Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition

A game revered for its challenge, graphics and impressive dark style, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition is a port for the console RPG. You start the game as an Undead who escaped from an asylum, and now, you have begun a journey to fulfill ancient prophecies in a gigantic world filled with stunning beauty, but on the other side of the coin, extreme horrors. You save your progress in a fairly original fashion with bonfires. Along with keeping your progress, the bonfires also restore specific items.

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die can be a punishing game where you collect humanity and souls as you leave your enemies' corpses in the dirt. However, one fatal slip and you lose everything when you die. Instead of coddling you throughout the game, Dark Souls makes dying a real punishment, which sparks even greater passion for the game. Many games nowadays make too many apologies for being difficult. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition will not hold your hand. The world in the game looks impressive with excellent design, but because the designers only made this a port of the console version, the additional PC power advantage will be zilch. While it's a shame the game did not look as great as it could have, the game still draws you in from the moment you enter the Dark Souls world.

Because the game stands as an unapologetically difficult game, the average gamer will take between 40 to 60 hours to beat the whole game. Considering most games only take between 10 to 24 hours to beat, Dark Souls: Prepare to Die will bolt you to the floor until you have finished. Dark Soul's marketing slogan, "YOU WILL DIE," sums up the game quite nicely. Most gamers who have played it talk about the controller-slamming difficulty, and while death awaits you at every corner, you also enter an intriguing world full of mystery and delight.

The designers at Dark Souls seem to thrill at the chance to exceed expectations, and Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition even has the unique ability to scare you during daylight hours as giant insects dive bomb you while you creep across narrow walkways. Death in Dark Souls strikes fear into every corner of your soul. Outside losing weapons and being cast to the nearest way point, you also lose the experience and humanity points you left unspent. In Dark Souls, you may literally find yourself weighing your options. For example, you may decide you have wandered outside your depth to survive, so you turn that party around to spend your XP and explore another area. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition does not have you finishing levels. Instead, you're simply exploring and stepping nervously into the unknown.

Pros

• An engrossing experience
• You can take your gaming online
• Plenty of challenge equates to many hours of gameplay

Cons

• The level of difficulty will appeal to a specific type of gamer
• Learning the gameplay to avoid dying takes time