Darksiders Review – “Getting on the Dark Side”
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Darksiders - Review
War is upon us and once again you are our only hope. However in this case you are War so everything should be fine and dandy. Confused? Read on!
Developed by a brand new studio called Vigil Games, Darksiders takes there approach to creating a sword swinging, heart ripping, blood spattering action adventure game which would make Devil May Cry\ Dante’s Inferno\ Bayonetta wet themselves, leaving quite a large puddle.
Is Vigil Games’ first title a title worth owning? Or is it pot luck for war being around?
Story – 9
In Darksiders you take on the role of one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – War. The game begins with the apocalypse prematurely taking place, the whole city goes to hell – quite literally!. However you get caught up in the battle of the angels and demons and soon realise that something isn’t right.
War then gets cast down into Oblivion – or something like that, just a fiery pit where there happens to be an interior design working the lava pits. You end up loosing all your initial powers and then have to start all over again, this time trying to find out who the hell started the apocalypse (Can I get away with saying Hell a lot? It just seems to fit in, it sounds Heavenly! Cringe…).
Once you have been cast out you return to the Earth to find the reasoning behind all the happenings, who, why, how, etc. Standard Mumbo Jumbo. Once returned you get attached with a watcher known as ‘The Watcher’, nice standard ‘catchy’ name. From then onwards you meet other fellow horseman on your quest.
The voice acting throughout the story is top notch quality, especially seeing as our friend, Luke Skywalker\Mark Hamill, makes an appearance as the voice of The Watcher and pulls it off rather well! Although after a while it does feel like a bit too much auto-tuning has been done to a few ‘godly voices’, although we’re big fans of T-Pain’s work we don’t really care too much for it.
Gameplay – 8
The action adventure game space is growing and with that we all need new concepts to add to this thundering wheel. Darksiders comes along and easy pulls of the Action-adventure vibe rather well but don’t expect anything new.
The game does hack and slash swinging the way you expect it to be and while doing it in a solid 60fps. Thankfully all the core elements all work in tip-top condition and really pull the game together. You’ll have those moments when you just want to kill everything in sight because mashing the A button is somewhat soothing to your ‘achy breaky heart’…(am I allowed to quote songs?).
The game packs a good punch of upgrades for all your weapons. As well as your standard sword you can go about purchasing a rather nice scythe along with special abilities. Vulgrim is an evil dude who acts as your shop and he wants the souls of the dead for his currency, recycling at an all new level!
The game does involve some puzzle-solving/platforming elements however sometimes these become a little too tedious and can cut up the flow of gameplay. These puzzle-solving set pieces can be very long winded leaving you to be rather confused about what sort of game it is, by this point imagine Zelda’s Link if he had gone about massively massacring all the members of hyrule and then was stuck in a game, maybe you would get Darksiders? Well we’ll have to get some research money together to do that.
Graphics – 8
War is a good looking chap, he had clearly scrubbed up to go out for a meal with the other horseman before all this apocalypse rubbish kicked off, bad timing matey.
The game has a sort of dirty, grimy, end of the world look to it where key elements glow a godly light colour and others just remain extremely black. Character models look great, especially their outfits which represent something of an over the top version of Lord of the Rings. War, shown above, just clearly looks bad ass and most characters which you come across also have this persona. Thanks to a great art designer.
Environments however can sometimes feel a little too grimy. Around about 4 hours into the game you will suddenly realise that most of the interiors begin to look remarkably the same. Everything is grey, very grey and with that you only seem to be the only colour source from miles around.
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Details
Category: Arcade/ Action Adventure
Age: BBFC rated 15 Years and above
Publisher: THQ
...Heaven
- At a full 60fps this game plays fantastically
- Compelling story, unique.
- Arrange of weapons and abilities to come across, all look totally awesome.
...Hell
- Puzzling elements are tedious and sometimes even down right annoying.
- Grey environments repeat.
- Nothing we haven’t seen before.
Overal Then
Darksiders can happily stay for tea just as long as one of the horseman don’t show up. The game’s overall experience comes as a great head start for Vigil game studio and the start of 2010. Darksiders is without a doubt a Great game to pick up As long as your not expecting anything new, you won’t be disappointed.
Written & Reviewed by Sam Clay
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