One of the greatest games of recent years makes its way to the PC with Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition.
Last year, Dark Souls was released on consoles. A towering achievement, its treacherous, interconnected realms offered some of the most absorbing exploration a game has ever conjured, and its intense and grueling combat made victory against even the most common enemies a source of gratification and relief. Now, this masterpiece has made its way to PC as the aptly titled Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition. This version adds a few new areas, improves on the console versions in one sense, and falls a bit short of its console counterparts in another. But ultimately, this is the same incredible game that was released on consoles, and if you didn't have the option to play it then, you definitely shouldn't let this opportunity go unseized.
You are undead, struggling to fight your way through the realms of Lordran on a quest whose final purpose is anything but clear. Where many games burden you with plot and background lore, Dark Souls lets the places you go tell their own kind of story, one lost in time and shrouded in mystery. The stone ruins at Firelink Shrine, the overrun town known as the Undead Burg, the vast marble halls of Anor Londo--these all speak of a once-prosperous realm rich with history, and rather than spelling it out in detail, Dark Souls lets you wonder about what has dragged this land into its current state of miserable disrepair. Item descriptions and brief conversations with non-player characters occasionally illuminate the smallest aspects of Lordran's past, and over time, you may piece together a reasonably fleshed-out picture of the crisis that has befallen the land. But you needn't concern yourself with these details if they don't interest you. The wondrous realms of Lordran are sure to seduce you whether you care to know their history or not.
Darkroot Garden is so oppressively green that you can almost feel the air get warm and muggy around you. Running along the surreal shores of Ash Lake is like stepping into a dream. Locations like Anor Londo and the duke's archives fuse faded opulence with grand machinery in a way that's reminiscent of locations in the classic adventure game Myst, and like the realms of that game, these places have a way of staying in your head even when you're not playing. Terrific sound design is a huge factor in Dark Souls' ability to pull you in. Your steps echo convincingly in vast chambers. A heavy suit of armor clangs with every step you take. The strange noises a feared creature makes may send shivers up your spine before you even lay eyes on it.
From almost your earliest steps in this dangerous world, you're beset by enemies, and you quickly learn to never let your guard down. Even the most common and clumsy enemies you encounter have attacks that can make short work of you if you're not careful. Melee combat is straightforward; there are no elaborate combos to learn, and Dark Souls certainly doesn't need them. With the small assortment of attacks, blocks, parries, and evasive maneuvers at your disposal, the combat in Dark Souls becomes a deadly dance in which each of your strikes that hits its target is a small victory and each potentially devastating attack from an enemy that you narrowly evade offers a new lease on life. Just be aware that poorly implemented mouse and keyboard support makes playing the game that way much too unwieldy; the game demands a controller.
Each new area brings with it challenging new enemies, as varied and memorable in their designs as they are in their techniques. Huge knights slumber in a forest, slowly and menacingly getting to their feet when you draw near. In the painted world of Ariamis, foul abominations with repulsive toxic sacs around their heads threaten to poison you when you deliver the killing blow. And you won't soon forget the first time you're cursed by the big-eyed basilisks of the depths, as your body becomes covered in a crystalline growth and you freeze in a pained gesture as death takes you.
There's a wide variety of weapons to acquire and use, with each type offering a different fighting style. (Some swords are for swinging, and others are for thrusting, for example.) There's also a good assortment of weapon enhancement options. As you progress and collect crafting items, you find that you can have a blacksmith make your weapons more powerful, and eventually imbue them with effects like lightning or fire. Finding a better weapon or making your existing weapon more powerful isn't just a matter of added convenience; it can be the difference between survival and failure. And if you prefer to keep your distance from foes, bows and a diverse assortment of magic spells can be very effective, though you still need to frequently tangle with enemies in intense, close-quarters battles.
The stakes can be high as you venture through Dark Souls, making your determination to survive and persevere that much greater. As you vanquish enemies, you collect souls, which can be spent to level up your character, or to purchase items and services from the few blacksmiths and merchants eking out an existence in certain corners of the world. These souls are a precious commodity indeed, and should you fall in battle (and you will), your souls fall with you. However, all is not immediately lost. If, in your next life, you can make it back to the spot of your previous demise and touch your bloodstain, you regain the souls you had acquired. Perish again without recovering them, however, and they disappear forever. It's a crushing feeling to die, knowing that it means the permanent loss of a significant number of hard-earned souls, but it's precisely that danger that makes the struggle to stay alive so exciting.
