Darksiders review

If you've been following Darksiders at all or are even aware of it, you'll likely notice a pattern- people have been comparing it to Zelda, Metroid, and God of War, citing the extreme similarities throughout the game. I personally think this is a bit unfair, thus I will be doing this entire review without mentioning, alluding to or even motioning towards games Darksiders has taken “inspiration from”.

First things first- I personally like the graphical style of the game's artist Joe Madd, although I've found this to be a point of contention from one person to another. Some find the hulking mass of War, the demons, or basically any character in the game to be slightly overdeveloped and contain too much detail contributing to the general effect of clutter. For those who're unaware, Darksiders is set after the extinction of the human race in an event alarmingly similar to the apocalypse, but is assuredly NOT the apocalypse, just the extinction of the entire human race in an all out war between heaven and hell. In my eyes, that is an apocalypse. However, War's managers don't agree and the council revokes his powers for reasons relating to only 6 of 7 magical artefacts having been activated, meaning the end of days was not the official be all end all for the earth. Strangely, when you return to earth 100 years later you find the entire placed bereft of any life besides horrible monsters and the occasional angels, the remains of human civilisation serving as nothing more than reminders of a dead species.

Fallout 3 was critically praised by all and sundry, however the main point of contention was the bland, brown colour pallet that made up 98% of the game, but this post-not-apocalypse earth doesn't suffer from it. The Horseman explores deserts, lakes, castles, lava ridden canyons and the Garden of Eden itself in his quest to restore the honour of his name. These locations, however, do seem to miss the opportunity to capitalise on the remnants of human civilisation- the environments generally hold no buildings at all, let alone ones that would be instantly recognisable and have some sort of meaning, something that could've elevated the experience that little bit more.

The game's progression feels natural and fun- you navigate dungeons, gathering keys, solving puzzles and collecting tools to help you overcome the next puzzles. These items can range from giant homing shuriken to the reclamation of your trusty steed. As you play the horseman of the apocalypse, you'd think the acquisition of a horse to be a big deal. But really, you only get much use out of Ruin for one section of the game and even then it’s fairly short. One of my major complaints about Darksiders is the balance of some items. The throwing star is the second ability you pick up and yet it will be used consistently until the end of the very last dungeon. In contrast cooler tools such as the aforementioned steed and “mask of truth” only get a look in for a brief scavenger hunt. Combat also suffers from imbalance- the third secondary weapon you acquire has such short range and such limited damage potential that you'll often find yourself using nothing but the default blade to slash, batter and bloodify the various demons inhabiting the world. This could easily have been solved by an integrated combat system allowing combos utilising all available weapons, but alas you have to manually switch between weapon with an animation about as fluid as marble. If you want to do a fancy insta-kill or collect wrath to turn into death-on-legs form you best get used to using your metal penis-extension.

All in all, Darksiders is 17 hours of beautifully illustrated, immersive gameplay let down by a few frame-rate and clipping issues that could've used just a little more polish. But if you can get by that then this diamond in the rough will entertain you until the very end... and lead in quite well for the sequel. Which I for one will be eagerly expecting and pre-ordering ASAP.

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