Dark Souls - Review @ Gaming Trend

GAMING TREND SCORE:

Graphics: 70
Audio: 94
Controls: 50
Gameplay: 94
Value/Replay: 93
Any viewpoint about story and narrative?
Sorry to say but I have to confess I sorely hate games which have no story. I'm to buy Dark Souls since everyone here praise it in all aspects but when it comes to story all you become silent. May anyone enlighten me about this game having any storyline or not please?
 
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May anyone enlighten me about this game having any storyline or not please?

There's not much of a story if you're comparing it to most Western RPGs. You basically wake up in an asylum and are told that you need to ring two bells. You get bits and pieces of lore here and there, but not much else. They don't leave you totally clueless though.
 
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Any viewpoint about story and narrative?
Sorry to say but I have to confess I sorely hate games which have no story. I'm to buy Dark Souls since everyone here praise it in all aspects but when it comes to story all you become silent. May anyone enlighten me about this game having any storyline or not please?

Discovering the story is part of Dark Souls appeal. Here is what is online which I think decent about the plot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Souls
 
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Discovering the story is part of Dark Souls appeal.
Which is why I rather wouldn´t recommend reading the plot portion of the wiki to anyone who hasn´t finished the game yet :).
Well, besides the first paragraph which sums the game´s approach to story nicely:
Dark Souls has a minimalistic plot. Events and their significance are often implicit and left to player interpretation rather than fully shown or explained. Much of the story and lore of the world is given to the player through dialogue from characters within the world, item descriptions, or the scarce cutscenes. It is up to the player to put the pieces together.

As I see it, there´s this complex epic story, but instead of starting the game in the beginning of it, or being thrown in the middle, the player´s character comes into the picture in the aftermath.
Part of the game´s charm is figuring out/guessing what this story might´ve been and what does it mean for the actual role of the pc.
Item descriptions, dialogue tidbits (some NPCs also have own mini arcs), level design or loot placement potentially tie into this.

I´d say the dominant characteristics of the game´s story elements is mystery :).

The actual plot in the game is minimal, most of the story stuff is backstory/lore.
 
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You all forgot to say that the intro cinematic is awesome!
 
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Playing Dark Souls. I'm not to troll this game but I think it is the most chaotic game I've ever seen and I'm sure I've never had such a confusion feeling with other games. After a two-hour twiddling with keys I'm still perplexed how it could be possible that X360 controller buttons are shown on screen in a PC game. :| Can't even read the messages scattered around and each time I try to do so and press all the keys, nothing happens.
What the hell is mouse pointer doing on screen in all moments?
In-game control is extremely terrible too and I feel I can't even fight with a simple undead let alone the first boss that handles me in less than 5 seconds.
An unplayable and completely disappointing game IMO.
 
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Vahid: try the resolution fix, it allows you to remove the mouse cursor from the screen. The mouse fix should sort the mouse camera movement. Be patient with the keys, there appear to be a lot of them but they are important and give depth to the combat compared to games that use one button for hundreds of moves. As for the gamepad buttons, I agree with you that they are confusing and a pain, but one can get use to them and they are a negligible annoyance later on as you identify/set them on the keyboard.
 
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What SpoongFULL said. For the "keys" you can check the wiki to see how the xbox360 controls match to the mouse/keyboard (if you didn't change them).

I also suggest you look at the Dark Soul "general PC" thread on the Watch. You'll find starting tips there.
 
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Hey, this is my first post!

Part of understanding the minimal plot is understanding the world. At least, this is how I see it. You don’t try to avert some kind of catastrophe. The world has already gone to hell and is ruled by demons. The minimal plot basically arises from this premise, and the game is all about setting a particular mood and athmosphere of despair, hopelessness, alienation, where basically every step might mean death. And the difficulty level is intrinsic in achieving this - it’s not a very nice place to be, and surviving is really a feat on its own. It is sort of like a nightmare simulator, so walking about guessing alittle only serves to support this feeling of desolation. There is a story (and I think a damn good one), and you piece it together as you go, but it requires some effort. It is sort of told through the lore and you are given lots of clues, from NPCs, item descriptions or just the world itself, but you need to keep your eyes open and fit all the pieces together.

Hmm, I see now that DeepO basically said the same thing. But I really can't scrap my first post like this, so here goes!
 
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That's even better. I have a g700 mouse and try to map as many things to it as games allow. I typically use the 4 side buttons and the right left and middle buttons.

