Comes out today. Personally it's been one of my most anticipated games of the year, cause I loved Demon's Souls. Looks like the reviews have been generally good, and it sounds like they got even more sadistic with it this time around.

Going to be a slow day at work today...

How was your experience with Dark Souls, Darth?

Mine was pretty damn brutal. Played for about 6 hours and managed to kill only two bosses including the tutorial boss. I spent a good hour banging my head on the third boss in the end.

I consider myself a semi-professional when it comes to Demon's Souls. I'm loving the new challenge this game poses. Threat really comes from all sides here, and its a real treat. The game's handing death like candy on halloween, and its every bit as sweet.

Couldn't sleep last night thinking of strategies to beat the third boss.

Then at launch, I gave it what for!

I beat the Taurus Demon (I think that's the third boss) last night, then immediately afterwards got way too cocky. My strategy for him involved climbing the tower, jumping off and doing the fall attack on him, running like a little girl back to the ladder, and doing the same thing over again until he died. Right after that fight, there's a bridge with 3 guys on it, which should be a pretty easy fight, so I go charge in to attack them.... Next thing I know, "OH ****, A DRAGON!" That's when I quit playing for the night.

Yeah, I'm loving it.

Taurus is considered to be the second boss, I believe!

And ya, I used a similar tactic on the Taurus. Went up there twice, then closed my eyes and swung like a madman while screaming in terror.

If you need any info, darksouls.wikidot.com is slowly taking form. Its a little rough right now, a lot of people are posting and not really bothing with syntax, but a bunch of us are trying to keep things clean. XD

Got my 5th boss down tonight. This game really gets my blood pumping like no other. I usually can play games nonstop all day, but 3 hours of Dark Souls is exhausting as all hells.

YES! How awesome is a game when you have to actually figure out what you have to do without being blatantly told outright.

Too bad its a ps3 exclusive....

BUT the new one is also for 360 ( i think/hope )

One of the few times I wish I had a ps3

The other times? MGS4, Heavy Rain, and Uncharted.

Ive never even played Uncharted and im not sure if id like it, but the buzz surrounding the game coupled with the awesome graphics and (supposed) awesome story line, make it a possable win for me. Hanvt you ever wanted to be indy jones? Now you can! Or so they said...

Xas: Dark Souls is indeed available for the ps3 and xbox 360

Demon's Souls was one of the main factors when I bought my ps3

Could someone answer just how hard Demon's Soul is without hyperbole? Could you compare it to another game/difficulty?

I've been thinking about picking something like that up forever, but I really do worry that I would just get so damn frustrated and would just end up shelving it. One of the more frustrating game/difficulties I've beaten was God of War 3 on Chaos mode, so if it's light years above that, I don't know if I could handle it.

It's hard, but it's only really frustrating if you try to do too much too quickly. If you're patient and take your time, you'll do better. You'll probably die a lot in the beginning, but as you get farther into it, you get much better at learning the patterns of enemies and how to fight them while taking little or no damage. The boss fights are probably the most frustrating part as you progress, because they can still be pretty hard sometimes even if you're very strong and adept at killing the smaller enemies.

I don't know what games I'd compare it to though. Some people like to call it "old school Nintendo hard," but I really think that's incorrect. Old school Nintendo games where you had limited lives and no saving were much harder than Demon's Souls. It's unforgiving, yes, but the punishment for death isn't that bad, you just lose unspent souls (which can be picked back up if you make it back to where you died without dying again).

I had a blast with Demon's Souls for the short time I devoted to it. I"ve never played a game that kicked my ass and I thoroughly enjoyed. That's kinda... wrong, isn't it? Anyway, I want to play Dark Souls. Looks like fun.

I don't think there's a game I can really compare Demon's Souls to in terms of difficulty.

