Darksiders

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Game Information

Developed by Vigil Games
Published by THQ
Platform : PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, OnLive and Microsoft Windows
Genre : Action and Adventure
Age Rating : 18+
Players : Single player
Additional Contents Provided : None
Release Date - Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 : (NA) 5 January 2010, (EU) 8 January 2010, (AUS) 7 January 2010
Release Date - Microsoft Windows : (NA) 23 September 2010, (EU) 24 September 2010
Release Date - OnLive : (NA) 23 September 2010, (EU) 22 September 2011
Release Date - Steam : (WorldWide) 23 December 2010

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Synopsis

Darksiders is a gruesome, violent, fast-paced combat adventure inspired by the New Testament's Book of Revelation. Players take the role of War, the first of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War must battle both demons and angels, as he fights alone to reverse a premature Day of Reckoning that he himself is accused of accidentally bringing to be. In the style of games such as Devil May Cry and God of War, Darksiders' combat is supernaturally infused, taking place across great expanses of land as well as high in the air, with fast-flowing combos, impossibly huge medieval weapons, and destructive blasts of magical energy from mystical firearms. After being tricked into breaking the eternal laws, and causing the end of the world to come far too early, the horseman War finds himself at odds with both the forces of heaven and hell. The game follows his story as he fights across the destroyed civilizations and wildernesses of Earth, hunted by vengeful angels and gleeful demons alike, as he searches for the one who fooled him into fulfilling his purpose too soon, and unsettling the order of existence.

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Gameplay

For me personally, Darksiders was a really enjoyable game for me. Running around in this city trying to annihilate demons from the face of the earth while human beings flee for their is pretty darn exciting if you ask me. This game feels so very much like Prototype and God of War but this game does have an excitement factor to it like no other. The enemies in the campaign vary in size and strength, in the beginning the will be quite weak however as you progress the bosses that you must fight seem to get bigger and stronger. As you level up in the ranks you can't start dealing more damage to your enemies and even pull off spectacular combos. Dishing an enemy up in the air and then jumping on them and putting your sword straight through their heart definitely makes you feel like a god. When you pull off combos a multiplier will appear by the side and the higher the multiplier is the higher damage you can pull off until it runs out and resets back to zero. This is extremely helpful and essential if you have a lot of enemies surrounding you and you can seriously do some damage to them if it's pulled off correctly. As there are huge bosses in the game there are also other enemies in the game that would prove quite a difficulty, the spider looking enemies aren't that difficult to defeat but the flying angels are pretty deadly when they come in groups so you may need to watch your back. You can use environment aspects to traverse with to get across buildings or to somewhere that you need to go. A feature is that they game automatically goes into a cutscene sometimes and this can sometime give you time to think of a strategy and when the cutscene ends that's what you see in front of you. If a spider drops down and tries to attack you in a cutscene, when you come out of it the spider will start to attack you. Combos and that vary with the level of your character. Higher the level, better the combos. Once again, gameplay is really good and the campaign has a good amount of play time.

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Graphics

Graphics in this game I can honestly say are down right amazing. Playing in High Definition on the Xbox 360 really brought the gameplay to life. Fire looked ever so realistic, if an enemy shot fire at you, or plasma it would look asif it's coming to actually hit you. As far-fetched this may seem it is true. Textures look great, such as cars, roads even traffic light look stunning. Enemies seem to have a lot of detail to them and you can see weak spots on the enemy if you look close enough or the game will highlight them out for you. The armor that your character wears is detailed and very colourful, your sword that you carry has real nice colour to it and usually it pulsates some kind of energy throughout it which looks cool. Only problem in the graphics portion is that the sky is really weird and doesn't look right. I don't like the fact that the sky mostly has black clouds and occasionally the sun will appear for a second but they should have added different aspects to the sky. Sunshine and snow would be great but it always seems to be black clouds. Seasons would be amazing in the game but I guess there's no point getting ahead of myself.

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Controls

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Overall, the campaign and gameplay play great and the storyline is really thorough. This game doesn't have multiplayer compatibility which is a bit of a downer and would have been cool to see this implemented. Controls are responsive and basic so you can get to work quick pulling off amazing combos. You can pick it up for quite cheap at local game stores and you can even find it online for OnLive. So you don't even have to get up to play them which is pretty sweet.

Game Rating : 8/10 (Gameplay and campaign are exciting, enjoyable and are thorough, graphics are pretty stunning and the game is very easy to adapt to)