Carolyn Petit has been reading GameSpot since 2000 and writing for it since 2008. She has a particular fondness for games of the 1980s, and intends to leave the field of games journalism as soon as she hears that her local Ghostbusters franchise is hiring.
Not sure why people say this game is broken and you have to have patches/mods on the PC version. I've been playing the game without having any of the mods or patches and it works fine. Heck I even played the game with the PC controls and they worked fine. Idk maybe they fixed this later on, or maybe most of the people who are having issues just suck at the game, or maybe they haven't even tried it?
i wanted to like this so much.....but 100 hrs plus then add some more onto that...its to broken man....9.5.....Gamespot get with it....You should have maybe mentioned how much it needs to patched, controller issues, performance issues..its not optimized.the mechanics are broken, massive difficulty curve, i love a challenge but this holy crap...such a shame
Using a drake sword and the standart knight shield, i starting to think she didnt add any offensive stats and only adding vitality
2 Like Everyone keeps saying that the game is total crap on PC. I wonder how many of those people actually played it... I have about 60 hours played on the Xbox version and about 35 hours played on the PC version. I installed the DSfix mod (which is widely known as being the first thing to do when you get the PC version) and high resolution text mods before starting and I've never had a single problem. The game runs BETTER on my PC than it did on my Xbox, running at 60 fps 1080p instead of 30 fps 720p. For reference, my GPU is a GTX 560 Ti. Anyone who instantly says the game is total crap on PC either never tried it or doesn't have a decent gaming rig.
1 Like Awesome Awesome Awesome game. It reminds me of Myst, but with epic fantasy style combat! The controls were super wonky at first. And it doesn't help that the game is notoriously HARD... but please give it a chance to break in. Also, the controls are completely customizable which helps a ton to make keys more convenient to hit. Once your rolling, prepare to enjoy this challenging D&D-esque game that imo is a healthy cross between god of war and skyrim (with a wayyyyyy better storyline obviously)
"Keyboard and mouse are unwieldy", controller not really optional... well what the HECK! If I wanted a flipping console game, I would buy a console.
1 Like Oh, btw too. I don't know how Gamespot lists a game as Single Player or Multi Player but Steam at least gave DS:PtDE both single and multiplayer ratings. You should know that even if you thing you are playing the game single player if your character state is Human and you are 'online' you can be attacked by PvP foes. To avoid the multi player PvP foes you can either keep your PC dead (Hollowed) or force GFWL to log you on 'offline' by physically disconnecting from the Internet. Imho this game is _not_ single player--it is multiplayer online only with this PvP element unless you stick to one of the trick methods mentioned above. Have fun...
Gamespot should reevaluate this review of DS:PtDE and give it a 7.0. Some gamers just love that fact that there is no in-game mapping or direction except to travel a path you think you haven't traveled before until totally lost. I strongly suggest drawing your own crude map(s) and read FAST before location names and NPC locations disappear--especially if using a SSD where load times are so fast info pops on the screen for only a few seconds before you are once again lost. If you want to move along with some pace get a guide or walkthrough too. And btw you will just love dying repeatedly and not respawning in some cases anywhere near where you died. It is just a fantastic game of torture! Believe me I have had so many gamers tell me on Steam's forum that all this was by intentional design. Although I finished the game with trying difficulty I have it lined out on my list to remind me not to buy DS2 until it's (once it is realeased) clear you gamers like it a whole lot more then this PtD. For me it isn't the port that was lacking at all--I used a 360 controller--it was simply all the decent RPG design features of a game that were missing. Enjoy! Your mileage must very if you like this sort of gaming misery.
2 Like If you want a great game that is half baked and ported like shit, this game is for you.
3 Like When talking about the PC version of Dark Souls, Yui Tanimura, director of Dark Souls II, said that "a lot of it was not very well done, sort of half-assed,". http://www.gamespot.com/news/dark-souls-pc-port-was-half-assed-says-director-6406838
I think this quote may be enough to attest that Petit just ain't a good reviewer, right? Or at least that this review in particular was half-assed too? I mean, even the developers admit this was a pretty bad port.
