Darksiders

Darksiders has a little bit of a problem. See, the main idea of the game is that you play as the God of War....wait, sorry, the Horseman War, who has been called down to Earth at the beginning of the apocalypse only to find heaven and hell duking it out and some angel saying the seventh seal wasn't broken, and thus War shouldn't be there, also evidenced by the fact that none of the other horsemen show up. War consequently is stripped of all his powers by a bunch of stone faces that talk and seem to rule the horsemen, is killed by a demon, resurrected, and then sent to perform various tasks for various demons in exchange for getting his powers back and slowly moving closer and closer to confronting the demon who killed him.

At the very least it's an interesting premise with some promise of creativity behind it. Unfortunately Darksiders then decides to take some of the best games out there and replicate them almost exactly. Namely: God of War, Legend of Zelda, and Portal. Yes, I said Portal. Sword and scythe combat feels very much like God of War or other hack and slash adventures, you get a glaive which works as a combination of Dark Sector and Link's boomerang (allowing you to imbue it with flame if you send it through a torch first), a hookshot, and you can make portals which are either red or blue depending on which you shot first (instead of being able to shoot them independently, a blue portal turns red after the second one is formed). Add on top of that typical Zelda boss fights mixed with enemies only getting a different look and more powerful as you go on (with some welcome fresh faces every so often) and you've got a game that feels recycled instead of fresh, and not even just a good combination of everything it borrows from. It borrows so heavily from each that it ends up not being as fun as any of them.

Possibly the best part of Darksiders, though, is the story, but not for why you might think. Everything is so gleefully complicated, the dialogue so preposterously cheesy, and add to that that for no apparent reason every single time a character mentions a name or something the creators deemed special they would highlight the subtitle text in a glowing blue. Put it all together and you end up laughing through most every cutscene. It's all just so ridiculous I eventually stopped paying attention except when told to go here and kill this guy. Why? Because he's EVIL that's why. Now DO IT. Another wonderful addition is this shadowy creature that's tied to your arm who follows you around making sure you do the will of the stone faces. The best thing about him? It's Mark fucking Hamill in top Joker form. I don't even care that it's basically the same voice as the Joker. It's awesome, and hilarious, and it made me smile.

But now back to your regularly scheduled review.

One thing I can say for Darksiders is that the different environments and set pieces you encounter are very well designed both from a cosmetic and gameplay standpoint. You go from wrecked city to jungle to mostly submerged area to subterranean sewers to a spider lair and so on. Each area is very distinct and easy to get back to should you need to return (which you will) to blast open blocked areas with new weapons. The weapons themselves are also fun to play around with, though I found myself mostly just using the sword, but they keep getting more fun as you upgrade them, which is nice.

As for the puzzles you encounter in these areas, or the areas themselves (which are basically like temples in Zelda)...some are legitimately good and require the use of multiple weapons/tools along with some intellect to get to the end of them. However, a great deal are on par with God of War's simplistic designs and require more time and effort than is worth it, even when it's clear as day what you have to do. The haphazard move train from point A to point B by switching rails and a bunch of lever pulling puzzle is a good example of this.

Also, for those trophy hunters like myself, some of the trophies are simply insane or require a great deal of backtracking and grinding to get. The best example is the infamous Dark Rider trophy, where you have to ride 100 miles on your horse. To give you an idea of how ridiculous this is, there are only about 3 places in the game where you can ride your horse, and only one of those for great distances. Then factor in just exactly how fast the horse goes (~50mph), and you quickly see that there is no way to get this trophy in a simple playthrough. Not only that, but unless you ride your horse every god damn time you can, it can take up to 2 hours of running in circles to get it. Prepare your favorite method of keeping that analog stick in place and go watch a movie, that is honestly the best way to do it, and secures it as one of the most pointless things to ever include as an "achievement".

At this point I also have to address a big issue. The controls. Most of the game plays absolutely fine and you don't need to worry about anything but square to slash, triangle for alternate weapon, x to jump, and circle to open chests or grab enemies. However, a surprising amount of trouble comes from just one button: R1. You see, some wise guy who designed this game thought it would be a good idea to assign both block and dash to the same button, and then make certain combos reliant on doing one or the other, along with making many of the enemies you face require constant movement to stay alive. I barely blocked the entire game. Not because I didn't want to, but because every time I tried, if I was moving even slightly, I dashed instead. If you're already blocking and you nudge the movement stick, you dash. In some tight combat situations, especially against enemies whom the best strategy against was to block, it becomes a very frustrating issue that caused me more than one game over screen. The targeting system, especially in what is basically first person mode, is also pretty terrible. It's nearly impossible to use in combat, as evidenced by 3 particularly frustrating boss fights trying to use the equivalent of the portal gun, as well as the fact that it highly reduces both movement and view of the battlefield, which becomes highly important when fighting more than one monster. Even when fighting one on one targeting usually just gets in the way.

In any case, as much as I've ragged on it Darksiders is still a fairly fun game to play. The lack of innovation and complexity really gets in its way, but it's still hard to go wrong with all the components that it has borrowed. They may not be as good as their originals, but they're still good. When it really gets flowing the combat is intense, gory, and fun, and when they require some thought the puzzles/temples are quite satisfying in their completion. It's just when the structure of the game gets in its own way that things become tedious and not as fun. Trying to remember which areas had blocked off parts that could only be accessed by the newest weapon you just got gets tiring when you have to do it for 3 different ones. Enemies are recycled and buffed up as you progress so you end up fighting a combination of bats, grunts, armored grunts, or big beasts at pretty much every point in the game. Bosses are a simple matter of finding a way to get to a weak point, smashing the weak point until it stops you, repeat way to get to weak point, smash, etc. Yet somehow, despite all this, I had a good time with it. I think as long as you don't take too serious a look and jump in and just have a good time, Darksiders can be quite rewarding as an action game. Look deeper though, or try to go for everything littered about the world, and you'll get bogged down.

Darksiders gets a 7/10.