Darksiders (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Todd Vote on 02.03.2010
The Apocalypse is upon us as Darksiders hits the Xbox 360. 411's Todd Vote chimes in with his thoughts on the game. I ask you, "Would you serve in Heaven, or rule in Hell?"
Darksiders
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Vigil Games
Genre: Action
Players: 1 Player
Rating: M
(Warning: This review, and game may contain some sensitive religious references)
Darksiders is among us finally. As one of my most anticipated games of the early part of this year, I was excited to finally get my hands on the game. I didn't walk away disappointed. Let me start off by saying I love me some God of War. When I compare a game to God of War, it is not necessarily a bad thing, rather it is to give you an idea of how things work. I may compare game play and other aspects of the game to God of War, but believe me, this is not a mere God of War clone. Darksiders does a great job of borrowing the best aspects from several different games, and carving out it's own place in the crowded 3rd person action market. I may also point out where other aspects of the game were borrowed from, but again it is merely a reference point, and not a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game in any way shape or form.
Darksiders is the story of War, framed for jump starting the Apocalypse, and his quest that he has taken on from the Council to clear his name and restore the balance. Along his way, War is helped/hindered by the Watcher, brilliantly voiced by Mark Hammill (The Joker, Luke Skywalker). The Watcher is just that, assigned the task of watching War's actions and making sure War does what he is supposed to do. The Watcher constantly reminds War of just who controls the leash.
The thing I enjoyed most about the storyline of the game is the fact that it plays on Christian religion, without shoehorning itself into that history. You will find angels, and demons, and atrocities, but there is never a mention of God or Satan in the game that I noticed. It was a fine line to walk. They manage to draw from the mythology of the religion, and yet also branch out in their own direction. It works for the story of the game.
It is up to you to navigate War across sprawling landscapes, and into huge castles, and caverns to set things right. Are you up to the task?
Gameplay
The game opens as the Apocalypse is descending upon mankind. We are treated to a birds-eye view of a meteor dropping into the center an unidentified metropolis. Like several games of this type, here you are treated to a fully powered War, in a way to entice you of what you can do before yanking all of your abilities away from you to start you on your quest, which of course happens at the worst time for War, during your first battle with Straga.
We are then treated to a cut-scene setting up the premise of the game, with War talking with the Council. It is decided that War will be given a chance to clear his name and restore the balance in the world, but he will have that dastardly Watcher following his every move.
War is given back his sword, The Choaseater, also powered down, and we are on our way. Combat in this game is fairly original. Instead of the standard setup of light attack and heavy attack, we instead have an attack button assigned to the Chaoseater, an attack button assigned to the secondary weapon (The Harvester Scythe, or the Tremor Gauntlet). Lastly, the right trigger is mapped to use several different things such as Mercy, War's pistol, the Crossblade (think Dark Sector), a grappling hook (Abyssal Chain), and the portal gun... Yes, the portal gun (Void Walker), which you will need to progress, and works identical to the gun in the game Portal. You use the right bumper to block and dash, while the right stick operates your camera for you. You can attack freely, or use the left trigger to lock onto enemies.
You can seamlessly switch up your attacks between any of the three weapons you have equipped at the time. It would have been nice to have a seamless way to switch your equipped weapons in mid combat to unleash even more brutal combos, but what they have done works pretty well. You can switch your weapons at any time with the d-pad, but if you do it in mid combat, you will lose your combo meter.
War employs an attack style somewhere between anarchic, and speedy. His moves aren't as flashy as Kratos, and he is a touch slower than most protagonists in this type of game. His attacks are very powerful, however, and can be used to knock enemies back that get in to close when you are dealing with other foes. Of course, as you level up your weapons and abilities, they tend to come off a bit faster, and gain more variety of attacks.
So War is off on his journey to figure out just what the hell happened. Along the way, there are plenty of enemies to deal with, from both sides of this war. You will fight demons, angels, bats, dragons, monsters... There is no shortage of enemies, and the game does a great job of spacing out the appearances of each type. This really added to the feeling of the game trying to offer something new every once in a while to keep your interest.
Upgrading of weapons and abilities are done through shop locations similar to what was used in RE4. At these portals, you will meet Vulgrim. Vulgrim will trade just about anything for the right amount of souls (blue orbs, or skulls). Later in the game Vulgrim serves a different purpose, as a travel portal so to speak. With Vulgrims help you can jump to any location he has set up, provided you have discovered said location on your own first. This component comes in handy with such a huge world to explore.
Blocking and countering is fairly pedestrian, but for the life of me, I couldn't get the counter to work very well at all, and this is with the assist of some in game tutorial missions. There are certain parts of the game where to open a new area you will need to complete a series of challenges. These work great to teach you how to make War work for you.
