As I noted earlier, if there was any doubt that From Software was making Dark Souls II “easier”, all one had to do was play the demo build that’s making the rounds (it was a huge hit at this year’s E3 as well as the more recent San Diego Comic-Con) to be shown the error of misreading that quote from one of the game’s directors a few months back. The game isn’t “easy” at all, but more accessible in terms of getting you into the action quicker, getting rid of backtracking yet upping the scale of the maps to an impressive degree. As to the demo, it’s brutal but beatable and although I didn’t make it to the gigantic knight boss, I did stick around for a bit to watch a few fellow editor types step up to the plate, swing and miss wildly, their chosen characters dying in a few not so pretty ways…
Dark Souls II Hands On: Home Again For the Hardcore…
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One of the nicer surprises at the Namco Bandai Global Gamers Day event was a playable build of 
Watching and listening to series Producer Hideo Baba talk about his beloved Tales franchise will make anyone want to pick up a controller and play whatever lands on these shores. The latest in the long-running franchise (which started on the Super Famicom back in 1995), Tales of Xillia breaks new ground for the series by combining the distinctly different art styles of the series two key character designers (Kosuke Fujishima and Mutsumi Inomata), blending them flawlessly in a larger and prettier overall game. Toss in “Empress of Pop” Ayumi Hamasaki singing the theme sone, a refined battle system and the usual Tales quality bumped up to a nice PS3 shine and you get a game fans should be more than pleased to play…
First things first: Armored Core Verdict Day is NOT an “expansion pack” at all. You don’t NEED a copy of Armored Core V in order to play, there have been a ton of improvements and additions in key areas and in fact, this might be a more enjoyable experience for players diving in for the first time as well as returning veterans. FromSoftware is polishing up this online experience to a beautiful shine and if the recent demo on display at Namco Bandai’s Global Gamers Day was any indication, this should be one of those mech games that keeps players coming back for more once they get to take it for a spin… 
"DESTROY ALL FANBOYS!" 