Dark Souls

Well recently, I've been playing Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition on PC, so I thought I'd give some thoughts so far.

As far as the game itself is concerned, it's basically the same thing as the console version with a couple of extras for the PC, although these extras are being offered as DLC for the console versions as well.  This time round I'm playing a character focused on strength rather than speed which is how I played my console version character and there's a nice distinction in play style between the two types.

As good as this game is, the PC version comes with a few issues that werent present in the console version.  For example the frame rate and general performance has a habit of taking a dip in certain areas, most notably Blight Town where the frame rate turns to shit in certain parts.  Also the keyboard and mouse controls are fucking kak, and playing with a controller is pretty much required.  I've also not had any luck using summon signs, with every summon failing.  I've not had a crack at invading in this version yet so I'll update with how that goes at a later date.  That said, the performance issues have been remedied with a fan patch, but I'm too lazy to go get it, so no comment there either.

Since this game has been out for a while, I thought I'd use this post to talk about its difficulty, since there are some people that like to describe the difficulty in this game as a bad thing.  Some people have described Dark Souls as a "trail and error" game but I can't stress enough how bullshit this is.

The game IS hard, and it IS bullshit in some places but usually the bullshittery isn't fatal and amounts to nothing more than a sneaky enemy jumping out at you from inside a box or something in most cases.  But the game sets you up for this shit, you pay attention to your surroundings and you quickly learn that there are going to be traps around pretty much every corner.  The game rewards careful, clever play and punishes you for charging in like an idiot.  Some people like to argue that the game requires a lot of "skill" but I think that's a load of crap too.  You need to be calm, collected, careful and observant to win, not particularly skilled.

This is a really fun game with a refreshing difficulty and a nice online feature that some would argue is a little unbalanced, but as far as I'm concerned it's still a ton of fun anyway.  So check it out, and don't put it down when you die, because when you do beat a section, this turns into one of the most satisfying games of this generation.