05 Sep Dark Souls. Prepare to die Edition
The formula of the game
85% of the console version of Dark Souls
5% of hopes and petitions
5% new content
5% anger and discontent
After the release Dark Souls. Prepare To die Edition Just a little more than a week has passed, but there will already be enough reasons for the good old holivars for months to go ahead. There have been no such fertile soil for the eternal wars of consolers and personal workers since the time of unheated transfer Resident Evil 4 And Devil May Cry 3 . It would seem that one of the best games of the current generation of consoles finally reached the staff, and even with a weighty additional content Artorias of the Abyss, the most holiday. But even in this barrel with honey was not without poisonous bitterness.
For those who asked for hardcore
The history of porting Dark Souls on a PC began with a huge petition from fans with which Japanese developers and publisher, oddly enough, decided to agree. Only the game announced how jubilant players immediately started new piggy banks and began to postpone money. But then black days began – not very pleasant news fell one after another. It is worth paying tribute to Hidetak Miyazagi (head of the From Software Studio) – he decided not to hide skeletons in the closet and willingly shared information with the press. First, the developers complained about the lack of experience with a PC as a game platform, then a message appeared that the online component would be based on the Games For Windows Live hated by many service. And finally, fans “finished off” the news of a fixed screen resolution and FPS ceiling in 30 frames. Someone was upset due to the fact that his iron would not be involved in the fullest, shouted on the forums and spent the postponed on new cards for Battlefield 3, But true lovers of difficult tests accepted the challenge of Japanese developers.
For the latter, hardcore began with the first seconds of the game. It turned out that playing a PC version on the keyboard is almost impossible. The management prompts did not begin to adapt, leaving the designations from the Xbox 360 version, and with a dozen vital actions was scattered on the keys, like grains, abandoned with a careless hand. On the screens, meanwhile, the players saw a blurry picture in low resolution-an extra reason for network trolls to remember the console with a bad word (although everything is just beautiful and tidy on the consoles).
► Each puddle of blood is someone's ragged life. Most fell in the fight against management.
But on the consoles Dark Souls is far from simple. It forces the brain to work: here you have to understand the mechanics exclusively independently, collect the plot by bit, constantly study on your own and other people's mistakes and select tactics for every new enemy. The threshold of entry and was unusually high there. And, asks, what to do? Press Alt+F4 and do not remember more about the game? Or ..
The schedule was promptly corrected by the craftsmen – on the first day of the release, an amateur patch appeared, allowing to set the real resolution of the screen. And the problem of crooked management is solved in the most logical way – connecting the gamepad.
► So the game looks without a graphic fixation. ► And so – using modification.
This is important: Dark Souls works with the Xbox360 gamepad without any problems. PlayStation 3 controller owners can use the free Motioninjoy program to connect it to PC. The rest should take a closer look at the gamepads of a similar configuration. And the hardcores who decided to master the keyboard management sincerely want to express unlimited respect and wish for inexhaustible patience – it will be difficult.
Among other things, the PC version acquired Russian translation. However, the localization was performed by the technical language people who have their own alternative, __ view of things. For example, Hollow (a local analogue of undead – people who have lost their souls and devastated inside) became “hollow”, and trap (trap) called a trap, which are not in the game at all. Imagine a beginner in Dark Souls who read the hint: "Ahead of the trap". He will carefully move forward, looking for a hunting mechanism under his feet, and hefty cobblestone suddenly flies out to meet him. Well, at least dialogues with NPC are quite understandable – for the plot this is the most important thing, because conversations, in fact, are the only source of information about local mythology.
For those who still continue to read
The trouble is that from Software, obviously, did not quite understand what exactly the personal owners expect from them. But, fortunately, even despite the hacking transfer, there is almost no difference between the console and the PC versions, and in particularly saturated locations, where the game slowed down on consoles, PC-irregularization is even better.
