Dark Souls

[brisk]

9/10 on both ign and eurogamer. Seems they're reluctant to rate it higher, probably because they know many gamers will hate it due to the difficulty. Fair enough I spose. Hopefully it's successful commercially too.

[Eraser]

Concept art for you fans you:
http://kotaku.com/5846743/you-may-not-s ... /gallery/1

[brisk]

BRING THE PAIN, BITCHES

[brisk]

Game is pretty damn epic so far. Feels very much like the original Demon's Souls, which is probably why i'm owning it. Already at the Undead Parish and not much has troubled me just yet. I'm sure that will change, but it's certainly not a harder game than DS so far... in fact, it's probably easier because of the handy bonfires located everywhere. Maybe i'm just pro?

[Tsakali]

brofessional?

[brisk]

I think i'm nearing the end now, so i've decided to help my fellow man in co-op. It's hilarious watching people invade the games i'm summoned to, thinking they're gonna have an easy time against just one guy - then I pop out and ruin their shit.

Also, i've intentionally helped out players get to the bosses, then when they trust me completely and enter the boss rooms, I just stand back and watch them get slaughtered. Being a cunt in dark souls is a lot of fun.

[brisk]

10 days later, the game is officially complete. 99% of the time I loved it, but the major criticisms I have are the wank p2p-based online system (major lag in pvp to the point where I just stopped trying) and the Lost Izalith level being a bit cheap and having poor level design (seriously, who thought making a giant lava pit with a million t-rex style demons that can kill you in 1 hit a good idea?)

I don't think it was harder than Demon's Souls, though obviously I knew the combat/gameplay dynamics inside out before I started this, so I guess that cut the sting out of it. The enemy designs/models are still fantastic and the whole world is just incredibly engrossing. When you get out of bed early to turn on the console and get a few sneaky hours in before work, you know the game is a winner.

I don't think i'll be doing NG+ for a while, since there's too many great games coming out in the next few weeks, but it's definitely something i'll return to soon. BUY THE FUCKING GAME YOU PUSSIES.

/blog

[Κracus]

So I've been playing Dark Souls lately. Man, was I ever off about this game it's fucking awesome. Seriously, my only gripe is that unbalanced pvp aspect. Too many times I invade or get invaded by people and they're WAY overpowered compared to me. The only time it seems to be fair and reasonable MOST of the time is in the forrest when the blood moon convenant assholes come looking for me.

[brisk]

PVP is the only reason I play this game now, but yeah, it's incredibly unbalanced, unless you know the game mechanics inside out and can prepare for any given situation.

There is a glitch in the game that allows you to use the bottomless box to store all your high-end gear and then make a new character, keeping all your existing equipment, but at a low soul level. What this means is that people who start the game fresh are now finding themselves getting invaded by people with twinked out gear, standing absolutely no chance. On the other hand, a lot of friendly phantoms now put soul signs up to counter these griefers. It's generally lame as fuck, though I do like the fact it's very easy to make new builds now, so it's not all bad.

The forest is pretty much the Mos Eisley of the Dark Souls world btw. It's full of the absolute dirtiest, cheapest, noobiest players in the whole game. 99% of the time, the host has summoned a friend to gangbang invaders as soon as they connect. They're usually rocking the full Giants/Havel gear and go for ultra-cheap kills. I do host there occasionally if i'm needing to level up, as it's by far the most active PVP area in the game. I also like to invade there and take the gankers apart, which usually leads to delicious ragemail. Dark Anor Londo is the same too.

The unofficial dueling area is The Kiln, but i've found just as many dirty gankers there as I do in the forest. In my experience, the best place to invade and get good honour duels is at the Undead Burg, next to the bonfire. You're almost always guarenteed a good game there, either as a Darkwraith or a Darkmoon Blade. It's also where all the low-level griefers like to invade the noob players, so it's pretty hilarious to invade their world and watch their horror as you utterly destroy them, knowing the table has been turned on them.

[Κracus]

Yeah, revenge in the burg would indeed be fun. I've invaded my fair share and been invaded and I've managed to fight off people who seem to be similarily equipped.

love the game though, I'm getting geared up to go kill the Hydra and the Wolf.

[xer0s]

How would you describe the PvP? A dumb down version of World of Warcraft?

[Κracus]

It's nothing at all like WoW. It's a twitch game, first and foremost and the pvp when evenly matched which is unfortunately rare, is a game of dancing around your opponent waiting for them to fuck up. I rarely launch an attack unless it's to make them offbalance like a kick or lunge.

My main beef so far is getting attacked by individuals who 1 shot me dead with uber weapons whether or not I block. Others it takes 2 - 3 hits to kill me so for those matches really there isn't much you can do.

All in all though, despite the uneven fights I deeply love the way it's implemented. If they would fix the twinks (preferably by wiping their fucking save games) and then patching to prevent them from doing it again it'd be a perfect game.

It's a must have game and should be game of the year in my opinion.

[brisk]

How would you describe the PvP? A dumb down version of World of Warcraft?

Anyway, I love the diversity of builds I see in the game. You never know what to expect until you see your opponent and you have to plan accordingly. Losing is just practice for winning in future afterall. The only thing that is bad is being on the receiving end of lagstabs. That's what happens when the player userbase is predominantly Japanese, unfortunately. Still, when you learn to counter them and abuse them for your own game, it becomes a lot of fun. The depth of the game continually surprises me.

[phantasmagoria]

Sigh, I'll just buy it with GFWL. What's another bloatware pos on top of steam, origin and battle.net? grin are bear it.

[phantasmagoria]

That said, signed: http://www.change.org/petitions/namco-b ... dows-live#

[Eraser]

What's wrong with GFWL? I haven't got much experience with it, only played Dirt 2 on PC through GFWL (admittedly, downloaded through Steam) but I don't see the problem with it.

[Mat Linnett]

If GFWL crashes while you're playing a game, it'll pull you out of the game and stop you playing until it's back up and running. It extends installation of most games that use it needlessly and frequently by as much as an hour or more. Generally it's also used for multiplayer "Matchmaking" in games with online functionality and inevitably works at a sub-par standard if at all, on top of which, Microsoft haven't updated it for over a year now. It's a bag of shit that's not needed at all.

[MKJ]

i thought MS stopped the whole GFWL even. because it fails so much

[shaft]

I like GFWL. You people cry as if it physically harms you if you have to make a couple extra mouse clicks or run an additional program on your 21st century quad core supercomputers.

[Mat Linnett]

You like it purely because we dislike it, be honest shaft.

[feedback]

I tried it, played a few hours, then gave up. It had a lot of performance issues and would get too framey at the most important times. Controls/camera fucked me 4 times on the castle bridge boss which I had to play 45 minutes each time to get to and then I gave up on it.