The Topography of Athletes

People love discussing who the greatest athlete of all time is. Sport is all about being the best, and people love arguing and getting on their hobby horses, so it makes for a lively -- if futile -- conversation.

There's no objective standard, of course, so no one ever wins and everyone ends up feeling a little aggrieved. It's fun anyway but that's how it is. People usually just pick the best athlete in their favourite sport and that's about it.

Moving on.

Did you know that Everest isn't indisputably the tallest mountain in the world? Its peak is the highest from sea level, but other measurements are available.

Mauna Kea in Hawaii, from base to tip, is 33,500ft -- 4,500ft taller than Everest is high. But a lot of it is below the sea so it doesn't reach as high up into the atmosphere.

The peak of Chimborazo in Ecuador is further from the centre of the Earth than any other. That's because of the equatorial bulge that results from the Earth's spin. However, it stands a relatively modest 20,500ft from sea level, making Chimborazo the mountain equivalent of a man who shoves socks down his pants.

Kilimanjaro is smaller still, topping out at 19,300ft above sea level. But dominating its Tanzanian plain, it stands taller above its surrounding area to a greater extent than any other mountain. That's worthy of recognition, too.

See where I'm going with this?

In thinking about athletes and mountains, I realised that maybe mountain categorisation offers a better, or at least more nuanced, way of looking at the greatest athlete debate. It provides a way of recognising athletes in smaller participation sports as well as in the most popular ones.

Let's get started.

The Mount Kilimanjaro Award for Low-Participation Dominance - WAYNE GRETZKY

If you spend too much time on Reddit, like I do, you will notice there are certain facts that people learn once and repeat ad nauseum to seem clever. Did you know Queen Cleopatra is more contemporary to the current day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza? Boy do people on Reddit love saying that. Sheesh.

Another one concerns Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky. The fact goes: Even if you removed all Gretzky's goals, his assists alone would be worth more points than any other player's goals and assists combined. I don't fully understand how you get a "point" for assists, but I think it means no other player's G+A > Wayne's A. Maybe that wasn't any clearer, actually. 

Despite not knowing anything about ice hockey, that sounds undeniably amazing, and potentially a record that makes him a cross-sport contender. But that's not what this piece is about, and the thing is, fuck all people play ice hockey. Statista reckons there are a bit over one million registered players globally. FIFA reckons there are 265 million football players; indeed, referees outnumber ice hockey players five-to-one. (Which begs the question, who is the Wayne Gretzky of refereeing?)

So well done to Wayne, who stands in serene, towering, majestic isolation. You are the Kilimanjaro of sport.

Honourable mention: Beryl Burton (cycling).

The Mount Chimborazo Award for Unusual Height - YELENA ISINBAYEVA

Won't lie to you this award is a bit ropey. I've gone for Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva.

Isinbayeva is one of the greatest athletes all time. Her mantlepiece presumably sags under the weight of two Olympic and three World Championship golds, as well as THIRTY of whatever they give out for world records. That is about as emphatic a career as you could hope to find.

Why Isinbayeva for this one, though, and not, say, the previous one, given pole vault's low participation? Well, Chimborazo is the tallest from the centre of the Earth and pole-vaulting is the sport that takes the athlete furthest from the Earth under the athlete's own steam. Therefore it seems fitting to give it to the greatest vaulter -- Isinbayeva.

The Mauna Kea Award for Most Elite Athlete -- ELIUD KIPCHOGE

No sport has more participants than good old running. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot again -- keep 'em coming. Bliss. The number of people that have tried running is almost the same as the number of people who have ever existed. Humans only made it through the pre-civilisation period by being able to run a really long way. Sorry, sprinters, it's distance running that is the sport of humanity.

And of the 107 billion humans who have ever lived Eliud Kipchoge is the best at it. Kipchoge has almost never been beaten in the marathon, and is the event's official marathon world record holder, with 2:01:39. He also holds an unofficial time of 1:59:40, making him the only human to break the two-hour barrier -- a truly mind-bending accomplishment that involved running eight-consecutive 14-minute 5ks, plus a bit more. Ok, yes, two hours is an arbitrary marker, and it was achieved with the help of advanced footwear and a team of pacemakers, but he still had to do it. Incredible.

You could argue that Paula Radcliffe's marathon WR was more impressive (and in fact I do believe that), but her record has annoyingly fallen, albeit to an athlete with Nike's advanced footwear. Her dominance of the event was much less sustained as well.

Therefore, Kipchoge wins it!

