Dark Souls - Hands-on @ RPS, Eurogamer

Pre-ordered the Steam version on GMG myself with a good 25% off deal. In fact the Steam version also includes the GFWL code which means that if you have the retail disk or data, you can use the code to activate the game without the Steam DRM.

One thing that I heard on forums that I liked about the game is that you have the option to grind to increase your stats and proceed well into the game, or rely on your combat skill to pass through. Option seems to be a feature in this game.

I would say the opposite, options seem to not be a feature in this game as there are hardly any.
 
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I would say the opposite, options seem to not be a feature in this game as there are hardly any.

Does this mean that you don't have the option of grinding or be combat proficient? What about character creation at the beginning, do you have different classes and does it make a difference?

Sorry for the basic questions, as I have not played this game before.
 
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Pre-ordered the Steam version on GMG myself with a good 25% off deal. In fact the Steam version also includes the GFWL code which means that if you have the retail disk or data, you can use the code to activate the game without the Steam DRM.

One thing that I heard on forums that I liked about the game is that you have the option to grind to increase your stats and proceed well into the game, or rely on your combat skill to pass through. Option seems to be a feature in this game.

Does this mean that you don't have the option of grinding or be combat proficient? What about character creation at the beginning, do you have different classes and does it make a difference?

Sorry for the basic questions, as I have not played this game before.

I am referring to the pc version and its lack of basic pc options as well as common game options such as difficulty setting. I would hope in game there would be "options" and that its not an on rail shooter.
 
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I am referring to the pc version and its lack of basic pc options as well as common game options such as difficulty setting. I would hope in game there would be "options" and that its not an on rail shooter.

There is something really strange about the way they did this port. How is it possible there are no options to adjust the resolution? I don't think I've ever played a game on PC without this.

Even older games might not have widescreen, or might need a patch to accommodate high resolution modern displays, but they always have at least some ability to customize the rendered resolution.
 
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There are definitely some games that I feel are much better off not having a difficulty setting. If the main point of a game is that it is brutally difficult, then I'm perfectly happy with it not having an easy mode.
 
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The game is absolutely not on-rails, you choose exactly where to go. And yes its better without difficulty settings.. you will obviously ruin the experience completely if you use hacks/cheats on PC.. I had no problems with the grinding in this game because the combat is actually really fun when you get the hang of it (which did take me a while).
 
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The game is absolutely not on-rails, you choose exactly where to go. And yes its better without difficulty settings.. you will obviously ruin the experience completely if you use hacks/cheats on PC.. I had no problems with the grinding in this game because the combat is actually really fun when you get the hang of it (which did take me a while).

How do you know that I will ruin the experience by using mods to change the difficulty(silly that is does not have an option in the first place, should just be a default in any game). I know what I like, from what I have read the game is not just about being hard, it has a cool world and atmosphere that is interesting to explore, good combat,etc.

Its bizarre how people care about how others play their games and options that don't affect them but may make a big difference to others. Of course its the same in real life where people care about what others do with there own time even when it does not affect them at all.
 
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There is something really strange about the way they did this port. How is it possible there are no options to adjust the resolution? I don't think I've ever played a game on PC without this.

Even older games might not have widescreen, or might need a patch to accommodate high resolution modern displays, but they always have at least some ability to customize the rendered resolution.

It's quite common, you can scale up or down, but the game maintains it's original internal resolution. That's why in some console ports doubling the resolution doesn't make a huge difference. There is not much point in implementing this kind of thing anyway because of low-res textures.
 
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How do you know that I will ruin the experience by using mods to change the difficulty(silly that is does not have an option in the first place, should just be a default in any game).

Funny how some people think they know exactly how a game plays or how it should be just because they've read a review or something. If you play the game you understand why it's balanced the way it is and why its without difficulty settings (it pissed me off too, but that was before i had actually gotten very far into the game). It wouldnt make sense to have it since so much effort has been put into balancing it just right and to get the atmosphere right.

But whatever, i don't give a shit how you play the game, just saying there's a reason why it's made this way.
 
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Yeah it's not really about caring about how other's play, people can use cheat codes to auto win every encounter for all I care. It's about sometimes prefering a game with just one perfectly tuned difficulty level, which I know represents the game exactly how the designers intended.
 
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It's quite common, you can scale up or down, but the game maintains it's original internal resolution. That's why in some console ports doubling the resolution doesn't make a huge difference. There is not much point in implementing this kind of thing anyway because of low-res textures.

It's common? Which other games are locked in this way? This is the first time I've heard of this sort of thing. It doesn't make any sense why they've included any resolution settings at all, since it sounds like you can choose 1600x900, 1280x720 or 1920x1080 and it will look exactly the same on a 1080p monitor.

As for the textures, I'd disagree. I've played plenty of games with crappy textures that still looked much better at native resolution.
 
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It'll not look exactly the same, it'll upscale using a filter, just like most console games do on your HD TV.
 
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It'll not look exactly the same, it'll upscale using a filter, just like most console games do on your HD TV.

Do you really believe it will look different setting it at, say 1600x900 or 1920x1080 with my 1080p monitor?

As far as I know, my video driver already upscales everything to 1920x1080, so I'm having trouble understanding the purpose of the different resolution settings if the rendering resolution is locked to 1024x720.

And you mentioned this is common, there are some other PC games that do the same thing? I don't recall coming across anything with a fixed resolution like this.
 
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The old final fantasy games that was ported to PC for example.

There is a reason for this, many japanese developers ( and others too ) first render the game image to a texture of a certain size, after that they apply post-processing effects to make it look much better than is possible using just GPU hardware in consoles. To optimize and so on they often hard-code the fixed size and take advantage of it in order to optimize performance.

