Now, wait a minute,
haven't
we been here before?
Well, we have
but just a bit later in the timeline it would seem.
Wibbley wobbley, timey wimey and all that,
you see.
I reviewed the second
Darksiders before, for those of you with an intense phobia for clicking links,
and now I’ve come to the first entry into the series that we may sadly
never see a
third entry to, which brings the story around full circle…ish.
While there are obvious spoilers from the
second game, I already knew walking in that when I took the reins from War,
things were going to start going not well at all for the Horseman.
This was proven in the first couple of
minutes into the game.
 |
| Xbox 360 Box Art |
War fights his way through a metropolis that totally isn’t
New York City that’s being run over by demons and angels alike.
Soon, however, he begins to lose his power
and finds himself being snatched up after getting his ass handed to him by a
particularly nasty menace.
The Charred
Council is about to exact punishment upon War for apparently jumping the gun on
the Apocalypse, when War suggests sending him back – without his powers, no
less – to set things right.
If he
succeeds, then all is well.
If he
doesn’t, the Council will have their punishment enacted one way or another.
They agree, and thus begins War’s quest to
find out just who was behind starting the Apocalypse and finding a way to set
everything right and…
Yeah, again, I played the second game first, I know how this
is going to go.
So, that being said, War doesn’t control nearly as fluidly
as his brother Death does. While Death
was more like an otherworldly acrobat, able to bob and weave around while slice
and dicing his enemies, War favors a more direct approach. He has a ridiculously oversized sword and is
more than willing to beat any demonic or angelic fool over the head with it. He also, throughout the story, gets his hands
on some other pretty heavy hardware –a horn that can stun or in some cases
knock over enemies and a giant oversized boomerang blade, as two examples – and
fairly lives up to his reputation as a warrior without peer.
Like
Darksiders II,
its predecessor also has some puzzle sections that are needed to navigate the
various areas to complete objectives.
I
imagine having the gift of having played the sequel, I’m blessed with being
able to plainly see where some things were changed.
Such was obvious in the style of combat, but
also in the puzzles, which seem to me a bit less straightforward than those in
the second.
However, once I’d rattled my
brain or looked up a game guide, I was marveling at how utterly blind I had
been on some occasions.
 |
| "Its rider was given power
to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was
given a large sword..." |
The combat gives you the usual
God of War fair – heavy attacks, light attacks, etc. – and while it’s
not as bad as some games I’ve played, it can quickly turn into a hack n’ slash
button fest, particularly when you’re surrounded by enemies.
It can quickly get repetitive, something that
I didn’t feel so easily wielding Death’s kickass scythes as I did War’s long,
imposing blade of complete and utter destruction.
Also an interesting change is that the
RPG-esque items system implemented in two that allowed Death to change out his
scythes and his skull-belted mini-skirts of doom isn’t in this one.
Breaking open chests, breaking the
environment, and defeating bosses in
Darksiders
will net you souls in a variety of colors.
Some restore your health, some are currency used with Vulgrim (yes, the
same one), and others are to boost up War’s Wrath meter.
All in all, I like this game. The combat can get a little bit repetitive
with the button mashing and wave after wave of enemies, but I’ve neither the
mental fortitude or the patience to come up with a way to fix a formula that
has worked literally since the day programmers could put a sword into a
character’s hand, so shush me I guess.
Darksiders is available from THQ and Vigil Games.
This review is based on the Xbox 360 version.
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