If you've become used to 'easy' video games, Dark Souls is a breath of fresh air. You WILL die. A lot.

No game is as important to me as Souls. Welcome to the fold.

I've been getting a lot of requests for basic 'starting tips' lately and there are so many confusing guides out there, so here's mine!

I'm going to keep things as brief as I can because the genius of this game is working out how everything fits together. I don't want to spoil that discovery for you. This is the stuff I wish I knew when I first started. If you want a completely pure Souls, experience, don't read this guide.

Do I need to play Demon's Souls?

Dark Souls is the successor to Demon's Souls on PS3. Demon's Souls is darker, not as pretty, more confusing, punishing in level design and shorter too. I still love it though and highly recommend giving it a whirl after you finish with Dark Souls just because it's MORE souls.

For Starters - Classes

Your class choice doesn't matter for long because you quickly overtake your base stats. Still, think about what kind of fighter you want to be (specializing in strength, dexterity, or magic) and go for that. Don't stress too much if you pick the wrong one to start off with. In fact, I highly recommend replaying your first six or seven hours of the game anyway. It's surprisingly fun because the most important thing in Souls is experience and you'll rip through previously-beaten areas.

The World

The world is an interlocking maze. If you suddenly find a huge jump in difficulty with basic mobs - you've probably stumbled into an area that you shouldn't be in just yet (the skellies in the catacombs for example will destroy you until you're about 20-30 hours in). Having said that, almost every enemy can take you down in a few hits if you're not paying attention and no amount of souls farming will help you with that. You just have to die and try. But do not give up, after about six-to-ten hours everything will start to click and suddenly you'll wonder where this combat has been all your life.

Co-Op

- Coop is confusing and wonderful. Always play online.

- You can coop in most areas of the game and it's especially important for boss fights. Finding coop partners on PC is hit or miss (especially later in the game) due to population issues so I'd advise dropping your coop white sign soapstone wherever you can (near the bonfire is best). You obtain the white sign soapstone up by talking to an NPC in the undead burg a few times. Talk to every NPC you meet as many times as you can before they exhaust all their dialogue as they'll often offer you something. And remember to press select/back and bow to your friends (and invaders!)

Hollowed human - what now?

- You are always either alive or dead (otherwise known as hollowed). You can almost always be summoned into someone else's game, dead or alive. Take every opportunity to be summoned (clicking glowing summon marks on the ground) - you have nothing to lose, even if you die in their world.

Hollowed

- When you're 'hollowed', it means you're dead. You can't summon NPCs or other players into the game to help you.

Alive

- When you're alive there are few bonuses but most importantly it's the only way you can summon others into your game.

PC version

- Get the dsfix 60fps mod, and follow all the instructions. It's worth it. There are also a few texture packs and tweaks around and they're easy to install.

- Play with a controller, the game is built for that.

- The game lets you join various covenants from PVP (late in the game) to PVE, to obtaining a dragon as a head (pointless but fun). I highly recommend the Warrior of Sunlight covenant for PC users as it matches you up with other players more frequently (from what I can tell).

Strength or Dex build?

- Magic is not my area of expertise so I can't help you with that, but I have run both dex and str characters. If you go this route, it is good to pick either strength or dexterity and focus on getting that stat to 40 at least (especially strength) along with keeping your endurance and vitality up as you go. After 40 it's not worth building any more (at least on your first playthrough) unless you want to hold, say, a 50-strength weapon. All the menus are confusing, but you'll get used to it.

- Strength is for big weapons (and big hits) and it's my favourite. Dexterity is good for landing many quick hits, building up poison, bleeds and crits. Dex is very fun, but I feel like there are fewer Dex weapons in general (that I liked anyway).

- It's hard to balance stats first time around - especially as souls get more and more expensive. If you find you can't wear a piece of gear that you want to without getting overburdened, try to shuffle gear around and put more points into endurance. If basic enemies are killing your health in one hit, you need more vitality, so up that a bit.

Weapons, Gear and Crafting

I could write 10 pages on weapons, gear and crafting. You upgrade all weapons and gear with stones which you can buy, pick up from enemies who drop them or simply pick up along the way. It's worth looking up spoiler-free guides on this alone. But to start with:

Get the Drake Sword

- The first weapon you should aim for is the Drake Sword, which you get by shooting off the tail of the Red Dragon (I suggest web searching a video tutorial for this). Get it. It's a great sword for the first 20 -30 hours. But it has no stat bonuses and eventually it will become less effective.

- My advice is to Keep using the drake sword, until one of your other weapons is upgraded enough to be useful.

