Tuesday 13 November 2012

Dark Souls PTD : Had To Give Up

Sadly, I haven't played Dark Souls for a couple of months.  Not because I don't want to but because I cannot get past the dragon archers, (or one of them at least) on the walls at Anor Londo. 

I've tried every tip I could find, including removing all armour for faster rolling although I'm a Dex player anyway, and try to force the archer to go melee so he falls but I can't do it.  After 20 or more tries I got sick of running all the way there, being invaded and back stabbed, losing all my humanity only to be knocked down and fall over and over again.    I'm sorry to say I even tried a Trainer in offline mode, but that doesn't stop me dying from falls.

I've been in the Catacombs, even as far as the main Boss door which I can't enter since I don't have the Lord Vessel, and persisted through other hard levels but this defeats me I'm afraid. 

Sad face....

Dishonored - Very Excellent

Here I am back after a long hiatus of a month or so.  Been busy with various things, playing games and despairing being between two sets of neighbours who are, to put it mildly, trouble.  It's like a war zone with the language, boozing, mindbendingly loud and aggressive music, and general mayhem at all hours of the day and night.  I feel a police presence soon although that would almost be a last resort on my part because I'm scared of retaliation.   I really want to move somewhere else, but that's not going to happen unless I win the Lotto, or some long lost relative leaves me an inheritance.  Both solutions are extremely remote, unfortunately.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand:
I know I complained about the possibility that Dishonored would be possibly not play well on Windows XP, that I was pissed about it and that I was going to cancel my pre-order, (which I did), but things have changed a bit since then.  I've altered that complaint post a bit, but I still have no idea if it runs on XP and don't really care now, unless of course I have to go back to it....

Due to a stroke of luck I now have Windows 7 x64 which I'm finding to be very good, albeit the stifling security features which annoy me no end at times.   I could have used the money for something else like updating my motherboard or CPU, (or clothes and other stuff), but they still serve me well and all I really needed extra was a couple of GB of extra RAM.  So, I renewed my game order and have been extremely happy I did.

I've played through the game twice, once on high chaos which got me the worst ending, and once on low and I plan a few more playthroughs which says a lot for this game as it's not my usual style, except for RPG's.  I played through on the default difficulty, but I'm going to ramp it up and "try" to go full stealth on at least "hard."

I love pretty much everything about this game.  The watercolour washed style graphics, the lore, the stealth mechanics, the exploration, multiple endings and a very important factor, consequences for my actions.   I could just kill, kill, kill if I wanted to but that changes the world and can be seen and experienced, not just implied, so I have to reap what I sow, so to speak.  

The voice acting is excellent and not overly repetitive, the NPC's have real character, what I do matters and the game is stable as a rock.   I had one CTD, but I think that was due to Windows Updates trying to shut the PC down or Flash notifying me of an update which always causes problems.   I've since reconfigured things and it hasn't happened again.

Possibly the only thing I found to be odd was that guards and NPC's are vertically sight challenged, but maybe that changes on harder difficulties.   This is also a console port, but one done properly and taking the PC into consideration something the publisher could take heed of with their own most recent game.

I've seen people complain about the length of Dishonored, that's it's too short, but I explored every possible corner with a fine tooth comb, because I'm a bit of a completionist and I like the Lore, and I found it to be a good length.   More would be nice of course, but the coming DLC will fix that.

I could write more on how good Dishonored is but I'd rather play it.   Do yourself a favour if you like stealth games and try it out.   Or even if you want to just be a murderous in your face assassin.  It works both ways and more.