Monthly Archives: May 2016

Game review: Dark Souls III for PS4

Well…so by now, y’all should know why I chose to pick up this game. But if not, here’s the recap: after beating several games on their hardest modes and not feeling challenged, Dark Souls III was supposed to be a huge knock to my ego because it’s just so, so hard. But you know what? It isn’t nearly as hard as I’d been led to believe. I’ll tell you something else. I think it’s a mistake to talk up the difficulty as a selling point. It’s an overrated ideal, and it doesn’t do the game justice. Having played this and mostly loved it, I’m going to buy the PS4 port of Dark Souls II and Bloodborne because I want more of this kind of fantastic gameplay. That will of course come after I’ve played through this game a few more times to see the other classes and endings. It is not without flaws, some of which might be sticking points for more casual players, but I’ll get to those after the gushing and the rambling. (And it will be rambling because I’m writing this at 7 AM after an all-night session to beat the last two bosses.)

I should mention that I’m coming into this series as a relative newcomer. I know the past games from watching speed runs on the Games Done Quick events and from watching Let’s Plays on YouTube. I know some of the lore from commentary offered in both of those venues. But I have never played any of them myself, and once I committed myself to buy this game, I flat out ignored all the previews and streams of the preview copies because I wanted to go into this and be totally surprised by it. In that regard, mission accomplished. Every ambush and trap was totally a shock to me the first time they happened, and some of them helped prove that yes, my butthole pucker function still works well.

Ahem, let’s move on.

Where to begin? Well how about that character creator? I spent a few hours just pondering what class to play. I knew someone somewhere would roll their eyes if I chose a sorcerer or a cleric, so I went with an assassin. I took no extra items, wanting to make this first run really challenging. Then I spent another few hours playing with the face and body of my character, and I was pleased by the variety of the body types and races I could make my character. I didn’t like the default lean-faced lass, so I made her a bit on the ugly side, with a big nose and an overbite. I had a lot of fun just making my character look perfectly imperfect. Continue reading


New release! In the Mouth of the Wolf

I know what you’re thinking. “Geez, Zoe you’ve been awfully quiet since your last review. What the hell have you been up to?” Well I’ve been hard at work. Yep, working so, so hard on…eh, no, I’ve been faffing about playing Dark Souls III, actually. But! BUT! In between sessions of alternately wrecking bosses and getting my ass handed to me by lowly minions, I’ve also been working on the final round of edits for the third Alice the Wolf book, In the Mouth of the Wolf. And here it is:

In the Mouth of the WolfIn the wake of the massacre at Moon Lake Park Alice is reeling from grief, and the deaths of the majority of the weredog council has led to the formation of a new ruling body made up of members who want to actively hunt for the remaining packs and get revenge for their losses. Ignoring Alice’s advice, they send out scouts intent on hunting down the remaining fugitive wolves.

But a more dire threat makes these problems pale in comparison, a disease carried by Alice’s wolf that’s growing stronger with every transformation. The FBI’s attempts at treatment only make matters worse, and if a cure isn’t found soon, the next shift could kill Alice’s wolf, and her along with it.

You can find In the Mouth of the Wolf at Amazon, Kobo, Nook, and my blog bookstore for $4.99 (unless you live outside the US, in which case the price is probably different for you. Probably.) Continue reading