Aegrus

Fun, fast-paced combat, strong tactical elements, good graphics, and it's very easy to run. Plus, co-op online games are hard to come by. Awesome art direction; it kind of reminds me of the Rengoku psp games, but obviously with higher production values. And this is free! You really can't go wrong with free, especially since the game so far seems to be genuinely high quality. Don't let the people who play the first two missions and dislike it discourage you; the first couple missions are basically extended tutorials, and are kind of boring. It starts ramping up after that.

This game is great for many reasons- one of them being all the mods and updates. It just recently got patched to add several new, free guns to the game, as well as an hdr bloom lighting option, which makes it look A TON better. (And it wasn't bad to begin with.) There are dozens of modded maps, and quite a few official ones. Every time you check the server list, it's like Christmas! Wow! ANOTHER new map! Also, some modded maps support many dozens of characters. I once saw a modded match containing 300 players. All modded content in a map is downloaded when you join a server- no work on your part required. The community is active and large as of August 2012. The game is easy enough to run for even people with basic, old and outdated pcs to have fun in 6 person matches, but if you have a god pc, you can jack up all the graphical options and join massive matches as well. I have 300 hours into this game, and I am still loving it. The formula is solid and tense, and all the updates and mods keep it indefinitely replayable.

As a game, it was pretty good. As a character relationship simulator, it was amazing. This truly is the only game I've seen that has characters equal to or better than those in Mass Effect 2 and DA:O. Dungeons are recycled, which gets irritating after a while. However, the combat has been improved greatly from Origins. It's now faster and more responsive, with the new ability trees adding more strategy to levelling your characters classes. The graphics on release are better than those in DA:O, but free HD texture dlc makes them actually look modern. There's a two-pronged story this time, focusing first on the Qunari invasion, but primarily on the Mage-Templar conflict. The story is less epic than that of DA:O, but more emotional and personal. (Certainly more original.) Story-changing choices are lacking compared to Dragon Age Origins, but there are even more ways that your reactions with characters can develop. This is a trade off. I got 45 hours out of the game going completionist, so for an rpg, it's a little on the shorter side. Still, it costs about $20 now. I say, try it out now that the hype's worn off. It's not a perfect game, but it's better than the naysayers with ultra-high expectations claim it to be.

Pros: It is open world, with roughly equal graphics and frame rate to Skyrim. However, Dark Souls has no load screens. It's all seemless. Characters are graphically worse than Skyrim, but lighting and textures are generally better. LOD is much better in Dark Souls. Never any pop-in anywhere. The characters are all killable, even the important ones. Some people might consider this a con, but I prefer realistic consequences and choices. It adds a new sense of urgency, caring, and caution that most games don't have. Voice acting is consistently good, and most npcs have informal, subtle quests attached. There are multiple endings, but the chocies that lead you to the endings are hard to find and complex. There is both co-op and pvp online. Both modes are very fun, and take place in the seemless open world. Variety- Dark Souls has a lot of it. Everything is unique. There are some very breathtaking set pieces, but everywhere in the game is a pleasure to look at in art direction and detail. Nothing is copy-pasted. Hidden areas- there are a lot of them, and they add replayability to the game, and stop backtracking from getting stale. Unique loot- Most weapons and armor sets in the game are unique, and very hard to get. This makes getting things feel very rewarding. Much of the gear also has interesting special affects. For example, the heavy attack of the gargoyle tail ax makes the blade curve in 360 degrees all the way around your character. Covenants- Basically online guilds that you can join (if you can find them in their hidden areas), they offer unique equipment and abilities in exchange for your services. Their special abilities are amazing. For example, one of them lets become a weird dragon-human hybrid thing and breath fire. Crafting- you can craft and upgrade many weapons along branching upgrade trees using a variety of items which you can find, or take off of dead enemies. Multiple styles of play- You can play as a melee character, an archer, assassin, mage, etc. The weapons and spells are all very unique. Dual wield is possible. Inversely, you can choose to use a one-handed weapon in two hands to improve its affectiveness. You can block or dodge as well- blocking is useful for tanks, dodging more so for lighter characters. No level restrictions- some items require you to have certain stats to use them well, but no items have actual level restrictions. If you get it, you can use it. Realistic equip burden- Equipping heavy items without sufficiently high strength will slow all of your actions down progressively more, making it harder to run and dodge if you're wearing a ton of things. Banking items- you can bank as many items as you want thanks to unlimited storage at bonfires. All bonfire storage areas are linked, so you can access anything from any bonfire. No glitches- never, in all my time playing Dark Souls, have I seen a gltich. Apparently there were a few at first, but they got patched out in about a day after release. No memory leaks- you can play for countless hours, and your frame rate will not lower due to memory leaks. Nice soundtrack- Music is rare in Dark Souls, but the music that there is is well-composed and never annoying. It conveys the intended moods perfectly. Great atmosphere- Tons of sound effects, small details, consistent colors, a great and unified art direction, and great lighting, and fluid animations on everything make the world seem vibrant and alive, even when everything is dead or trying to make you dead. :P It's a long game- On average, it takes 80 hours to complete, but completionists may spend upwards of 120 hours on each playthrough, and it's not possible to get all the content on one playthrough, because some choices open up some areas or items and close others. New game+ :You keep all your level ups and items, and restart the story from the beginning as many times as you want. Enemy variety- there are tons of different enemy types- far more than in any competing rpg. All of them require different strategies to beat. Optional bosses- Eight of the game's many bosses are optional, and some will even help you as long as the correct choices are made, but the game never tells you how to get out of fighting them. Neutral (Could be good, could be bad) No "real" quests- There are quests in Dark Souls, but none of them are journalized, so many people think there are none. You'll have to remember things, or write them down. Quests are very informal- they're more of requests from npcs than anything else. However, they are epic. No map- There is no map for Dark Souls. This would be a con, excepts, everything is so unique and the LOD is so good, you never get lost anyway. The game is VERY difficult, but never unfair. Cons: Pvp is quite laggy. (Co-op is fine.)