Honourable Mentions: Paula Radcliffe, Michael Phelps (swimming) and Jan Železný (javelin) (the two potential other sports crucial to human survival).

The Mount Everest Award for Biggest Global Sports - DON BRADMAN

Alright, this one takes some working out. I'm afraid we're pretty much in normal Greatest Sportsman Discussion territory here. What are we looking for? A tete-a-tete of the best athletes in the world's biggest sports by participation and popularity. Football. Basketball. American Football. Cricket, with a modifier; tennis; golf...I guess I have to consider it. F1? Not a sport.

Football - LIONEL MESSI

The sport's genius who can do things others can't even conceive of. Racking up 730 goals and 340 assists for Barcelona and Argentina, Messi exceeds even Ronaldo, three years his senior. 

Basketball - LEBRON JAMES

My opinion of King James being better than Jordan is based mainly on James seeming like a humble, intelligent man and Jordan seeming like an absolute arsehole.

American Football - TOM BRADY

There aren't many players in any sport with more personal accolades than any other team, but that's what Brady has with his seven Super Bowls. 

Cricket - DON BRADMAN

Bradman has a test batting average of 99.94. The next best is 61.87, after which there are (almost) no gaps to each subsequent guy of greater than 1.0. Bradman is so far and away the best batsman it is absurd. And cricket isn't like football, where all the scoring records were set in the early-mid century. No, modern and old batsmen alike rub shoulders in the batting rankings. Australia's Sam Smith is #3 and he's still playing. Our winner!

Tennis - NOVAK DJOKOVIC

I'm sorry Serena, Roger and Rafa, I have to give this one to Djokovic. Serena's 23 slams are more than the guys - and in fact Roger and Rafa are ahead of Djok in that regard, too. But Djokovic will end his career with the most of the men -- and he's spent his entire career battling the other two best male players of all time. Serena may equal or surpass Margaret Court (she needs one more), but women's tennis seems to have a high churn rate of players and Serena lacks another contemporary great to measure herself against -- a Graf, or Navratilova.

Golf - TIGER WOODS

An annoying personality in an annoying sport isn't enough reason to rule out golf and its greatest player, Tiger Woods. The man racks up titles as fast as personal life controversies.

Athletics - USAIN BOLT

The consummate sportsperson whose glittering exploits are elevated by a magnetic personality, Bolt almost singlehandedly kept athletics relevant for a decade. There are few more awe-inspiring sights than Bolt in full flow.

*

I have to admit I'm a bit irritated that I wrote all that and still ended up with a pretty standard discussion in the last category. I will take suggestions on ways to divide that big category up, sticking to the mountain format.

Also conscious that the list is almost all men, but there are a few reasons for that. Drugs have ruined women's athletics from a records standpoint so I don't recognise the validity of almost all women's track records. Dalilah Muhammad and her recent 400mh record is about the only one. Additionally, other sports are largely in a state of development, particularly football which is only just finding its feet outside North America. Serena can consider herself hard done by, as can cycling's greatest female (and potentially greatest overall) athlete, Leeds' Beryl Burton.

Dark Souls: Review

A familiar sight*

Sometimes you don’t even stand a fighting chance. You pass through an opaque fog blocking a doorway -- naive, innocent, with hope for a better future -- and are immediately pulped by a demon wielding an axe bigger than your entire body. YOU DIED says the screen. You’ve been suckerpunched by a game and you flush with annoyance. Ok -- next time, shield up, you think, and try again.

Such is Lordran, the fantasy setting of DARK SOULS where death is a way of life. DARK SOULS is designed so you’re nearly always the smallest and weakest thing in any given area. You can’t simply trade blows with a demon as you’ll lose every time. No, you have to learn to outsmart and outmanoeuvre your foes, learn how they telegraph attacks, which weapons they’re weak against and how to hit them when they’re vulnerable. And as any given area has about a dozen enemy types and at least one boss fight, that’s a lot of learning. And a lot of dying.

Sound sadistic? Well there’s more. When you die you drop all the “souls” (the game’s universal currency, acquired by killing things) you’re carrying, and if you want them back you have to reach the point you died at. Your death is marked by a greenish amorphous shape and a bloodstain. It’s a system that encourages incremental progress: by reclaiming your souls you’ve proven you learnt the lessons and the souls are readded to your new total. But if you don’t reach it then they’re gone, and while it doesn’t spell disaster exactly, you’re that much further from being able to level-up. Its a system that encourages a methodical, cautious playstyle.