But you will have to get used to the filling for a long time. No guidelines and chewing students – Dark Souls, like a huge leviathan, swallows a player on the move and tries to digest in his gloomy unfriendly womb. You will be able to accept the fact that the death of the protege is an integral part of the gameplay – you will enjoy the game. If, at the first time, meetings with bosses cause a feverish panic, and victories over them turn into a triumph of good luck, not a skill, then on a tenth race, when fussiness is replaced by composure and accurate calculation, impregnable colosses themselves become victims.
And this is the whole Dark Souls. Here you need to do everything yourself. All combat receptions are available from the first minutes, it remains only to learn how to competently dispose of them. There are no “machine guns” capable of pumping crowds of enemies, there are no supercostyes that turn the character into reinforced titanium. You can go through the game with any set of equipment, because the main weapon in Dark Souls is your personal experience.
An integral component of the game, as before, remains a multiplayer, a unique alloy of classic single passage and battles from Mmorpg. Initially, your character is an ugly dead man – "gentle". In this form, you can see on the ground the tips left by other players, but calling anyone to help, and your world will remain closed for invasion from the outside. But having returned to yourself the human form to any of the bonfires – control points, you can collect the squad on a rebellious boss, but then there will be a considerable chance of getting a rider from another player, without the demand of the passing into your passage.
In trouble, Dark Souls has no familiar invite system. You can invite someone to your world only by activating the label left by the fantom player. There are frequent situations when a broken hour is calling for the aid of Vasya from the next entrance, and the server steadily issues a connection error, while with the American John for this hour it is possible to run without problems five times five times.
► calling another player to the rescue, do not forget to greet his bow. Good manners here are held in high school.
Destroying legends
Talking about Dark Souls, it is customary to use the words “unbearable”, “rabies”, “hardcore”, and also give it under the guise of a game for elected with “iron nerves”. Either most players went out of at least some resistance in games, or the competent marketing of the publisher worked. But in the end, the image of a nightmare was fixed for Dark Souls.
Read more
But those who managed to find Nes, Sega Master System or Atari 7800 will easily see the old school legacy at Dark Souls. In those days to die and start the game from the very beginning was the norm. Remembering cards, dodging in time and finding the moment for a blow was just as important as to find a development guide on the Internet or choose a gun with maximum damage. We are slowly weaned to think and are increasingly thrown by products designed for the widest audience – from blind to armless. So it turned out that the player nourished by this system subconsciously continues to famously crush the buttons, hoping that at least one blow will fall into the target, and the hefty broadsword taken in both hands will solve all the problems. In Dark Souls, this system does not work. Pressing the impact buttons pointlessly, you will simply be wasting all endurance, after which the enemy will stun you with one poke.
The developers managed to create an excellent combat system in their accuracy, having mastered which the player said goodbye to one of the main errors – myth of the artificial pumping of opponents. Having learned to fend off enemy lunges or to perform strokes in the back, you can send two buttons to the misery of an ordinary enemy by pressing the ordinary enemy. And with the last patch, which has already been included in the PC version, the opponents in addition reduced the amount of health and increased the experience gained for them.
► It somehow becomes awkward when you understand after the battle that no one will believe you.
Another myth intimidates the player with the need for monotonous pumping on weak opponents. But if you play carefully, without fuss and select the souls lost at the death of the soul, there will be no problems with experience. “Farm” will have to only be purchased from rare things from merchants, but for sharpening weapons from the blacksmiths.
The most real danger in the game, oddly enough, is not monsters or even bosses, but other players. Here sometimes it is incredibly difficult. Dark phantoms invading your world are able to bring such a rustle that the final boss just die out of shame. Some jokers will run against you in loincloths, and you can’t do anything – there is not enough skills. Others will try to “freeze” you with only shields … to choose tactics for such originals is much more difficult than to any monster in the game. However, there will be a way out. Nothing prevents the game in the form of a “hollow”, which will exclude any attempts to invade. Or call for help from other players and together or three to wait for an annoying guest.
Of course, Dark Souls is not at all like a summer walk. This is really hardcore, but not sucked from a finger, but competent and honest. You always understand why he died. Somewhere there were not enough skills, somewhere-knowledge. And everyone who has already passed the game will be able to tell you his own victory recipe. Because we all learn differently.