3 Like @snxx couldn't agree more, bought the game after it got a kick-ass 9.5(should have glanced over the user score)i swear alt+f4 the game after 30 mins it was downright horrible to say the least, the most shoddy pc port ever!!how can this game get more than a 7 let alone the astonishing 9.5??
2 Like Anyone that thinks this game doesn't deserve a 9.5 didn't really understand what is so great about this game. It's a game of subtlety of story, feeding you just enough information to make you want to know and seek out more. It's a game with an incredibly complex combat system that has a wide range of possible attacks / defenses. Granted, it's not for everyone and PC people really need to know that before purchasing. I highly recommend renting it for a console to see if it's your style of game before buy the best version (PC) and playing it in HD.
Do you need to have the original PS3 Dark Souls game to be able to play the Prepare to Die Edition? Or it's a stand alone for PS3?
@DiogoLakai I don't have a ps3 but it should be a stand alone like fallout 3 game of the year edition was.
6 Like Everytime i see this game as a second top rated PC game ever i feel insulted as a PC gamer, its really an insult to other great PC titles to be behind this terrible port in the list, i agree its a great game but it doesn`t deserve the 2nd best rating as its a port and not a PC exclusive.
2 Like @Veronity As much as I love this game, and as great as it is, I agree. With the lack of optimization off the bat for PC I wouldn't give it more than a 8.5, the game itself is easily a top 5 all-time RPG. I'm just happy they decided to create a version for PC, at least now for Dark Souls 2 they'll have a dedicated version for PC which should be something really special. Dark Souls 2 and The Witcher 3, probably my two most anticipated game titles of all time, GTA V has my attention too; they better release a PC version.
best fighting and weapon system, best enemy AI and enemy behaviour ever in an fantasy RPG ... camera and movement is abit sloppy compared to the oustanding deatiled combat system, but you get used to it very soon ...
just be thankfuel its available for PC now, they didnt did anything to port it, but that the gamne is now on PC is just a service for all the fans in the world ...
use a XBOX controller
go to Dar souls Nexus and get all the mods you need, DSFIX and SweetFX is recomended
its a dungoncrawler, if you dont like such game, dont play dark souls
3 Like I heard quite a few criticisms for a 9.5. Not to mention it sounds and looks unnecessarily hard.
Holy Crab!!! What the H3ll is this game??
Gimme more adventures ... I'd rather play this than A'Creed
:P
5 Like Too many issues to ignore to get this kind of a review. It got slammed so hard on metacritic they had to delete all the negative reviews. This is not meant to be played on PC. It's meant to be played on consoles with a controller buyer beware.
@randomtext Earlier I bought three "Playstation" gamepads from GAME for around 150 SEK each, They work perfectly for this so your statement is pretty false.
1 Like "It's meant to be played on consoles with a controller buyer beware."
What you said is nonsense and doesnt exist in the real world. a console is just a crappy PC with a controller. ACtually its ment to be played on the PC with a controller and 1080p and not on toaster hardware that delivers a blurry washed out stutterfet
3 Like Users Score: 7.1 Says it all. Can't disagree more on a review. I played the game with a Gamepad, so controls are not the issue here. It's the atmosphere, the emptiness, typical of "another great rpg" ripoff. Dudes, just play "Blade of Darkness". It's old, but 10 time better than this game.
1 Like @nomailx Speak for your self, ""another great rpg" ripoff" what the hell. It's just that he game isn't for you. In my case, it's my favorite game so far, it's amazingly deep and appeals to me in every way. The atmosphere and emptiness that you talk about is part of the art of the game and if you don't like them then it's just not for you (the game is not empty as in content, though and if you can appreciate the art design, the lore, why everything is like it is, etc, it feels even more alive and meaningful).
@Xeroxer @nomailx I play every game I get the chance to and the genre doesn't matter. Games are one of my biggest interests since I see them as a work of art where the developers put their own selves, experiences and thoughts and allow me to live other experiences apart from (though, always connected to) the ones in my real life. Of course, the games I like the most are the deepest which I'm able to relate to.
The appreciation of a piece of art is subjective to that person sensing it, if you don't like it, it's just not for you, there is little there that draws your attention, nothing to be identified with, not what you wanted to see or experience. In my case, this game is perfect (not taking into account the port part, of course lol, not that it matters to me), I couldn't find anything (any-thing) else that gets so deep in to me, so much that sometimes I don't want to have anything to do with it :P.
