I really don't think that the death of one man will be a mortal blow to standard business practices the world over.

Plus, her body needs to be working at maximum efficiency. For the production of babies and what-have-you.

It can be somewhat difficult to have to balance entire games in entirely different ways; sometimes you have 'easy' and 'hard' modes, and neither are as satisfying to the intended player as a game that's simply easy or hard while being very finely-tuned.

I feel like being a total badass that effortlessly wastes dozens of enemies is a description of most games. On the contrary, there are very few games with difficult combat, though admittedly more this year than there have been for many years.

Silly person, women don't get to make choices about who they marry or when. That's man's work.

"Women are beginning to take the place of men in many ways. This has led some to ask: do we even need men?"

It controls almost exactly the same, with a few new (relatively minor) moves. Skill in that game should translate to skill in this game, more or less.

I actually think that the community surrounding the games is one of the best parts, and totally within the spirit of the game.

It's true.

This reminded me of a Kafka story I read once, about a messenger who was sent by a dying king to bring a message to his subjects. The herald was powerful and tireless, but all his strength was in vain, for the castle is so huge, so infinite, that even now he works his way through the innermost rooms of the palace,…

Yeah, I'm sure I'll go back later to exact my revenge. Plus, he probably has some loot on him.

I took a more cowardly approach.

If you're able to have a lot of fun with it, it's not frustrating at all. I mean, it is, but in a life-affirming way that drives you to become better, and gives you a deep sense of mastery.

Agreed, parry/riposte is a risky attack. I haven't encountered any in Dark Souls yet, but in Demon's Souls, there were certain enemies (the knights, specifically) that were rather difficult to beat unless you used parry/riposte on them, or an alternative tactic (heavy weapon to break down their stamina, or magic to do…

You need certain stones in order to interact with "other worlds" in particular ways. As for inviting your friends in, I'm not sure that's possible. By design, they want your companions to be faceless and random. (Maybe there's a way to do it, though!)

***very mild exploration spoilers***

Demon's Souls gave me a double beard.

You can learn Soul Arrow almost immediately after the tutorial (if you know where to go), and there's a guy near the first bonfire who can teach you a few miracles. The better-stocked magic NPC doesn't come til a bit later, however.

I tried that method and found it to be really dangerous. I ended up alerting him, running up the ladder, then staying there, using the circular arena and extra room to better predict and dodge his attacks. Worked out way better for me! Worth a try, at least.

Ah, if only all expertise were so easy to come by, that I could read articles by non-experts and have everything I needed to know about the subject.