I thought I was ready for it, as ready as I was to smash my keyboard into pieces within the first day's play, but nothing could have prepared me for just how hideous the PC version of Dark Souls really is.
While the game's menu will trick you into thinking the game runs at your desktop's native resolution (somehow while in windowed mode), it's a lie. The game will only run at 1024x720, which for a PC game developed after the year 1997 is nuts!
I mean, I appreciate how honest From Software were with this, basically saying they had little idea what the hell they were doing on the PC, but still. This is some awful stuff. Even if From were clueless about PC development, you'd have thought somebody at publishers Namco Bandai could have helped out. The work experience kid, maybe.
Especially when you consider that, only a few hours after the game went up for sale on Steam, NeoGAF user Durante had made available an update which could run the game at a higher resolution.
It's not a perfect fix, as it's a work-in-progress and carries with it a range of caveats and cautionary notes, but it works well enough, as you can see in the comparison above. You can grab it below.
IMPORTANT NOTE: All the disappointment and bitching you'll see over the game's visuals are just that. Bitching over visuals. The game itself - the important part - is all there and, from what I've played of it, works just fine, whether using a controller or a mouse + keyboard.
Presented below are some screens I took at the game's regular resolution. Those with sensitive dispositions have been warned.
UPDATE - Here's a video of Durante's fix in action. Much better!
Dark Souls internal rendering resolution fix (DSfix) [NeoGAF]