Prepare to die in 'Dark Souls'

"Dark Souls" is a fun and  great challenge for anyone who thinks most games are pieces of cake.

In the world of "Dark Souls," a disease is enveloping the lands and turning humans into undead "hollows." The player's character is one of these undead beings, which I refer to as "self-aware zombies."  

The goal is to defeat monsters and collect their souls until the character is powerful enough to take on the Dark Lord who is spreading the disease. However, after defeating him, the character must forever take his place as the new Dark Lord.

The difficulty of this game is indescribable.

As the trailer for this game is nothing but clips of someone dying over and over again, the insanity was evident. The trailer is painful to watch, but it's honest.

When you start playing, the game warns, "Prepare to die... again and again." This game may cause people to A) give up and take it back to the store, B) break the game, C) break the game, the game system, the game controller and the TV, or D) punch a hole in the wall.  

It feels amazing to defeat the higher level bosses without dying too many times. You're the king of the world, and no one's going to stop you — except for the giant dragon that will either burn you to death with his fiery breath or stomp on you as soon as you blink.

"Dark Souls" is the new sequel to "Demon's Souls," a game where the difficulty is high, rewards are grand and anger management skills are put to the test — seriously.  

Both of these games are ridiculously hard. Even the tutorial levels are crazy: the protagonist is thrown into a boss fight right at the beginning just so to be killed. These games are not for babies.

The gameplay resembles "Demon's Souls" because the fighting style and weapon choices are the same, but in "Dark Souls," there are more weapons and insanely difficult enemies.

Also, in "Demon's Souls," players had the Nexus, a sanctuary where the character goes whenever they die or defeat a boss. It's also the way to get to other lands and bosses.  

In "Dark Souls," there are bonfires scattered across the land that can be lit. These bonfires will replenish any health and magic and also become respawn spots where the character returns if killed.

However, the bonfires also bring back all enemies when lit. So, if you've spent hours and hours killing off skeletons with giant machetes and you finally go to replenish your health, you get to fight them again. Lucky you!

I'll admit, I haven't gotten very far in this game or the first one, but maybe someday I won't be such a weakling and will conquer these games.

"Dark Souls" is rated M and gets my rating of 3.5 Man-Serpent Greatswords out of 5.  And yes, that's one of the weapons in the game.