- There are a few types of weapons. I like big weapons that hit hard for boss fights, and small weapons that hit fast for general mobs.

Boss weapons

- Boss weapons are made from boss souls, are all unique in their own way and frquently quite powerful. They're not essential to beat the game by any means, but they're fun. They usually require an upgraded standard weapon to convert into a boss weapon (worth looking up specifically with each boss soul).

Weapons with no stat bonus

Some weapons, like the Drake Sword, have no stat bonuses. Some can be turned INTO no-stat bonus weapons when you upgrade them. No stat bonus weapons means if you have 10 or 100 strength, it's not going to hit any harder. But some of these weapons NEED 50-strength to even hold them - their base damage is already very high and the limit stops you being overpowered early on. Sometimes these weapons will provide electricity or add poison/bleeding damage (that you build up as you hit an enemy) to make up for the lack of stats bonuses.

Weapons with stat bonuses

- I'm a huge fan of weapons with stat bonuses - such as the basic club. A +15 weapon, with stats to back it up (say, the +15 club with 30+ strength) will be more effective in general than a stat-less weapon. You'll only be able to make one, or if you're very lucky, maybe two 15+ weapons in a playthrough, so choose wisely.

- Armour and resistances. On your very first playthrough, you'll probably get your favourite gear up to +5 or so for each item (depending on how you do) and that's fine. Weapon upgrading is more important in my opinion. It's always good to keep lots of gear on hand though - the bottom of Blighttown, for example, is a nightmare without the poison-resistant gear (an outfit and spider shield) that you pick up along the way. I find with most enemies/bosses that movement speed is far more important than worrying about resistant gear - with the exception of poison or curse-resistant gear (if you have it) when needed. Or when you're wading in the poison-filled swamp at the bottom of Blighttown.

Basic combat

- Keep your shield down when you don't need it up and you'll regenerate stamina quicker. If you run out of stamina, or you get hit too hard while on low stamina, you can have your guard broken and be left open for an attack. Only bring it up when you're being attacked or if you're cautiously moving through an area.

- For most enemies that use weapons, always try to circle behind them, and stab them in the back with R1. it takes practise, but it's very effective. You can also do a riposte but I generally found that was too risky.

- You can do drop down attacks, by pressing R1 as you fall down. This messy and a little risky, but hits deal massive damage. You can do it in some boss fights, so keep an eye out for any opportunity.

- If you press FORWARDS and R2 you'll do a lunge attack, which I love as an opening attack. Alternatively you can do a sprint attack by holding B (360) or O (PS3), running towards an enemy and then attacking. I always forget to do this, but it's quite powerful as a first hit.

- Rolling is good for bosses and escaping backwards. I find it a waste of stamina to roll around normal enemies in general though. Just circle around them, or back away and lunge in.

- If you sprint and then quickly tap B (360) or O (PS3) you'll do a jump which is very handy in platforming - I didn't know this for ages for some reason!

-Lastly, Read the Dark Souls Wiki as there's a lot to remember and to forget.

Boss fights

- Always coop a fight first - to learn the fight.

- Most bosses are slow and hit hard, so you need to watch their patterns and learn when to attack. Avoid if you can, block if you have a shield and the stamina to back that up - and then do not hesitate when opportunities open up.

- For bosses, I'm a big fan of quickly switching a weapon to hold it in two hands, hitting hard once or twice, then switching back to one-handed plus shield. It's efficient but needs excellent timing.

Equipment weight

- Always keep equipment weight below 50 per cent - I find anything higher is pointless because you're just too slow.

-If you need to run past something like a fire-breathing dragon and you can't make it, try getting weight below 25 per cent (or even be naked). You will probably make it, even though you're wearing less armour.

- The more equipment you have, the slower you run about and the more stamina you chew through. Some enemies and bosses make it very hard to avoid getting hit at all, so you might want to gear up pretty heavily for that, but they can all be defeated with less than 50 per cent.

Other Stuff

- Never eat boss souls. They can be used for crafting and make crazy weapons.

- Never hit a vendor unless you really don't want to use them again as most sell important items (the DLC vendor has a cool top hat - I didn't even check before stabbing him!)

- With the exception of the Drake Sword (which isn't an exploit anyway) Don't be tempted to glitch a boss or tough enemy or use an exploit to beat them. You'll waste too much time, and learning the fight is the better way all around.

Good Luck

I meant this to be a quick guide but it got quite long in the end! Anyway, everyone plays differently - but this is how I do it. Hope it helps, now go and die!