Dark Souls Review/News

[hoofhearted4]

Your ps3 controller would work perfectly well with Dark Souls- you'd just need to download the free Motioninjoy software. That's what I did- and the controls are now identical to the ps3 version of the game. (Which I also played.) As for performance- the ps3 and pc version are both capped at the same frame rate, but modded to superior graphics, my pc never gets slowdown when running Dark Souls, whereas the ps3 version at times (Blighttown and some parts in the New Londo Ruins) drops into single digit frame rates. I don't have that great of a pc, either- I spent $600 on it. My video card is an amd 6770, and it is only ever under 55% load while running Dark Souls. My cpu is an Athlon II 3.2 ghz 6-core, and it's only under 30% load. (Though, since Dark Souls only uses about 2 cpu cores, it's probably close to maxing the relevant two 3.2 ghz cores.)

 

Though, since you don't have a desktop atm, your position makes a lot more sense.

 

youre not hearing me correctly. i do not want to use a gamepad for my PC. if a game sucks with a keyboard and mouse, and it NEEDS a controller to be played (a la Dark Souls) then im just gunna play it on my PS3.

 

im not insulting the game. im aware of how good the game is (though Demons Souls is better, and i do not agree with the "Dark Souls is the best RPG ever" comments) im saying that FROM did a horrible job porting it and thats what the game should be rated on. the quality on which is can be played natively. basically people are admitting that the port is bad and it needs mods to be a worth while game on the PC, but they are ok with it and FROM did a good job. which they didnt. the port is bad quality. the fact it shows icons for a controller when one isnt plugged in shows how lazy and uncaring they were. the fact it wasnt even optimized for PC. the fact someone had to mod it to make it worthwhile is pathetic. he did it in a day, why couldnt FROM take a day to do what he did?

 

as ive said, i like the game. ill get the DLC. ill get the next in the series. but FROM did a crap job on this port and it should be recognized, but instead everyone is so fanboy over this game they think its ok that the port is crap and as such, this could happen next time as well. if people would be stern on it, and tell FROM it was crap instead of saying its ok, your fans modded it for you, then perhaps they would do better on the next one, we know they listen to their fans obviously, but if they think that this port was good, then thats what they will do again and again.

[Aegrus]

If something like that happens and I fix it I'll let you know. Currently it's perfect.

 

It's all good- I fixed it. Turns out I had my game set to 16 bit. :unsure: Set it to 32 bit, looks fine now. :thumbsup:

[Halororor]

youre not hearing me correctly. i do not want to use a gamepad for my PC. if a game sucks with a keyboard and mouse, and it NEEDS a controller to be played (a la Dark Souls) then im just gunna play it on my PS3.

 

im not insulting the game. im aware of how good the game is (though Demons Souls is better, and i do not agree with the "Dark Souls is the best RPG ever" comments) im saying that FROM did a horrible job porting it and thats what the game should be rated on. the quality on which is can be played natively. basically people are admitting that the port is bad and it needs mods to be a worth while game on the PC, but they are ok with it and FROM did a good job. which they didnt. the port is bad quality. the fact it shows icons for a controller when one isnt plugged in shows how lazy and uncaring they were. the fact it wasnt even optimized for PC. the fact someone had to mod it to make it worthwhile is pathetic. he did it in a day, why couldnt FROM take a day to do what he did?

 

as ive said, i like the game. ill get the DLC. ill get the next in the series. but FROM did a crap job on this port and it should be recognized, but instead everyone is so fanboy over this game they think its ok that the port is crap and as such, this could happen next time as well. if people would be stern on it, and tell FROM it was crap instead of saying its ok, your fans modded it for you, then perhaps they would do better on the next one, we know they listen to their fans obviously, but if they think that this port was good, then thats what they will do again and again.

 

I agree with you 100%. A bad port cannot be excused on the basis that it is a good game.

 

I won't be buying this until it goes for under $10 on Steam. Not going to pay $40 for a hackjob port.

[Rennn]

Just a quick tip: it looks like GFWL has been deleting a few Dark Souls saves. Back up your save(s).

 

I'm going to give Dark Souls a pass. Here's my reasoning:

Skyrim is a **** port. The UI started out broken, the graphics are bad, the performance is bad, they cut spellmaking, they removed shortswords etc. Skyrim gets a free pass because of the mods, why not Dark Souls?