The sense of intense vulnerability these design choices engender is supported by the art direction. Lordran feels inhospitable from the moment you’re (figuratively) born into a locked cell in an isolated, frigid, windswept asylum. The first characters you meet are all physically and mentally broken, from the dying knight who gives you his health-replenishing Estus flask to the depressed and defeated soldier who provides the only two clues about where to go next. Both these characters later in the game “go hollow” -- a metaphor for giving up -- and attack you. Lordran is a sad place in which almost no one is having a good time.

Except, perversely, you. Because learning how to beat DARK SOULS at its own game is richly rewarding. After a while you may realise that an optimal fighting technique won’t look much like a proper fight at all. Just as how the game uses traps and tricks to beat you, so too are you encouraged to find unusual ways to win. You might find it’s easier to beat enemies by duping their limited AI into falling off a big ledge, for instance; or that fighting something much stronger than you often involves pressing right up against them and side-stepping like crazy until you can land a well-place stab through their back, inflicting huge damage. Maybe you’ll hide behind a fire and watch your foe cook itself to death trying to get you; or maybe you’ll shoot something with an arrow fifty times from too far away for it to register your presence until it’s dead. As for me, I found a massive sword called a Zweihander that has a particularly powerful heavy attack that flattens almost everything. One hit pancaked them, then a second would finish them off. Splat.

DARK SOULS has another intensely satisfying trick that elevates the experience above other RPGs: its map. Lordran comprises one continuous, complex, interconnected area with immense verticality. I suppose you could call it open-world, in that you can walk from one side to the other, but it’s more like a rabbit warren or ants' nest than a traditional open-world, Earth-like landscape. From Lordran’s highest point, a lofty library that nearly scrapes the clouds, you can descend through a gleaming, Gondor-like city, a booby-trapped fortress, a castle, a diseased and infested town, a spider’s nest, an enchanted forest, ghostly ruins, catacombs, and finally to a crumbling city lost to lava and decay. And they all connect to a place called Firelink Shrine, Lordran’s central hub and the game’s only true place of safety.

Verticality enables some gratifying to happen. A good example occurs near the start of the game. After you battle through the Undead Burg and its boss you find yourself on a bridge guarded by a dragon. Pretty jaded by this point, you don’t fancy your chances against a dragon so you explore other routes, unlocking a door and going down some stairs. There, you find the top of a ladder, which you are prompted to kick down. You do so and climb down it...and arrive at the bonfire at the start of the Undead Burg. It came as a total surprise -- the twisty nature of the Burg had thrown off my spatial mapping -- and also as a relief. You can rest, heal and level up and get right back to the bridge to see what that dragon will do without fighting a single other thing. It’s the developers saying well done, you earnt that.

This approach to level design works at a slightly bigger level as well. While there are loops within areas, such as Undead Burg, each area ultimately returns you to the aforementioned Firelink Shrine as well -- again, at unexpected times. After battling through the whole extended Burg area you find a lift and a moment later you arrive at Firelink. That lift that you might have seen before but couldn’t access is now working. 

Golden Hour in Anor Londo (please ignore my naked raw legs...armour chafes ok?)

Earlier in the review I alluded to DARK SOULS’ obscure plot, which unfolds in a few cinematics, snatches of dialogue, and item descriptions. This is a very lore-heavy game, which is not something I’m normally into and DARK SOULS’ lore feels particularly undercooked. The basic premise is something about dragons being overthrown by four powerful lords (one is amusingly and opaquely called the “furtive pygmy”) who kindle the First Flame. The flame, and the Lords' power, eventually wanes, cursing humanity to become undead. You play the Chosen Undead, who will ultimately decide whether to restore the flame or let it die out. 

What I do like though is how DARK SOULS’ central mechanic is a metaphor for the story itself. The idea of the Undead failing endlessly in their quest to rekindle the flame is a lot like how it feels to play the game itself. When those characters “go hollow”, which turns them hostile and makes them look like their skin has fallen off, it reads like a dig at the players who can’t finish the game. And by completing it, you yourself fulfil the role of Chosen Undead and choose the ending you want. As a result, you participate in the story, limited as it may be, in a meaningful way -- dare I say more meaningfully than a heavily scripted, cinematic title.

Other bits of storyline that the player directly interacts with can be found in a handful of notable NPCs. These include Solaire, a sun-worshiping knight; Siegmeyer and Sieglinde of Catarina, an old knight and his daughter from a distant land who wear distinctive bulbous armour; and Big Hat Logan, a magician who sports a, um, big hat. They appear sporadically as your respective adventures intertwine, each time more wearied and downtrodden than the last as they press on to their invariably fateful, tragic conclusions. You can occasionally summon them to assist in boss fights, while some good writing and voice acting fleshes them out nicely. As such, it’s easy to grow fond of them despite their brief appearances. But, on the other hand, they can be easy to miss and there’s a sense that you really have to know what you’re doing to see these quest lines to the end.