The combat and story (yes, there is a story, but people who stop playing after a few hours never figure it out), atmosphere, online components (pvp and co-op) and graphics are all amazing, and that's been discussed before. Now, I'm going to point out other things that haven't been talked about so much- such as, there are no load times after the main menu. There are no glitches to be seen anywhere after you install the day 1 patch. It clocks in on the shorter end at 60 hours, with the average being 80 hours to complete and the near-completionist time being about 120 hours. There is also a new game+ that can extend the game for many playthroughs. The max level is about 700, but you'll only get to about 80 after one playthrough. The ending varies depending on your choices, but the choices are subtle and eays to miss, so you always need to proceed carefully. You can kill anyone- even critical npcs, so there really is a sense of urgency and caring for the npcs that you don't feel in most games. Most weapons and armor are unique, so they really feel valuable, and it's a huge effort to get each one. Often, they're in secret areas, so not everyone gets every (or even most) items in the game. The framerate drops at parts, but it never gets as low as Skyrim's and people play that just fine. It takes some intelligence and patience to play this game, as most of your problems have a variety of solutions, but it takes strategy and planning/experience to see the best ones. For example, in one area of the game, you have to kill ghosts that are unkillable without using consumable items with time limits. Many people expend all of their items, and then have to farm to buy more. However, being cursed by a completely different type of enemy in a different part of the game allows you to hurt ghosts without using consumable items. But the game never tells you about curses, or invincible ghosts, or anything. Part of the fun is discovering it first hand. That was just one example. There are many like that. Unlike most developers that count on its audience being stupid and lazy, From Software counts on its audience to be clever and cautious. Dark Souls truly is a game about survival- you're just a random soldier in a world filled with monsters as strong as, or much stronger than you, and your wits and skill are your only hope. People with neither hate the game, rant about it being broken or too hard, and then rate it 0 just to keep themselves in nice, comfortable denial about how unskilled, thick-skulled, and impatient they really are.

I just got this game yesterday, and I've been playing it constantly. Really fun, really scary, and a creative use of a physics engine. You can manually pull open containers, pick up and manipulate items, etc. It runs well, so most pcs should have no trouble handling it. There's a hint of madness in this game. (Okay, maybe more than a hint.) If a psychotic voice inside your head begging the monsters chasing you to "embrace me" sounds like fun, this is a great game for you.

I really love this game. It seems that people who think ME 1 was better are suffering from nostalgia, because I played both in order within a week of eachother, and ME II is by far superior. P.S, I'm a Talimancer. Tali FTW!

Truly one of the best ps2 games I've ever played. I don't like that the game has an end- I'd have preferred a continued open world. But that just goes to show how great of an experience it was when I first played it.