Also, I don't like when people think their opinion is absolute fact ("speak for yourself"), isn't everything subjective/relative to you and your experiences?
3 Like Indeed... This is not a game made for PC. But for a console. The developers, didn't even adjust the necessary modifications needed to know what buttons you should use. And for a RPG, there are quite a few buttons needed. Not playerfriendly. My score 3/10
4 Like This girl is crazy we need real reviews. Hope she no do no more reviews. One can only hope.
@gentle_storm If you hope she no do no more reviews, then you're hoping she does lots more reviews. Glad to see such affirming, positive support; it's all too often lacking these days.
5 Like "Some PC-specific technical issues."
GameSpot should hold the Understatement of the Year awards.
It blows my mind how this port got this score.
1 Like 30fps cap - Not much of a deal (fixable with DSFix mod).
no PC button prompts - I didn't care, it was very intuitive and didn't gave me problems (that's just my opinion, so yours is a valid point).
awful keyboard binds - That's subjective, just configure the controls.
woeful resolution ceiling - Yes, but easily fixable with DSFix.
terrible performance from desperately bad hardware utilisation - The game loads a lot faster and plays smoother than in consoles (not in an old PC, of course).
£30 price tag despite being one year late - I thought $40 was a good price for the original game and the additional content (and when comparing the price for the game and DLC in consoles).
no re-mappable controls - False (except for mouse-buttons, but Mouse Fix, the mod that fixes the mouse-camera control lets you do it).
a memory leak - Well, I'm glad I didn't run in to it if this is true.
For me, the only problems were the small resolution and the bad mouse-camera control, but I didn't care since they were fixable with two small mods (or one mod plus a controller). Also, using GFWL wasn't a good idea (and the memory leak may be a problem caused by it according to what I read).
I know mods aren't taken into account with reviews and I don't think they should be (except for games like Skyrim for PC were they promote modding and support it because it's a great option to have, but that's still not taking into account specific mods, but the modding option), I just didn't care because the issues weren't really much of a deal (I mostly liked the features added by DSFix).
Why do you care so much about the score? Maybe the "PC-specific technical issues" weren't so bad for the reviewer and were compensated by the additional content (at least I think that way and it's just and opinion). 
3 Like @KeviNOlighT 30pfs cap - You can't just give the developers credit, and push up the score for someone else's work. There's no other way to say it. They were lazy, and taking the work of a bystander and attributing it to your dev team is essentially stealing.
Resolution ceiling - Same thing.
Mouse config - Same. Thing.
Price - It doesn't matter what you *thought* a good price was, it still came out a year late at the same price as Borderlands 2 or Hitman 4 or any other *new* AAA game.
Memory leak - You may not have run into it, but it's a common issue. After about 20-30 minutes gameplay you lose approximately 1fps every 5 minutes, until it stabilises at 15fps
Performance - It doesn't *matter* that it runs smoother on PC, It had *better* run smoother when you're comparing it to *seven-year-old mid range computers*. The fact of the matter is, it runs almost as well on modern integrated graphics as it does on a $600 GPU, while your CPU usage hardly ever tops 30%%. That unbelievably lazy copy-and-paste coding from the 360.
And no, I'm tired of people saying "well it was just you". So maybe you didn't get a memory leak, but saying Carol may have been playing an awesome version with no problems at all is just unbelievably lame and desperate... and totally false.
I care about the score because the whole industry *runs* on scores, in case you hadn't noticed. The dev gets more money based on the review of the game, and giving a 9.5 to a piece of crap (regardless of who decides to fix it) is just wrong. We're saying; "It's OK to be half assed in everything we'll call it perfect no matter what you vomit up next".
1 Like @KeviNOlighT It doesn't matter that they're useless with PC optimisation, what they did was just greedy. I don't expect them to just pull the skills out of their ass on demand, but you don't charge full, new, AAA price for a piece of crap.
Sorry I thought we were having a discussion about the GameSpot review for Dark Souls PC, I wasn't aware we were just talking about your feelings.
Next time don't line them all up and use them as responses to *real facts*if you want to be understood.
