Lords of the Fallen

The game starts of with some bombastic cinematics, you’re pissed of with the gods and to get their attention you’re beating up a giant lizard bigtime. Apparently the Gods are proud members of PETA because the sky goes nuts, then the screen goes black and you get the message ”A different time. A different war.”

Finally, game time! You get a quick tutorial that proves that this games combat pretty much exactly plays like Dark Souls. Since I choose a character with heavy armor I even do the classic fat-roll.

First, I’m a little bit concerned with the games visuals, the screen is all muzzy and I feel the uprising of a monumental headache. However, after putting gamma to max and reducing the cameras movement the game suddenly looks gorgeous and less headache provoking.

The combat plays exactly like dark souls, though the camera tends to get stuck in walls or in angles where you see absolutely nothing. Since I’ve only been in the first area I hope it’s not a reoccurring problem, you really don’t want camera issues in this type of game.

Only a couple of minutes into the game I get to my first bossfight! Another soul-tradition Lords of the fallen has borrowed. The boss is an Artorias of the abyss kind of guy (for non-souls-gamers: A knight with a big sword) but a lot slower, at first I have some problems since I miscalculate the length of my swords thrusting-attack, I have to use one of my two potions (consuming them is a really swift action by the way, you need no more than a second). I start to play more patiently, memorizing the moves of my opponent and soon it is quite obvious that he’s most vulnerable after slamming his sword into the ground, allowing me to put in two or three heavy attacks every time he does it. His healthbar is quickly consumed, down to about 20% of his life, he throws away his shield and starts two-handing his sword while doing some really jiggy hip-moves and pirouettes. These moves are easily dodged even with my fat roll and I can land the last couple of swings while he is standing apathetically with his back towards me.

///

Judging from my first 30-40 minutes with the game the story is really weak and the world isn’t as tasteful as in the souls-games. However, the combat plays pretty much the same (for instance the back-stab animation is EXACTLY the same as in the last Soulsgame) and it seems like you’re able to unlock some pretty sweet abilities later in the game. It's certainly not "shadow of mordor fun," might be worth a buy but I would read a lot of reviews first.

- I’ll try and upload a gameplay-video later tonight and will keep writing some "first impressions" on my bands gaming blog (we're from Poland, hence the strange domain) blog.fonrestorff.pl before passing my final and absolute judgement here.