Got my fattest armour on here

And that’s DARK SOULS through and through, really -- a bit of help would be nice, you know? I don't mind a hard game -- see my Celeste review -- but struggling to make even basic sense of the game isn't fun.

A lot of the mechanics, particularly around leveling up, are borderline indecipherable. Weapons are upgraded using material called titanite, but there are loads of varieties of it and different weapons require different types in different quantities. And then once you upgrade a weapon five times you can “ascend” (a poorly chosen verb) it along upgrade paths such as fire, lightning, or crystal (there are eleven in total). There’s nothing to tell you that crystal weapons, for instance, are fragile and will permanently break after a short while. And as getting sufficient titanite is difficult, exploring the upgrade trees seemed prohibitively risky for me. Compounding things further is that you’ll need a well-upgraded weapon by the game’s latter stages, which means you’re shepherded towards picking a weapon and sticking with it. If you decide you chose badly and need to upgrade something else, well, good luck and I hope you remembered where each specific type of titanite is found.

Similarly, upgrading your character is a bit of a mess. You might think it sounds cool, for instance, to build a warrior high in both strength and dexterity, as I did. But you’d be wasting your time. It’s an either-or for those two for the most part and there’s no reasonable way of knowing that. The resistance stat is also entirely pointless. I built a tough, strong character, partly because it sounded fun but also partly because the there is little obvious delineation between (and I'm talking specifically about the words themselves) attunement, faith and intelligence stats. They gave me bad vibes basically, so I ignored them and played the entire game without casting a single spell. As well as being obtuse, wasting souls on redundant stats actively hinders your progress as they'd be better spent on vitality (the red bar) or endurance (the green bar), which is annoying.

In short, there’s a conflict at the heart of DARK SOULS that requires you to experiment while actively discouraging, even punishing, you for it.

Game gives good vistas

But perhaps DARK SOULS’ biggest weakness -- and this is quite a large one -- is its final third. After Anor Londo, the Gondor-like area home to the game’s most famous boss, the quality of levels and bosses takes a noticeable hit. The complex, interlocking design of the first two-thirds gives way to broad featureless expanses, and the verticality and neat shortcutiness of the first half are lost. The lava areas of Demon’s Ruins and Lost Izalith feel like something out of Serious Sam; one particularly poor section comprises a wide, empty space populated by about ten large demons, standing there obviously waiting to be triggered. It feels like a quote-unquote “video game level” rather than an actual place and is totally out of step with preceding areas. Elsewhere, the Four Kings boss takes place somewhere called “The Abyss”, an entirely black, empty space. It’s kind of cool initially, unlike anywhere else in the game, but I can’t help but feel that The Abyss is a cop out by a time-pressed development team. So much thought has so clearly gone into the first half that the shortcomings of these latter areas are cast in sharper relief.

The boss fights also dip sharply in quality. Seath the Scaleless is just...large; Demon Firesage is a rehash of a rehash of the first boss; Pinwheel is ridiculously, confusingly easy; Four Kings are a cut and paste job; and Bed of Chaos is less a bossfight than a puzzle. Up to Ornstein and Smough, the boss fights took me a dozen or more attempts each (peaking with O&S themselves); after, I defeated four bosses first time -- including the final boss! -- and several others in a few attempts.

All that being said, however, it's abundantly clear why DARK SOULS is considered something of a genre-defining classic. The gameplay, setting, graphics, level design combine for a unique experience. I found myself totally rapt, especially during the magical first half full of challenges, delights and surprises. I haven't touched on Sen's Fortress, a booby-trap laden castle inhabited by snakemen and bomb-tossing giants; Blighttown, a knotted, ugly series of wooden walkways stalked by infested ghouls and barbarians; or Darkroot Garden, a mystical wood populated by mushroom people. I love that if you chop certain enemies' tails off you get special weapons. I love the feeling of relief of reaching the next bonfire. And I love the feeling of terror when a Black Knight charges you -- and the satisfaction of killing one for the first time. DARK SOULS' inaccessibility prevents me from giving a whole-hearted recommendation, but only just. 

* Since my last review, Nintendo made it easier to transfer screengrabs from the Switch to other devices. So all the images in this review are my own! No more broken links here.