► To get rid of the fear of darkness, you will have to meet her face to face.
For those who were not enough
Even on the eve of Dark Souls's exit on Hidetak consoles, Miyazagi said that there was nothing to count on DLC, and if additional content will appear by some miracle, it will be free. Everything turned out to be exactly the opposite. A year later, DLC first went to the PC with the computer version, and in the near future it will become accessible to the owners of consoles for bloody earned.
And, of course, Japanese developers would not be themselves if they had not done everything in their own way. Even an experienced player can simply wait for a new plot branch. This is not Mass Effect And no Skyrim , which signal the player about additional content. No one will bring you a letter with the coordinates, you will not find any new NPCs who will take you to the handle on a hidden path. Just one new enemy in a huge world from which an inconspicuous amulet will fall. But you still need to guess what to do with it!
Artorias of the Abyss First of all, designed for experienced travelers. A low -level character will not be able to get into additional locations, and the first boss to meet the player right on the threshold, with his pressure and rage will make you think three times: “Or maybe even a bit to grow up?"
► The battle has just begun, but we no longer have more than half of health. And the rest is slowly eliminated under the influence of the poison. ► The appearance of the knight of the arties, the main protagonist of the addition, is like a small interlude to your inevitable and painful death.
In addition to unknown locations that challenge your experience, the addition will offer a set of fresh spells, sets of armor and weapons (and these are not just new models in the hands of the character – each weapon has its own unique battle style) and several interesting objects). So, for example, talking stones appeared. If earlier it turned out to communicate with the partner in online only with gestures, now you can throw the desired pebble to the ground, which, having scattered into the fragments, will bargain a short phrase: “Help Me” or “Great Job”.
In addition, the developers added two arenas for PVP-boys, with several modes: one on one, the team duel and the battle to death, in which each player fights for himself. Now part of the bona fide players, who, first of all, was interested in fighting a living adversary, will finally stop invading other people's worlds and will leave ordinary travelers alone.
► Here it is – local Colosseum. Each bonfire leads to its arena, and the names of the best of the best are captured on the wall.
* * *
Just as the legends of the unprecedented complexity of Dark Souls grew and accumulated at one time, and angry reviews about its non -frauding consoles, the curvature of Japanese developers and obscurantism, blooming on widespread monitors, will multiply and. Many forgot that Dark Souls. Prepare to die Edition did not ask for a visit. From Software made concessions, which the studios may now come out. Is it worth it and players to show a little patience for the sake of one of the best games of the current generation of consoles? Honestly, putting aside the keyboard and the mouse is not the biggest victim. A good gamepad will never be superfluous.
Play, gentlemen. Brush the darkness and glorify the sun!
Pleased
Sharped
- All the same hardcore gameplay
- New weapons, magic and bosses
- The queen of sunlight is still beautiful
- terrible transfer with consoles
- There is no direct invite in multiplayer
- The appearance of the first cheat programs
The main ratings
10/10
Gameplay
6/10
Graphics
2/10
Interface and management
10/10
Sound and music
"Achivka" of the editorial office
Captain Positive
Continue to think positively, no matter what
Special ratings
1/10
The quality of the transfer
It is difficult to imagine how management might look, I have from from Software with great attention to the keyboard and mouse. What colors would the environment began to play, add high resolution texture developers. No matter how we want to embellish the realities – play Dark Souls on PC “How is” is not easy.
10/10
Gloom and hopelessness in the lordran
Dark nooks lorms and gloomy catacombs, coupled with symphonic music, create an unprecedented atmosphere of defenselessness and doom.
Verdict
Site assessment
9.0
GREAT
From Software did everything to scare away the potential buyer. But those who nevertheless risk testing themselves for strength will open with a gloomy sandbox for adults, with endless possibilities to test their dexterity and quick wits. Even despite the frankly bad transfer, Dark Souls remains the best in his class.
No Comments