I'll probably pick it up this weekend and give it a try. I was going to let the price drop but that was before they delayed BGEE.

I have to say, looking back at the mousefix file...it only says you can bind the keys that I listed. So, if you want different actions to be bound there, it probably won't work unless the mod gets updated.
 
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I have to say, looking back at the mousefix file…it only says you can bind the keys that I listed. So, if you want different actions to be bound there, it probably won't work unless the mod gets updated.

No biggie. I'll just map want I can.
 
This is my first post here. I was playing this game with Keyboard and mouse also. I found that to be easier than using the controller. Maybe because I am a PC gamer and although I do have an Xbox 360, I rarely use it. The only real exception being that I played and finished Fallout 3 on the Xbox because I found it to be better than the PC version. The only game I can say that about so far, although I have not tried Dark Souls on Xbox yet.

I didn't know about the mouse fix and will be downloading it and trying the game again. The rez fix made a big difference as far as graphics is concerned. The problem for me with the keyboard and mouse was that the game seemed choppy when panning around. It looked good with the controller but I found it to be more awkward in combat than the keyboard and mouse. I thought it was a frame rate issue, but hopefully the mouse fix will resolve the issue for me.

The bigger issue with this game though is no save game. Not sure what the developers were thinking. Having to start back at the beginning of a level every time that you get killed trying to beat a difficult boss caused me to quit playing after about 20 hours. I will try the mouse fix but still won't be playing this much until someone mods in a save game, if that ever happens. I sort of wish that I hadn't spent $40 on the game. And that is a shame because the combat is really fun.
 
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Regarding the remapping of keys: You can always just use a keymapper like AutoHotkey to remap any key you want. It's pretty simple to use, and you can usually create a script to fit your needs in a few minutes.
 
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The bigger issue with this game though is no save game. Not sure what the developers were thinking.

It isn't a choice everyone will embrace but it's a fundamental part of the design. The difficulty is an inherent part of the concept, as is learning from your mistakes. Saving shortcuts that, because you don't have to bear any consequences - just rewind a few minutes to the last save and keep going.
 
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The problem for me with the keyboard and mouse was that the game seemed choppy when panning around. It looked good with the controller but I found it to be more awkward in combat than the keyboard and mouse. I thought it was a frame rate issue, but hopefully the mouse fix will resolve the issue for me.

The mousefix should take care of that. Because that sounds like my experience without the mousefix.
As mentioned in a past reply, the only small issue I can have is that the turn speed is not very fast with the mouse, though I am fine by having it at max speed in the settings ingame. I probably would have made it even faster if I was given the choice.

The bigger issue with this game though is no save game. Not sure what the developers were thinking. Having to start back at the beginning of a level every time that you get killed trying to beat a difficult boss caused me to quit playing after about 20 hours. I will try the mouse fix but still won't be playing this much until someone mods in a save game, if that ever happens. I sort of wish that I hadn't spent $40 on the game. And that is a shame because the combat is really fun.

As Dhruin mentioned above. That is intentional. And to me, that is the biggest factor in making the game as tense as it is.
That being said, I can deffinately see where you are comming from, because if the game would have had a save feature I would have used it alot and if the game had a difficulty slighter I would have turned that thing down.
But because it doesn't have those things it forces me to play on the game/developers' premise, which does give me an experience I otherwise wouldn't get. And for that I am happy that they haven't included those things.
 
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So glad it doesnt have a save feature that i can abuse to no end, it would make the game at lot less scary / immersive and i would care a _lot_ less about dying. I really dislike how forgiving games has become.

Very happy to see how many people love this game and the great reviews it recieves on PC. There's still hope for humanity it seems (outside the game, that is) ;)
 
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As mentioned in a past reply, the only small issue I can have is that the turn speed is not very fast with the mouse, though I am fine by having it at max speed in the settings ingame. I probably would have made it even faster if I was given the choice.

There is a 'Sensitivity' setting in the mousefix ini file, try increasing/decreasing it - I think that the default setting is 2, so try increasing this number.
 
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So glad it doesnt have a save feature that i can abuse to no end, it would make the game at lot less scary / immersive and i would care a _lot_ less about dying. I really dislike how forgiving games has become.

Same here. In fact, dying in this game is part of the gameplay/gameplay strategy that you have available. Dying to me means more practice, discovering new places and secrets, souls farming and leveling, and thinking what I want to do next.
 
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