So, uh, you wanna come over and play some video games?

So, I've decided I'm a masochist.

I recently purchased a game called Demon's Souls, for the Playstation 3. This particular title was touted to me by some friends of mine who claimed it was the most engaging video game experience they'd had in years--that the game, despite its simple, bleak aesthetic would end up consuming hours of my life.

Always one to enjoy getting lost somewhere, I relented and picked the game up.

There was an ad for a game called Daikatana years ago, infamous because it declared that "John Romero [the creator of the game] is going to make you his bitch." I've decided that this ad was prophetic, aside from being for the wrong game and by the wrong guy.

Demon's Souls will make you its bitch.

The game's structure goes something like this: you travel to the cursed kingdom of Boletaria, and a tutorial level. Fighting your way through a beautifully-designed, ruined palace using whatever weapons you chose to start with (your character is customizable), you probably won't have much trouble at first. Some typical zombie soldiers, a few madmen--nothing even the most casual gamer would find particularly difficult. Even the Blue-Eyed Knight--a large chap in black armor, with glowing blue eyes and some rather nasty sword attacks--posed a challenge, but nothing insurmountable.

Then comes the Vanguard, a towering, beastly fellow with a massive axe. You know he's dangerous because a boss' health meter stretches across the bottom of the screen. You lunge in to attack, figuring maybe you can just use your shield to block any incoming attacks.

And then his axe crashes into you, because this is your first time playing the game and you have absolutely no clue that you should probably be dodging instead of guarding, and you die.

That's right, the tutorial level ends with you dying.

Your suddenly-liberated soul flees to the Nexus, trapped there by the influence of the Old One, a sleeping god beneath Boletaria. You're greeted by a young woman with strange coverings over her eyes who informs you that you're not going anywhere until the Old One's put back to sleep; moreover, because of the deep fog surrounding Boletaria, you can't leave the Nexus except by way of certain "archstones" that serve as teleports to various areas within the kingdom.

So now you have your set up--go to each world, kill each major archdemon, and put a rousing god back to sleep.

It's around this point that you realize the game is out to get you, rather than you get it.

Your first level is an assault on another, altogether-more-ruined castle. Hoofing it up the stairs, you fight off more zombie soldiers, more madmen, and you reach a section of the battlements where you have a Blue-Eyed Knight to your left, and a Red-Eyed Knight to your right. The game gives no indication that the Red-Eyed Knight is any more dangerous than the Blue, save for that he carries a spear. This is not the case: the Red Eyed Knight will kill you in one hit, and if you engage him at this stage of the game, he will get that one hit. This Red-Eyed Knight, in fact, isn't supposed to be taken down until a later stage in the game, fairly close to the end.

The game does not tell you this.

Further compounding this entire mess is the fact that if you die, the game gets harder. That's right, the game punishes you for not adhering to its strict, absolutely terrified mindset--when you die in Body Form, you lose half of your maximum health and remain in Soul Form until you kill a boss or use a certain item. Furthermore, dying robs you of your Souls--the game's currency for everything, from building stats to buying healing items to repairing and upgrading your equipment. In an almost uncharacteristic concession, you get one chance to recover any lost souls by touching a glowing bloodstain left where you last died. You die before that--well, it's all over but the crying, man.

That's not to say that Demon's Souls makes no effort at all to assist you. The online mode is pretty revolutionary--other players can leave you messages on the ground, indicating any traps or ambushes that may lie in wait ahead. If you're in Soul Form, people can summon you to their game as a phantom in order to help them through the levels--and if you help them complete one, you get your body back. You can also invade other players' worlds and make their day worse, if you want. It's co-op without strictly being co-op, and the game is more fun for it.

I guess the weirdest thing about the game is that, true to my friends' word, I've been sucked in. The hopelessly bleak, dark fantasy aesthetic reminds me a lot of Sabriel by Garth Nix, one of my favorite novels. The combat is a breathless, intense affair even when battling some of the most basic enemies; you're constantly on your toes, gauging risk vs. reward, moving and slashing more cautiously than you would in, say, Zelda. Even at its most frustrating, Demon's Souls dares you onward towards higher accomplishments, accompanied by the consequent risk. You want to see just how awful and difficult the game can get. It turns you into a masochist, suffering through countless sudden deaths and apparently impossible bosses just to get to the next section and do it again.

And you will, let's not lie.

If you played this game, you'd be a masochist too.