Darksiders casts you in the role of War who just happens to be one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. The balance has been broken by something called ‘The Destroyer’ and War is called in to figure out who this entity is and why it has framed him for what is essentially the end of the world.
STORY:
Without going into too much detail Darksiders has an interesting take on the whole heaven vs hell conflict. While both sides are constantly at war there is a balance that needs to be maintained so the world is not destroyed. I really loved this concept and the story was engaging right from the get go. I felt like I was watching something that could easily be ported over to a graphic novel or animated series. The inclusion of Mark Hamil as one of the supporting characters really added to the story’s punch. The one thing I could not get over though is Hamil’s voice for ‘The Watcher’ really just sounded like ‘The Joker’ without the evil laughing. This wasn’t that bad of a thing though as The Watcher provided some much-needed, albeit sinister, comic relief.
As I said in the first part of my review the characters really made the game for me. I loved watching the interaction between War and Ulthane. It was like a giant drunken Scotsman ready to smash War into the wall at any moment. Every character that I came across was interesting and held my attention.
GAMEPLAY:
Darksiders is a fun hack and slash game with tons of platforming to accomplish. If I could best describe the game it would be if The Legend of Zelda and God Of War had a baby. A really long-haired, buff, baby who slices people in two for fun… No need to bore you with how the controls work as they are pretty much setup like any other action title. You have your jump, attack, block, and special attack buttons all there for you to play with. The controls were responsive, however I did have some issues with accidentally hitting the R2 button, triggering the wrong attack. This is no fault of the game itself as my giant-sized hands sometimes do not play well with the PS3 controller.
One of the cool gameplay elements in Darksiders is the finishing move system. Once you hack and slash your opponent to a certain energy level, a floating circle will appear over its head. Once you trigger the appropriate button you go into a God of War-style kill shot resulting in some gore-filled goodness. Killing these baddies not only gets you further down your path but you can also collect different kinds of souls. Blue souls are used as currency where you can upgrade your sword, learn attack movies, and buy consumables. Green souls are the traditional health and yellow signifies rage. Rage souls allow you to use special attacks in a trigger menu unleashing devastating moves to forces of both legions.
One of the coolest moments in the game was the introduction of your chaos form. Without going too much into the story, War finds out he has a lot more power then he knows and, when he attacks enough baddies, he can change form. A simple press of two shoulder buttons and you can turn into a fiery demon able to decimate virtually anything in your path. It only lasts a short time but this was a hell of a lot of fun to use. Be careful though as the camera is sometimes your worst enemy in this game. I found myself getting tagged into a corner at times as the camera spun around to an awkward position.
Darksiders not only offers mindless hacking and slashing but requires the player to think a little bit as well. Throughout the game there are several platform-type puzzles to solve in order to continue your journey. While the traditional puzzle elements were a fun break from the action I have to say that the shadow arenas do not get a passing grade from me. You are sent into the shadow world to complete a series of time trials before you can move on to the next section. Each time trial has its own goals like killing a certain number of baddies in a given time frame or only killing baddies while using cars. This really became more of a bother then story progression for me. When I arrived at these shadow arenas I felt like the story really came to a halt and I lost that engagement with what I was doing story wise.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND:
Darksiders is a great looking games from the characters to the environments. I found little to no FPS issues and no graphical errors while playing through the game. At times it felt like I was watching an animated movie and some of the cut scenes were just a pleasure to view. During the early levels of the game the destruction of the environment really gave the feeling that something horrible was going on around you.
The sound in Darksiders is really more about the character work. The voice acting is well done and doesn’t seem forced at all. Mark Hamil and the other actors were easy to understand and a pleasure to listen to during cut scenes. The game audio just did not meet on par with the game’s visuals. The game is lacking in the amount of ambient noise I would expect from it.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Darksiders is a fun game with a great graphic novel feel and lots of cool attacks to utilize. The story alone is worth the price of admission despite its gameplay issues. Hopefully, THQ will proceed with a sequel so we can see where the story leads.
*DISCLOSURE: A copy of Darksiders for the PS3 was provided to GamingShogun.com for this review.