Each weapon War is given or earns, depending on how you look at it, serves a larger purpose than simply raising his level of badassery, aside from the Chaoseater. For example, the Tremor Gauntlet serves to smash enemies away. But if those pesky blue crystals block your path, just smash them out of the way with the Tremor Gauntlet. The Abyssal Chain can yank your enemies closer to you, but it alternately serves as a grappling hook to get to designated hard to reach places.
There are a couple of other power-ups there for you to collect, but I don't want to spoil everything for you guys. One is War's horse Ruin. Ruin controls better than one would expect, and again adds something to War's attacks. I'll just leave it at that.
War's magic abilities left something to be desired. When playing the game on the hardest difficulty, they were just not effective for me. They seem underpowered, and getting the yellow souls you need to fill them up was a daunting task at times. This is something that can easily be tweaked in the future titles.
Chaos mode on the other hand, may be a bit over powered. When you were able to access Chaos mode, it was as if nothing posed any threat to you, boss fight or otherwise. it is by far War's best asset. But as I said, maybe too good.
Graphics
With huge set pieces, gigantic bosses and an eerie apocalyptic tone, the game looks beautiful in my opinion, as morbid as that may sound. You can see the detail in even the most minor of characters, my favorite NPC by far is Ulthane, who you will have a competition with of sorts to see who can slay the most "pigeons". Ulthane needs an XBL arcade game of his own, he's just awesome.
While offering nothing world changing, the graphics hold up quite well with the majority of what we have seen on the current generation. In all honesty, the art style of both characters and backgrounds is reminiscent of the Gears of War Universe, with the exaggerated limbs and post-apocalyptic set pieces.
There was some issue with clipping and falling through invisible walls. One particular incident of this had me trapped in a corner trying to fight my way out. Somehow in this skirmish, I fell right through the wall, and out of the castle. Luckily falling down like this doesn't equal death, but will cost you a small portion of your health. The clipping seems to have been fixed recently with an update to the game. The problem was a rare occurrence for me, and I haven't had an incident at all since the update.
Sound
I enjoyed the sound in this game. Everything from the music to the voices, to the sound effects. The music score was done by Cris Velasco (God of War series, Clive Barker's Jericho) and Mike Reagan (God of War series, Conan) did a wonderful job of matching the tone of the game.
The voices are all very well done, from Mark Hammill voicing The Watcher, to Liam O'Brian voicing the Horseman War. Fantastic work all around. O'Brian in particular voices War with such an original slant. It may sound corny, but the best way to describe it is that he does it with an almost harmonious tone. Give it a listen and see if you can find a way to better describe it. I'm at a loss, but he sounded really cool.
Hammill voices The Watcher with such mendacity that you just get the feeling that he is up to something the whole time. Is he? Not for me to disclose. You'll find out though. My one wish for the Watcher is that if Hammill would have changed it just a bit more. I was constantly reminded of his great work in Arkham Asylum every time The Watcher would pop up.
Fun Factor
Fun combat, some dungeon crawling, and an incredible story made the hours I spent on the game just fly by. I had more fun playing this game than I've had in quite some time gaming. By the time you read this, I may quite possibly be on my next run through (Got to find the rest of the goodies!).
The story is original, well thought out and well executed. There are plenty of cliffhangers, and the payoffs are worth the wait. By the end of the game, I was thoroughly satisfied with nearly everything that had transpired throughout the course of the game. The ending even leaves you satisfied and anticipating the next installment all at the same time. I can't say enough good things about the story of this game.
Lasting Appeal
While I was satisfied, and there are reasons to go back through the game again, the story being the main reason, the collectibles are not really to plentiful. There are some armor tokens to find, that you can sell to Vulgrim, and there is the Abysmal Armor, that you can collect. It's really not much compared to some other games with this feature. They can definitely stand to add a few more things in the next installment.
The 411
The game is a blast from start to end. Vigil games and THQ really knocked it out of the park in my opinion. The game kept my attention from start to finish, and has me eagerly awaiting the next title in the Darksiders saga. If January is any indication to what we can expect this year, we have a lot to look forward to.
Graphics
8.5
As I said, solid and very well done, but nothing we haven't come to expect from this generation
Gameplay
8.5
The combat is fun, and easy to pick up. The magic and the Chaos mode kept me from giving it a higher mark.
Sound
9.5
The music and the voices are all very well done. Catchy score, and great effects.
Lasting Appeal
9.0
It's going to get plenty of more playtime out of me.
Fun Factor
10.0
Very satisfying storyline, and fun easy to pick up combat. What more could you want?