If they were to remake this for the PC and make it completely dynamic it'd be a huge amount of work.

Many european and american game developers uses a engine such as unreal engine, or renderware or whatever for their games, in which case the engine will do the porting for them, making it much much easier to do PC ports. Thus you do not see that sort of thing as often anymore.
 
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Funny how some people think they know exactly how a game plays or how it should be just because they've read a review or something. If you play the game you understand why it's balanced the way it is and why its without difficulty settings (it pissed me off too, but that was before i had actually gotten very far into the game). It wouldnt make sense to have it since so much effort has been put into balancing it just right and to get the atmosphere right.

But whatever, i don't give a shit how you play the game, just saying there's a reason why it's made this way.

Difficulty setting is actually a huge weakness to a lot of modern games IMHO. It makes them unbalanced and not as intended unless you play on normal difficulty setting.

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness View Post
The old final fantasy games that was ported to PC for example.

Interesting, do you happen to know if modders came up with some sort of patch to fix it?

I don't know might be you can google it. Either way I'd play that game for the gameplay, not the graphics.
 
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I don't know might be you can google it. Either way I'd play that game for the gameplay, not the graphics.

Can't comment on the final fantasy games as I've never tried them, but in the case of Dark Souls, stretching out a 1024x720 image to my 1920x1080 display is going to look pretty horrible for any game. I've played Witcher 2 at 1280x720, and it looks like crap.

If there is an official patch to fix this at some point, or a mod that unlocks the res settings, I might consider picking it up, otherwise I'm going to pass on this one, especially considering the additional low frame rate problems and inconvenience of installing any GFWL game.
 
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Funny how some people think they know exactly how a game plays or how it should be just because they've read a review or something. If you play the game you understand why it's balanced the way it is and why its without difficulty settings (it pissed me off too, but that was before i had actually gotten very far into the game). It wouldnt make sense to have it since so much effort has been put into balancing it just right and to get the atmosphere right.

But whatever, i don't give a shit how you play the game, just saying there's a reason why it's made this way.

I know what I like and almost always mod every pc game I play, I can't recall a game I played that I did not want to mod in many ways. As for difficulty settings how would adding an easy mode hurt the game at all? The standard setting is how the devs intended it to be played, the others are for people that don't like dieing a dozens times to get past each area and would prefer dieing say half a dozen times or what ever else they prefer. If anything the game would be more popular as I have read about people being interested in the game for the atmosphere, combat, basic rpg elements etc but would turned off because it was too hard, if it was a little easier they would have liked it.

Difficulty settings, custom controls, etc should all be standard. Esp custom controls and Difficulty because some gamers are disabled and can't physically do certain things and could get stuck and not complete a game because of lack of custom control's and difficulty settings(or bypass settings like in some Mario games/L.A Noire).
 
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Difficulty settings can only be a part of the game if it's been built with that in mind from the ground and up. A good example is Alien vs Predator 1 where the devs put a lof of effort into balancing the game with very limited save points, you couldnt just save anywhere. This so that you would be on the edge of your seat at all times instead of saving before every corner and never really have any fear of dying.

A lot of people complained to the publisher because they (PC people are spoiled with 'easy mode') werent used to this in games. So eventually they got a patch that allowed them to save anywhere. But it's no longer the same game, the patch didn't add something to the game, it removed a large, fundamental portion of the gameplay.

Dark Souls is about dying, it's a big portion of the gameplay, you're supposed to both fear it and also often embrace it as a part of the gameplay, it really does require very careful tweaking and it just wouldnt be the same game in easy-mode, you'd have something else entirely.

But yes, i'm sure you will get your easy-mode mod. I'm just saying there's a reason why it's not built into the game and why such a thing will remove a big portion of the gameplay. I agree that mods are great, but only when they add something to the gameplay.
 
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Difficulty settings can only be a part of the game if it's been built with that in mind from the ground and up. A good example is Alien vs Predator 1 where the devs put a lof of effort into balancing the game with very limited save points, you couldnt just save anywhere. This so that you would be on the edge of your seat at all times instead of saving before every corner and never really have any fear of dying.

A lot of people complained to the publisher because they (PC people are spoiled with 'easy mode') werent used to this in games. So eventually they got a patch that allowed them to save anywhere. But it's no longer the same game, the patch didn't add something to the game, it removed a large, fundamental portion of the gameplay.

Dark Souls is about dying, it's a big portion of the gameplay, you're supposed to both fear it and also often embrace it as a part of the gameplay, it really does require very careful tweaking and it just wouldnt be the same game in easy-mode, you'd have something else entirely.

But yes, i'm sure you will get your easy-mode mod. I'm just saying there's a reason why it's not built into the game and why such a thing will remove a big portion of the gameplay. I agree that mods are great, but only when they add something to the gameplay.

By turning the game from something someone does not want(or can't physically play) to something they do want to play and enjoy is adding a whole other game to their catalog, that goes far above and beyond simply add gameplay. I don't care what the devs intend, sure playing the game for what it is makes sense. I would not mod the game before playing, just like with TES games I play them vanilla first then mod the game to what I want.

Other games I start modding almost from the beginning as they would not be playable to me otherwise(for example KoA was an example of this for me) and with the modding turns these into very enjoyable games, which I would not have liked because of a few critical flaws. While I have not played Dark Soul's based on reviews and previews I thought the game looked really cool but I know from experience I don't like hard games and hate like dying a lot. I understand that is part of the appeal, but simply change some numbers so your a little stronger can make the game still hard for me or hard for the disabled person but not impossible which would match the intent of the game.

And of course if even it did turn the game into something that was not intended, if it makes it more fun for the player more power to them.
 
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