I don't know if anybody can say with a straight face that Skyrim got an 8.1 user score just based on the vanilla game with no mods considered. I mean, you had to aim your cursor up and to the left of the actual UI listing you wanted to select. And the font was made for 480p and 720p resolutions. The CK is still buggy as hell and released months late. The 360 even got Dawnguard first. Wtf? I don't direct this at anyone here, but I'm getting tired of hearing people talk about Skyrim like it's the best port in the world when it's really one of the worst. Dark Souls is even optimized way better than Skyrim. At 1080p on ultra with 8x AA and 16x AF for both games, Dark Souls easily beats Skyrim's lightly modded graphics and gives me higher framerates consistently. Mods save Skyrim and mods save Dark Souls, but hardly anyone is complaining like this about Skyrim. I only bring Skyrim up this heavily because I had really high hopes for it, and I still expect it to be an amazing game with a few dozen more mods and fixes added, but it's far more with mods than without and the reviews always take mods into account for ES games.

 

People keep telling me not to buy these "shitty ports" like Dark Souls, but then what do we really have? Crysis from 2008? The Witcher 2 is so poorly optimized it's laughable (though by most accounts it's a great game, I'm just commenting on programming finesse). Diablo 3 looks like it's from 2002 and kicks you from your single player game for inactivity. Battefield 3 and ME3 ship with Origin. SWBF 3 has been cancelled, Tera is just a WoW clone, SWTOR flopped, Rift is an even bigger WoW clone. Darksiders 2 is one of the worst ports I've ever seen, with fewer graphical options and worse graphics than Dark Souls. Dead Island was pretty much exactly the 360 version with a direct port. Valve can't count to 3 in any of their series, which is really too bad because they make awesome, well optimized games. What new AAA games haven't been crippled yet by DRM or bad porting? It's a sad state of affairs when we have to depend on mods to fix almost all our games, but mostly, we do. Dark Souls isn't unique in that regard, though it has become the perfect scapegoat for all the port hate, considering half of Metacritic is on a crusade to create multies and give Dark Souls 0s with reckless abandon.

 

Btw, I agree with many of Hoofhearted's points. I can safely say that Dark Souls is a **** port without saying it's anything but a great game. I already had spare gamepads, a pre-existing install of Motion Joy, and I was already planning on getting a 1080p mod prior to release. If you weren't into modding, or if you didn't already happen to own the peripherals I can easily see how the flaws are inexcusable for many people. I can see why people want to teach FROM not to make such awful ports, but it was their first attempt. Companies like Ubisoft install malware in their software, and AC3 is far from their first PC game. From did as much as they could (even throwing in rebindable keys at the last minute), considering Namco was shoving a deadline down their throat despite From's complete lack of experience in how PC games work. Consider again that this was made from a petition, which is amazing on its own. And would From really extend the Demon's Souls servers yet again if they weren't dedicated to their fans? EA takes some games offline after a month or two, by comparison. Demon's Souls is a niche hit and the servers are still up and fairly active, so what does that say about From? Dark Souls is a great game, and a bad port, but most PC games now are bad ports. If we're going to cut modded fixes from the reviews, we may as well give most of the the AAA titles 5/10 or lower on port quality alone. If we're going to cut all mods from our reviews and complain about DRM as if it's the devs fault instead of the publisher's, I'd better go back and rate the Killing Floor a 6 (thousands of modded maps ftw), Skyrim a 7, and BF3 a 1 (for almost destroying Windows 7 with Origin corruption). I'm going to go ahead and give Country Justice: Revenge of the Rednecks the hallowed score of absolute 0. (Trust me, it's far worse than the title sounds :facepalm: )

 

I can confirm, however, that Dark Soul's online has virtually no lag (maybe ~0.1 seconds?), which is a huge improvement over the ~1.5 seconds of lag when online on the PS3 version.

Edited August 27, 2012 by Rennn

[hector530]

^^^ really sounds like another fan boy comment "dark souls is optimized better then skyrim" yep 30 fps lock and there still will be times when that fps will drop even on a 500 dollar plus card. While skyrim since launch on NaVida cards have seen an improvement about 100% fps also "press start" while no gamepad is connected only port I've played worse then dark souls is the steam release of dead island as that game was shipped being a debugged 360 version.

 

Also Diablo3 isn't a port it's just a so-so game. Bf3 is great running game. Witcher did run like crap but after a patch it ran like a dream. dark souls on the other hand won't get the support like skyrim and witcher did.

Edited August 27, 2012 by hector530

[hoofhearted4]

first off, everyone knows Bethesdas games come out with Bugs. and people to complain. and sometimes their scores do reflect it in reviews. but also, their games are designed to be modded, even to the extreme. Dark Souls isnt. the only reason it was modded was because it was on PC. its not like FROM is handing out an SDK and tutorials or anything. therefore, modding shouldnt be taken into consideration when reviewing the game.

