thomasnash

I had to pawns with greater glacil (I think that's what it's called, it summons up loads of ice pillars) and that was what did it for me. It takes a while for them to cast so you spend a lot of time rezzing them, but if they manage to get one off it takes away one health bar at least, I guess because it comes up from underneath and always hits the heart.

@p00rdevil:

From what you say you are looking for, I'd suggest you wait for it to drop in price a little bit? Responsive combat and polish (imo) it has in spades (polish in the sense that I haven't had even hints of it breaking, others may have had different experiences - I wouldn't say it particularly needs patching). Art direction, lighting, music etc are all fine, but I wouldn't say they stand out really. It's cohesive at least, art design in particular is fairly generic (with occasional moments of awesome design in some of the bigger monsters).

I am starting to find the "story" a real drag though. Up until yesterday I wasn't at all bothered by the lack of story, that was fine. Dark Souls lacked and yet managed to support a really interesting, rich story by giving small details. Unfortunately, it's not anything like that in this. It's lack of attention to detail. I just finished the quest where Mercedes and that Knight duel, and there is a bunch of intrigue that is set-up and then executed in about ten seconds. The knight keeps going on about neighbours and politics which haven't been mentioned at all. Who are the neighbours? I just don't know. Worse was that he did something to safeguard these neighbours. At no point was I told what he actually did, why or how it helped his goals. No explanations given and it just makes it impossible to give a shit about anything that's going on. Easily the biggest bummer I've had in this game.

Although on the flipside, some of the lore around the arisen/dragon cycle and the pawns is actually pretty interesting, I think.

talk to the innkeeper at Gran Soren

@Aquablak: Honestly, I don't think it's at all similar to Dark Souls. Combat is a lot more rapid, and although being careful with the conbat can be really rewarding, in terms of figuring out what combos work and stuff, it also really frequently devolves into mashing for me. Also there's an element of randomness to it that means it will never be as measured or precise as DS (eg, the fact you have no control over the weapon buffs your pawns are giving you). Also, non-fighter classes have no block that I can see - so whereas in DS you almost never want to get hit, DD seems a lot more about making sure you don't get hit too much, if you know what I mean. Also, as someone said in another thread, it's more about taking on mobs than one on one combat like DS.

There is quite a lot of story compared to DS, although a lot of it is really badly explained (a lot of moments when you finish a quest and someone says something about what you just did that was in no way conveyed during the quest). So you could say there is no story, but it's not in the deliberate way of Dark Souls at all. There are shortcuts but only a couple, and they all take a bit of time to travel in themselves, but the world is a lot more expansive than Lordran. Also, Dark Souls did give you a sort of fast travel after a while anyway.

The only way in which I can see any similarities between the two is the monster design to be honest, and even then, I haven't seen any monsters on the scale of some bosses in DS (although I'm not too far through the game yet, I guess).

I don't want to say it's a bad game, I'm really enjoying it, but it is nothing like Dark Souls, imo.

^^and you can fairly quickly you can make way better stuff than you're finding.

So how does it work exactly? is it that you have to get all 9 levels in both basic classes to go hybrid (9 in strider, 9 in fighter to go assassin, for example)?

@Mesoian said:

@TheSpoonyBard said:

I was fighting a pretty high level Ogre (I was taking out slivers of life at each hit) and found out women made him horny/angry. So my female pawns were screaming all about it as he was charging directly at them, which gave me (who is a male character) the opportunity to get on his back and start stabbing him. And then he jumped up, fell on his back, and killed me.

I love this game.

The first time an ogre picked up one of my pawns and RAN AWAY with her, I was struggling between laughing and trying to keep up so it didn't kill her.

This game has some really amazing systems. I just wish it had a SHRED of personality...

without wanting to be a dick about it, it kind of sounds like that is personality? I haven't played the game, and I know that I'm basing this off you describing one isolated incident, but you know, if that kind of stuff happens a lot...

Not that I'm denying the story is rubbish or whatever, like I say, I won't be able to see for myself until tomorrow. I do wonder though whether there is something self-fulfilling about when people say the story is worthless. I feel like it's common for people to say "oh the story is bad so I skip the dialogue.." so...you don't know whether some awesome shit is happening in that dialogue, actually?

I feel like I saw this with Dark Souls myself - everyone told me there was no story to speak of, and also told me that the game didn't tell you anything about what or how you were supposed to tackle it, so I didn't bother reading dialogue or anything like that, really, the first time through. The second time through, though, I did pay attention to that stuff, and discovered that not only does a lot of the dialogue provide really useful information about what you're supposed to be doing, there is also a huge amount of story info to be had (particularly from the serpent dudes), either around the "main" plot or just little side-stories, and a lot of it is quite interesting, in an oblique sort of way.

I just wonder if it's a similar situation, basically, but I suppose I will get back to you about it tomorrow evening.

@RainbowKraken:

it's not out in the UK until friday, so that might have something to do with the lack of board activity?

@Nottle: I never finished GTA IV cos I got robbed before I could, but the Playboy X/Dwayne decision was done incredibly well. I was genuinely conflicted, because they were both good dudes to Niko/me. The main reason is because through both their missions they drew me into those guys stories, what they were about. They felt real.

However, in those missions, oftentimes the stuff you had to do just felt really ancillary to what rockstar wanted to do. like they were begrudgingly throwing you some gameplay. That's the case in RDR as well, a little bit. Then again, the disconnect between story and gameplay is pretty much all over, and it's deeper than just being able to do stuff the character ostensibly wouldn't do. In a lot of ways games like GTA and RDR are better at that than say...Mass Effect (story, shooty bit, story, shooty bit) because they allow you to inhabit that character and play some poker or go bowling or whatever.

That said, I never really felt like GTA IV was quite the revelation everyone else told me it was. It did have decent characters, I will give it that.

A Prophet is a pretty great French movie, about a kid who goes into big boy prison and ends up getting involved with corsican organised crime. It's pretty long, and really well made. Slightly equivocal attitude towards crime but it's interesting to see a film that engages so much with non-mainstream experiences (it revolves around groups of people who get a pretty raw deal in france, anyway).

Dogtooth is a bizarre Greek film, sort of the first crossover hit of a trend in Greek cinema for just really strange stuff. It's about a group of teenagers who have been told that the outside world is full of monsters and have to stay on their compound. It's a bit like a Wes Anderson film if Wes Anderson finally tipped over out of quirky and into insanity.

Festen is a pretty good Danish film, a little older than the others. It's pretty dark and very depressing, but gripping. I won't give away the plot because it needs to be seen really. It's directed by Thomas Vinterberg, who was one of the members of the Dogme 95 movement with Lars von Trier. It makes for an interesting cinematic experience.

The Original version of Insomnia (also danish, I think) is worth watching as well. If you've seen the Nolan/Pacino remake, you might be surprised at how much more morally compromised the main character is, but it's definitely a better and more singular film. It really neatly uses the light of its setting to create a sort of reverse-noir thing. it's good.