Game: Darksiders
Developer: Vigil Games
Price: $59.99
Genre: Action-Adventure Game
Verdict: If you like hack and slash without the J-pop then this is for you.
Pros: Pure single-player experience.
Cons: A little bit of screen tear which is getting patched.
Acquired: Developer Provided
You have to feel sorry for the people of New York City as represented in video games. Almost every time a video game comes out it features the city in the grip of a cataclysmic disaster. Prototype has Manhattan Island infested with a bio-genetic plague and Legendary has the city consumed when Pandora’s Box is opened. It is like games developers are almost willing something bad to happen to the Big Apple.
And so, old New York is in the process of being consumed by a battle between Heaven and Hell when War, who is the court-appointed mediator in the ongoing battle between the two sides, appears on the scene. He finds himself without his fellow Horsemen of the Apocalypse and battles through the war-torn streets of NYC to find out what is going on. As it transpires, it is all an evil plot by an all-powerful demon known as the Destroyer to get the Four Horsemen out of the way and conquer the kingdom of man (referred to as the Third Kingdom) for himself.
War discovers that he has been tricked out of his sleep and the powers-that-be yank him out of the human realm and strip him of all his abilities. He does manage to convince his superiors to allow him back to the human realm to find out what is going on, regain his abilities and restore the balance between Heaven and Hell or, die trying.
And so the story begins a-proper with War returning to Earth 100 years later to serve the destroyer with an eviction notice–the hard way, of course.
Darksiders is the first game to come out of Vigil Games and as a result they seem to have taken a very tentative approach to developing the game. All ambition of grandeur has been removed entirely, with no multiplayer or DLC promised for the game. As a result, Darksiders has become a very pure and focused single-player game.
The game is actually a joy to play. The controls are well planned and the mapping rarely feels awkward. Moves are smooth and there is never a lag between button presses and actions, even when confronted by a large number of enemies on the screen. Combos are fairly easy to execute and the game has a very intuitive learning curve. The difficulty levels always feel just about right, staying mildly on the Ninja Gaiden side of the line.
Joe Madureira, head of Vigil Games, has a strong background in comic books and so the game’s themes, artwork and direction have been heavily influenced by his previous work. As it happens, this gives the game very interesting feel, drawing as heavily from comics as it does from previous generations of action adventures.
The feel of the game is what really sets it apart. In playing it is evident that it is heavily influenced by almost every big hack and slash epic that came before it. All at once it feels like playing Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry and God of War without feeling like a mere clone. There are plenty of tooling-up opportunities (a la Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry), with the preorder-exclusive Harvester scythe weapon being particularly impressive and devastating to wield.
Combos evoke Devil May Cry without aping the overly elegant grandeur of Capcom’s classic and the setting is very reminiscent of God of War – soaked in the blood of myth and legend. In some ways it succeeds in besting Sony’s legendary series by avoiding the now-ubiquitous quick time events, leaving the gratuitous kill moves, executed by pressing the B button when an opponent is stunned, as be a reward rather than another arbitrary test of skill.
Graphically, Darksiders is solidly competent, neither going over-the top like Devil May Cry or dipping into the ropey efforts of the likes of Turning Point or Legendary – both being titles that sought to destroy NYC for plot effect. There have been some reported issues with screen tear on the 360 version but it was not something that was easily apparent on this reviewers play-through.
Darksiders is an extremely decent first effort from Vigil and it is unfortunate that it was released the same week as SEGA’s perfect-scoring effort, Bayonetta. However, Darksiders does stand up on its own as a fine example of action-adventure gaming at its purest. Yes, maybe it could’ve had a multiplayer and perhaps people will want DLC, but when the single-player element is this good, who cares?
Popularity: unranked [?]
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