 

even in games that are designed to be modded like FallOut or Skyrim, the fact that bugs could be fixed via modding shouldnt add to their scores. i do think all games should be rated based on vanilla game play. if a game has the potential to be modded, by all means mention it, but dont raise the games score because it could all be fixed. the fact that many devs seems to have become lazier thanks to modding is no stranger to debate. but reviewers like IGN and such dont always pick apart AAA titles when they should be. if the game has potential if it sees patching and modding, like i said, mention it. but i also want to know how the game is vanilla, because thats what matters first and foremost. it would be a far stretch to think devs would put more time in to their work if their games got low ratings because the vanilla game sucked, but it couldnt hurt to try.

 

congrats to FROM for making a great game/series. congrats to them for listening to fans, extending servers, porting a game from a petition. i hope they continue this devotion in the future. i will always keep an eye out for anything with their name on it. however, as ive said, that doesnt take away from the fact the port isnt good. also its not quite their first venture onto the PC. Kings Field and an SDK for that game are on the PC, so theyve messed with PCs before, albeit still not very much. there is a reason some reviewers review games per platform. sometimes they are better on some then others. Dark Souls is a great game. on Ps3 its great. on 360 its almost as good (ive heard its not quite as good, but idk first hand) and unfortunately on PC its not as great. the game is great, just not the version for that platform.

[K00L]

I just think its silly that so many people complain when FROM said they don't have experience with PC. I agree that the controls for the mouse and keyboard are whack, that's why I use my 360 controller. They definitely could have at least changed the buttons in the UI to match keyboard keys. I honestly didn't even think it looked that bad, so I didn't understand the resolution complaints. I did look at the pictures of the before and after with the fix, but mine looked fine without it.

The only problem I have is that it often runs like its in slow motion. Controls and graphics are completely fine with me, as I've seen much worse. But the frame rate issue makes it slightly difficult to play, and it likes to kick you from online play because of that. Still fun, even if it wasn't the best port, but certainly shouldn't be considered the best game on the PC even if it does deserve some slack.

 

I have to say, if Skyrim didn't come out on the PC I wouldn't have got it. And I agree somethings Renn said.

The UI started out broken, the graphics are bad, the performance is bad, they cut spellmaking, they removed shortswords etc. Skyrim gets a free pass because of the mods

This is just a few reasons I don't like Skyrim. The UI was awful at first, I absolutely hated it. It was completely frustrating. There are a lot of things that look horrible for no reason, like the big stumps of trees. It seriously looked like it was only three colors, which doesn't look good. I can't believe spellmaking is gone, I almost forgot that we had that in the old Elder Scrolls until last night. The performance is really weird, it just runs bad in some places for no reason. I have always lagged in Riften, no matter what. And my computer isn't that bad of computer. I run Skyrim on Ultra and have no lag in other places. But pretty much all of these things are fixed by mods.

most PC games now are bad ports.

This. Just explains everything. Everyone loves the consoles now. The PC community is honestly shrinking. Companies aren't going to care if a small part of their fanbase are unhappy because now all that matters are the consoles.

 

And reviews by big reviewing places are always crap, IMO. I saw IGN complain about a game having 2D flowers once. I believe that it was a Brothers in Arms game. And we all know that the game companies "encourage" reviewers with nice little trinkets.

Edited August 27, 2012 by K00L

[hoofhearted4]

This. Just explains everything. Everyone loves the consoles now. The PC community is honestly shrinking. Companies aren't going to care if a small part of their fanbase are unhappy because now all that matters are the consoles.

 

this and Devs just think the PC community will mod it all out anyways so why bother.

 

its almost like modding is a double edge sword. in one hand it makes many games either enjoyable or more enjoyable adding content, fixes, patches, etc. on the other hand, its almost like Devs see modding capabilities and just assume that where ever they slack, modders will fix it up, hence they slack more and more in games. modding is a blessing and a curse to the PC community.

[K00L]

this and Devs just think the PC community will mod it all out anyways so why bother.

 

its almost like modding is a double edge sword. in one hand it makes many games either enjoyable or more enjoyable adding content, fixes, patches, etc. on the other hand, its almost like Devs see modding capabilities and just assume that where ever they slack, modders will fix it up, hence they slack more and more in games. modding is a blessing and a curse to the PC community.

Yeah. I completely agree. I mean it sounds like we are just bashing on developers but its really true and pretty much everyone sees it, except for the people who are extreme fans of things. I absolutely love Bioware and its games, including Dragon Age 2, but in particular DA2 felt more console based (Really doesn't bother me, the only thing with that game was the lack of distinct maps). And I know its like that because they focused it more on consoles.

[hector530]

so......

 

anyone know how to get to the new area?