DARK SOULS: if you need me i'll be in an induced coma so mvrch comes tomorrow

so that's seath taken out. easy if you have the cursebite ring; thanks for the warning!
catacomb exploration was SO satisfying, pinwheel was a pushover.
promptly fell to my death while starting toward the tomb of the giants.
I am feeling very close and ready.

I did Nito and Sif last night, both pretty fun fights

Sif selling the leg when he's down to his last sliver of health is some manly emotional tears shit imo

i kinda barely noticed; just whalin' on him

DONE

aw fuck i'm gonna have to juggle both games just to keep up aren't i

congrats!

forks you're almost there.

really enjoyed the final gauntlet of casually dispatching black knights so the game can show you how far you've come and then you close out with a battle against a formidable enemy who requires you to use all the skills you've accumulated so far but instead you just repeatedly stab him in the back while he fucks around chasing after solaire

http://arcanekids.com/ambientdarksouls

:)

whats this then

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/05/from-softwares-rumored-to-be-working-on-project-beast

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=812089

http://i.imgur.com/2NhiI9V.jpg

http://puu.sh/8wdsZ

http://puu.sh/8wdsg

looks like From's The Last Guardian

WHICH WOULD BE AWESOME

saw Peter Serafinowicz tweeting someting about this too, looks potentially awesome

Attention 360 owners who haven't played this yet: Dark Souls will be free on Games with Gold for the first two weeks in June.

so i've been going back to DS1 with a ninja + pyro character, just started the DLC portion. it's way easier in some ways ('cause i'm mad experienced now) and harder in others (i'm not as good at using a dex character with light armor and lower damage per hit).

also i fucked up the whole pyromancy thing. first, by killing the egg guy because i accidentally answered his question incorrectly and he wouldn't let me by. then later laurentius split town to go find quelaana, but she's not showing up for me because i never fully upgraded my pyromancy flame! so no vendors, no way to upgrade or buy more spells.

quelana supposedly can show up kind of randomly depending on things - http://www.fextralife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9894

oh interesting, i'll have to go back and check periodically. currently at level 55, post-ornstein & smough. i think she appeared in my original game when i wasn't a pyromancer at all, come to think of it.

felt pretty good about beating Artorias the other day. the dlc seems like it'll keep me occupied for quite some time.

manus is driving me crazy. i can get him to under half health, but need to learn the tells for his different magic attacks.

so close...

are u summoning canine help

nah, i found that just made him unpredictable, it was easier when he always faced me. i finally did it though! just had to get used to reacting with the pendant.

kalameeeeet

Picked this ( Dark Souls 1) up in the steam summer sale. Really enjoying it so far. Have no idea what's going on, and that seems to be the point.

welcome, you have the right mentality (although i don't think using the wikis hurts DS1, there are soooo many weird little things hidden throughout the game).

i beat kalameet and i've done pretty much everything except gwyn with this dex character, so i think i'm effectively done for a long time.

is this real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSCy4Bc0uMU

Had my first success w this last night! An external HD with all of my work on it needed recovery and necessitated an all-night session in front of the computer, just to make sure recovery was going well, so I enter Dark Souls at 2am and leave several hours later as the sun rises, having slain a whole lot of weak bad guys and one tough big monster. Amazing thing is I didn't really die all that much, once I stopped just rushing right up to monsters and began approaching w shield drawn. This really does feel like the modern version of Castlevania, like it is all about approaching with caution and sparring with each enemy.

2am is like the best possible time to start playing dark souls imo

like it is all about approaching with caution and sparring with each enemy.

you'll do just fine, no turning back now.

So yes the level design is amazing because all you really need to do to have good level design in an intelligent action game like this is just have the enemies all use simple AIs. The act of dodging blocking and anticipating attacks creates an architecture. Every time you die you learn to hone the primal instinctual approach to perfection. In little more than a bedroom-size cliffside porch made of ancient ruins, an architecture of dance take place.

I got sliced by a skeleton and he immediately took out a wine jug and had a big drink what a gangster

I start out flat-footed like a mechanical monkey drummer and become Nijinsky of Skeleton Coreography

i would not be sad if you liveblogged the rest of the game here. :)

Last night I purchased chain mail and oooooh i like that sound it makes when you walk! So soothing!

I've been exploring (dying over and over and getting a little farther each time) this one area for a while and decided to go back, where I stumbled onto some secret grove behind the ruins with a bunch of treasure chests. Scored a morning star! I like the level design more and more. Each area is very memorable, and it is a joy to not have to bring up a map all the time. The game is very immersive.

The game is also very difficult but it never feels unfair, each time you die you feel like you had all the tools, you just got greedy at one point. It's like throwing a perfect pitch in baseball, you must learn each step as muscle memory and execute it with Zen-like focus. Even if you perform all the correct steps you may not get the right outcome if your timing is off, so you and the game must be synchronized irt pacing and rhythm.

Crowd control is essential, as are light elements of stealth. For instance, running and jumping onto the roof of a fortress will get the attention of the 3 skeletons waiting with their back turned. If you simple walk up they don't hear your armor clinking until you can start a hard attack. You can begin with the upper hand if you are patient and observant.

I just got to the skeletons love how they rise up from the ground in pieces

umm, the skeletons in the graveyard?

The skeletons are kicking my ass! I guess blocking them is out of the question? I need to roll around more...

Keep in mind my mind is a little shot i've been up all night backing up data and playing this game mostly at 2-4am.

you may want to save that area for later. :)

Here's an example of great level design: I walk up to this archway and go inside, where I see in front of me is a wooden door I haven't seen before. I got up to it and try to open but it's locked. I turn around and behind me is a winding staircase leading upwards -- I must be in some tall tower! The staircase was surprising because it was out of view on the way in and I'm sure they did that on purpose. So cool.

Each area is very memorable, and it is a joy to not have to bring up a map all the time
― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, February 24, 2015 4:19 PM

the way the overall design reveals itself as you go along is the best part. and you get an internal map of it in your head eventually like old school games

btw if youre on pc theres a mod called 'dsfix' which gets rid of a lot of the pc ports problems https://github.com/PeterTh/dsfix

Thanks I will def check that out! Durante must be the same guy who unlocked the recent FFXIII port, he's a legend.

The game is also very difficult but it never feels unfair, each time you die you feel like you had all the tools, you just got greedy at one point.

the magic of dark souls in a nutshell!

watching youtubes of maniacs finishing the game at soul level one or without resting at a bonfire or whatever other insane restrictions they put on themselves really shows how perfectly put-together these games are.

the other thing i'll always love about dark souls is how tangible the effects of levelling up or switching gear are - your character immediately feels slightly different with higher endurance or heavier armour or a two-handed weapon instead of a one-handed one.

another thing i love: i've never once used magic in a souls game and i've never felt like i've been punished or restricted by choosing melee-only builds.

yeah even a single level-up can make the difference between repeated failure and success, it's so finely (in both senses of the word) calibrated. That combined with the Metroid-esque level design make it THE BEST GAME EVER

one of my great joys is seeing people go through this game for the first time.

Well at the moment I am not having much luck w the Taurus Demon. Looked up a video and watched someone attack it by climbing up the tower and doing a lunging attack, but I haven't had such luck.

http://az58332.vo.msecnd.net/e88dd2e9fff747f090c792316c22131c/Images/Products43910-1200x1200-357030.jpg

Dude I've been rolling into barrels like it's nobody's business.