@naryanrobinson Huh... Ok, I didn't gave credit to the developers for someone else work as you say, I told you my personal opinion and experience. I understand if others really mind those issues, but don't put words in my mouth. I didn't tell you "it was just you" about the memory leak, I didn't tell you that Carolyn was playing an awesome version with no problems at all, I told you maybe the issues weren't so bad for her in her experience, I wasn't telling you a "fact" (you know, "maybe", "opinion").
I said the issues weren't so important for me, but I recognized them and of course I'm hoping for them to learn from what happened to the PC version and and apply it in the development of DS2. There's a fact to take into account here, though, From Software didn't have experience with PC at all and they didn't want to make a port, but surely Namco Bandai pushed them to make it (after the petition) and FS staff said that they would have to make a direct port from the 360 (no, I'm not defending them, just giving you the main reason as to why the port ended up like this and, also, why it probably won't be like this in the next game, since they found that there's a market for the series on PC and have more budget).
Again, I truly understand if you or others really cared about the issues, it's just that not everyone thinks like you or me. About the score, the review is an opinion; this is not the only site that reviews games; there's the User Score, too.
@naryanrobinson It blows my mind how biased people's opinions can be. Dark Souls has zero ( 0 ) technical issues. It's just a little rough in some corners, but that's all.
Mouse+keyboard works perfect as I played it 90 hours with that combination and I don't remember one moment that I felt it wasn't working as it should.
Only problem with it is that you need to download DSfix to get the most out of its potential and that's barely a con.
This game deserves its 9.5 in any sense of the word and I believe it's one of the best games PCs have seen last decade.
4 Like
30fps cap, no PC button prompts, awful keyboard binds, woeful resolution ceiling, terrible performance from desperately bad hardware utilisation, £30 price tag despite being one year late, no re-mappable controls, a memory leak.
Oh I'm sorry, did you think this is a website that counts up all the mods ever made for a game, takes an average, then goes back and gives the developers a score based on the other people's work? Well that's cute.
Thanks for the story though. Super interesting, but then I'm just "biased" after all.
@mati_melo_No keyboard bindings are not "nulled" because you can play with a gamepad. The game is for the PC. Having a PC entails having a keyboard and mouse, NOT a gamepad. That's an optional accessory that's adding to the price of the game.
No the speed is not "good enough as it is", because if it was "good enough as it is" the whole internet would not have been complaining about it.
"Resolution ceiling" in English means maximum resolution, not the resolution of the inside of the roof, and yes it is woeful. Most 16:9 monitors won't go *lower* than that resolution. The absolute minimum.
It's got nothing to do with the content of the game or how challenging it is. You can't give 9.5 to one version, then give the *totally crap* version of the same thing, the same score. It's just not right.
In most games, the tiniest screen tearing or lag would cause a lower score for that version, but here for some reason the total f*** up version gets the same, nearly perfect score. 3 Like @mati_melo_ No keyboard bindings are not "nulled" becasuse you can play with a gamepad. The game is for the PC. Having a PC entails having a keyboard and mouse, NOT a gamepad. That's an optional accessory that's adding to the price of the game.
No the speed is not "good enough as it is", because if it was "good enough as it is" the whole internet would not have been complaining about it.
"Resolution ceiling" in English means maximum resolution, not the resolution of the inside of the roof, and yes it is woeful. Most 16:9 monitors won't go *lower* than that resolution. The absolute minimum.
It's got nothing to do with the content of the game or how challenging it is. You can't give 9.5 to one version, then give the *totally crap* version of the same thing, the same score. It's just not right.
In most games, the tiniest screen tearing or lag would cause a lower score for that version, but here for some reason the total f*** up version gets the same, nearly perfect score.
@naryanrobinson @DuaMn
you can play the game with a controller so keyborad bindings is nulled... 30 fps cap ? so what game is supposed to be tactical u dont need exagerated fps for that, speed is good enough as it is, woeful resolution ceiling ? u grade a game because of its ceiling ? thats sad, the only fact i see its maybe its not the game for u, maybe 9.5 its exagerated but it is a challenging good game, a kind thats almost gone since assasins creed series and alikes came out, so really i dont know what ur talking about, btw sorry for my english im from argentina :)
4 Like @DuaMn Great substitute for actual facts. I wouldn't expect anything less from a troll.
Look it's not my fault if you don't know what you're talking about and you get mad when other people do.
Those are the facts and if you can't handle it you should get off the internet kid.
