A lot of comparisons have been made to other games by other reviews of Darksiders, apparently it has borrowed quite liberally from a number of different games. With my previous gaming experience focussing mainly on racing and first person shooters, the only game that initially sprang to mind that I’ve played recently was Ghostbusters.
Well, Ghostbusters without the proton packs and ghosts. The opening mission sees you running around a modern day city as meteors plummet to earth reminding me of the opening scenes of many Michael Bay films. The city seems pretty open planned, that is until you start to move, then building crumble, demonic structures rise, and there is only one way you can go. It’s a clever way to make you think you have freedom to explore whilst making sure you go where the game mechanics want you to go. Much like my experience with Ghostbusters. That’s where the similarities end, however.
Darksiders: Wrath of War was conceived by comic book artist Joe Madureira (X-Men, Battle Chasers, The Ultimates), and is set in a Post-Apocalyptic demon-ravaged world where you get to play War, the second Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Tricked into starting Armageddon about one thousand years too early, you are stripped of your powers and sent back to earth to find it a desolate place, full of zombies and other demonic beings.
After the first little mission and the resulting cut scene that sees you stripped of your awesome powers, the game becomes a little more open world. You still have only one path that you can take to get to where you need to go, but with a bit of exploring, you can find secret areas to explore and discover things like extra lives, up-grades and other goodies.
And explore is something you will want to do – it’s half the fun of the game, finding hidden chambers and seeing what they hold – but beware, as some of them hold more than just treasure, some hold a few more demonic beasts for you to slay.
The fighting system is pretty basic – with dodge, grab, jump and attack – but allows you to upgrade and select specific skills and extra abilities, triggered by the right and left buttons and triggers. It’s mastering these abilities that will allow you to progress past the different levels and your adversaries tend to get harder the further along the game you go.
I think the basic idea is you have to go find and defeat Satan, but getting to him will be difficult so you need the help of several disgruntled demons– but being of the demonic trait, they’ll only help you if you help them. So your quest becomes a string of side quests that help you get to where you’re going.
The environments are incredibly rich and well thought out, with the way ahead not being too difficult to ascertain, but sometime you have to use your thinking cap to figure out how to get there. The game is a little glitchy in places – Vigil Games have assured us “It’s something that’s really not a difficult fix for us, and so we’re going to implement a patch to resolve the problem.” – but fortunately it doesn’t distract much from the game at hand.
With a decent supply of creatures to destroy, all with differing attributes and different ways to kill them, and a combination of them attacking you at a time, Darksiders manages to keep you on your toes whilst in combat. With the exploring side of things giving your brain a bit of action occasionally, as well as keeping you watching for what’s about to jump out at you, Darksiders manages to keep you busy enough to keep you glued to the game, wanting to just press that little bit further before retiring the controller for the night.
The main thing of course is that it’s incredibly fun to play and has enough variation as to keep the game fresh throughout.
If you love third person fighting games – specifically ones that see you running around with an oversized sword – and you’re not adverse to seeing creatures killed in slow motion with plenty of gory blood and guts, then this is the game for you. Slashing your way through the undead after humanity has been wiped out may not be the most light-hearted way to spend and evening, but it is one of the most entertaining.
Reviewed on: XBox 360
Available on: XBox 360, PS3
Reviewed by:
