as the original, they do work out well.

Anyone new to Dark Souls will thoroughly enjoy this game. Hell, even some people who played the previous Dark Souls might enjoy it. But as a diehard fan of Dark Souls, I have to say this game came up short and just barely passes my approval..