Its really a learning game. The difficulty lies in the high damage most enemies do, and the possibility to get overwhelmed. Even the weakest of enemies can kill you in a matter of strikes unless you pump a lot of stats in your vitality (hp). Its a matter of relearning how to play. In God of War, for example, you keep enemies at bay by being aggressive and letting the blades fly. Dark Souls is the complete opposite. You have to be patient. Cunning. You have to keep your shield up, study your enemy's pattern and swing through the openings. Open yourself to an attack and you're likely to become dead meat.

Another factor for its infamous difficulty is that when you die, you lose all the Souls (experience) you have gathered and a commodity known as Humanity, which allows you to regain your human form and kindle bonfires (check points). You get one chance to fight your way back to the place you died and regain your power, but if you die again on the way there, what you lost is gone permanently. This can be brutal when you're on cusp of leveling, or have saved up 10-12 humanity, and lose it all. And more often than not, fighting your way back to your lost souls lands you bad in the twisted claws of whatever killed you.

There are a lot of traps and pitfalls in the world that can kill you off in one surprising swipe, too.

In the end its a game of patience and cunning. Forget twitch reflexes. Its all about focus, deduction and applying your knowledge.

Once you get the hang of combat, you will rarely die mid-level. You might get caught offguard a few times, but in general, you'll do great. Its bosses that can be a *****. Even with high vitality, some bosses can drop you in one or two hits. Again, its learning patterns, but you may well die 10 times before you're comfortable with the strategy.

I'm planning on picking up Dark Souls today. I never got all that far into Demon's Souls, although I loved the game.

Also does spears+magic make the early game easymode like in Demon's Souls?

Don't know, only magic I have right now is the Heal spell, and I've only been using swords (mostly the Drake Sword since it's the strongest early game weapon once you get it).

I've gotten decently far I guess. Level 28 now, rang one of the bells, killed quite a few bosses at this point (last one was the Gaping Dragon).

Magic's been nerfed from what I read as you have a limited number of times you can cast it as oppose to a MP meter. My copy should arrive some time early next week. Apparently this game is selling really well or just a limited number of copies are made.

**** Blighttown. It's a more annoying version of World 5 from Demon's Souls (which was a pain to begin with), but that's not the worst part. The worst part is that there are portions of the area where it's trying to render way too much and the framerate is just atrocious. Makes it way more difficult than it should be.

Demon's Souls had framerate issues and it's much worse in Dark Souls.

Got the game today. Started as Pyromancer. Bought a kite shield from the merchant in Undeadburg for 100% damage reduction. Also found a spear and a battleaxe. Really interested in using the spear, but I can't roll fast enough with it. I guess I have to upgrade Endurance. Just killed the first boss, too.

There are definitely framerate hiccups in certain places like there were in Demon's Souls, and you get used to those. Blighttown, though, has spots where the framerate regularly plummets into the 10 FPS or less range. It's pretty bad.

Well I finally beat the game last night after 66 hours of gameplay.

And immediatly started a new character.

The devs have announced that a new patch is coming to fix some broken items and spells like the Fog Ring that were ruining PvP. They are also retuning and improving the summoning/invading requirements. All around, should help the game's multiplayer aspect. I'd pretty much given up on PvP because of that ****ing Fog Ring.

language warning.
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUGxY_b00Y

n[/URL]ope. I'll wait for skyrim.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I realize the video was humorous, but that shouldn't turn you away from Dark Souls. The way he was playing was like running around pressing the use key on enemies in an FPS. He picked the worst character class with no armor and the worst equipment, never used healing items and spent most of the time trying to parry arrows being shot at him.

I personally never rage at the game. Every death is a lesson even if that lesson is "I need to improve my stats and equipment before doing this area." It's all about approach and attitude. You have to play by the game's rules. I will get pissed off at games like CoD because you'll die from bull**** even if you're playing by the game's rules.

I've finally been looking into covenants and playing with people online. Its better than ever before. I joined the Warriors of the Sun covenant and have helped like 20-30 people in the last two nights.

i spent an hour or so yesterday watching all the boss fights on youtube. Cool cool.