Dark Souls

Games are a bit like crossword puzzles: a lot of people don't like them at all, some dabble a bit, and there are millions of fanatics.

GAME: DARK SOULS (PS3)

PRICE: R550

AGE: 16+

Game difficulty and size also bear some resemblance to crosswords. There are 10-minute versions, into which category most children's games - and, unfortunately, several for adults - fall; then there are the two-speed cryptic/coffee-time layouts that encompass most games with a short single-player campaign and bigger multiplayer/online content.

Some, like the broadsheet page-sized ones at Christmas, boggle the mind through their sheer scope.

Sports and fighting games or simulators are more like sudoku: equally challenging, but requiring a different skills set.

I have my own category for games such as Modern Warfare: they are crosswords set by Americans. US spelling offends me; relentless, ideologically inspired killing does too.

Dark Souls is set by an Oxford don for a monthly magazine. It is a fiendishly difficult dungeon-crawling RPG, but the satisfaction you gain from progress and working out how to defeat an opponent is equivalent to that gained from solving a particularly tricky clue.

The flimsy storyline is the usual fantasy mishmash of dragons, weird religion and magic, but unlike other games of the genre, there's a subtlety to the gameplay that means choices you make materially affect your progress. It also makes this vast game very personal as, after a while, a lot of the story seems to be going on in your own head. It's not often I spend time at work gnawing on how I can beat a bad guy in a game.

Your character is an escaped Undead, collecting souls and artefacts by defeating enemies and exploring the world, but there are times when you change to human form.

Various choices along the way allow you to usher in either the age of fire or of dark.

Resting at campfires not only replenishes your health and supplies, but also re-spawns all the enemies you've just defeated. It's just one of the choices you have to make.

THE GOOD

It works brilliantly as a fantasy adventure RPG, with graphics and music to support the themes. It's incredibly long and utterly rewarding both as a button-masher and as an intellectual challenge.

THE BAD

If you're looking for light entertainment, forget it. This is a brutally difficult, dark game.

RATING: 9.6