Darksiders

The Short


Pros
- Successfully apes the Zelda formula in an adult setting
- Terrific art design and graphics
- Dungeons are clever and have unique puzzles, including one that uses an honest-to-god portal gun
- Wide assortment of weapons and side weapons that flow well in combat
- Loads of secrets to find (ala Zelda)
- Suitable story paired with some exceptional voice acting
- Ending is FREAKING AWESOME
- Killing angels and demons is visceral and fun
- Finishing moves don't require quick time events on regular enemies. I'm so glad we are finally killing that trend.
- Bosses are fantastic
- Incredible setpieces
- Your horse is awesome and can be summoned from anywhere
- If you grew up on Zelda, you'll probably love this game

Cons
- Combat is shallow. It gets a little deeper later, but restricting most attacks to one button was a mistake. It's still better than the last eight versions of the same Zelda game, though.
- The aforementioned portal gun dungeon is seriously the longest dungeon in human history
- That being said, there aren't very many dungeons
- End of the game turns into a fetch quest to go back and find stuff in order to "unlock" the final boss
- Story is decent but gets really convoluted
- Has a fairly weak first couple of hours (gauntlet challenges are never fun) that are only exacerbated by the mediocre starting combat
- Rips off Zelda with such precision you wonder if Vigil's design document was just a copy of Ocarina of Time
- Boxart is fugly. Who picked that color scheme? Urine yellow on gray? Ugh.

War and his absurdly massive sword have come to mess you up

The Long

Darksiders is another one of those games I've bought multiple times for some inexplicable reason. I bought it on release day on a whim because it looked like Zelda meets God of War (which it is), beat it twice (and got every achievement but two), and then traded it. I then really wanted to play it again about a year later so I bought it for $5 on OnLive for some inexplicable reason (I've since gotten over my OnLive love) and burned through 90% of the game again. Knowing how bad I am at restraining myself when it comes to games I love, odds are I'll pick it up again when it hits some Steam sale for $5 or less just so I can see how it looks with ultra graphics settings and max resolution, because I'm an idiot.

All that aside, Darksiders is a game that sort of came out of nowhere and was completely fantastic, if only because it copied a classic game's formula (read: Zelda) to a "t." However, digging a little deeper into Darksiders reveals a handful of significant changes to that formula - most of them for the better - which help Darksiders carve a unique niche despite it being less of a "homage" and more of a "dark photocopy."

But literally nobody rips off Zelda these days except the next Zelda game (THEY ARE ALL THE SAME GAME PEOPLE), so hey...we'll take it.

Can you tell this game was made by a comic book artist? Or maybe a toy designer?

Darksiders follows the story of War, one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, who goes down to earth to start Armageddon, the three-way battle between heaven, hell, and the world of man. To say this game follows the Bible's interpretation of the apocalypse would be overstating it by a long shot. It's clear that they took the general gist from the book of Revelations (which, to be fair, is pretty indecipherable anyway) and then wrote some comic-book style fanfiction. What else explains the fact that two of the horsemen are now "Strife" and "Fury," and one of them is a lady. I guess War in Pratchett and Gaiman's Good Omens was a lady, too, but at least they gave a reason to change Famine to Pollution; I have literally no idea why they swapped them out. Well, whatever, on with the story.

Basically War was confused or something because, despite the fact that angels and demons were battling it out on earth when he arrived, this wasn't the real apocalypse, and was somehow started either by accident or as a trick. So the Council (which I guess is God? Or...not?) who are sort of the overseers of all this strip War of his powers and send him back to earth to find out what the crap was going on. The catch is they send him back 100 years after the big war, so all the puny humans are now dead or zombies and it's just demons and angels down there.

Anyway, it's interesting enough and has some neat characters, but stuff really gets convoluted near the end, to the point where I was just nodding and shrugging and letting stuff resolve itself. After a third playthrough it kind of made more sense, but they really need to learn to stagger their reveals, or at least find some consistencies with their mythology to present to me before revealing a staggering "twist" that I literally do not understand.

Luckily every voice in the game is fantastic, with War (also Weiss from Nier) and the Watcher (Mark Hamill from...you know who he is) being standouts, but Samael the Demon and the Scottish titan/smith being exceptional as well. The script is also decent throughout, with the Smith and Samael getting the best lines, while War just sort of grunting and being a badass, which is too bad because Weiss is one of the wittiest and best-executed characters in gaming history.

I guess this lady is in the game too, but she's not particularly interesting. Or sane. 

So enough about the story, what about the game? Well, I can actually be pretty brief here and just say it's every 3D Legend of Zelda since Ocarina of Time, since all those games are the same. Your first sub-weapon is a boomerang that can attack multiple targets, though the fact that if you charge it the boomerang will hold enemies in place as it attacks them makes it infinitely more useful. You also get a hookshot which can be used to either swing around or yank enemies towards you, a gun (instead of a bow), and you use these items in the dungeons you find them to solve puzzles and then beat a boss. There are bomb-plants but you never get any actual bombs, you get big punchy-fists (aka hammers) that are used to smash up rocks, and you get a...portal gun? That shoots orange and blue portals? Come on, you people aren't even trying.

Despite ripping Zelda off in exactness, Darksiders actually works for two reasons. First, because the Zelda formula is a pretty decent one, which is why Nintendo hasn't bothered to change it since 1998. And second, because (unlike Nintendo), Darksiders makes enough changes to both the pacing of the game, combat, and world to essentially improve on this formula, the biggest changes being in combat. This is pretty much Zelda for people who grew up on Zelda but are now twenty-somethings, and would like a game that is more action-oriented and actually lets you jump.

There are lots of changes to the formula that improve it (jumping being a big one), though my personal favorite is the inclusion of platforming puzzles ala Prince of Persia or the Uncharted games. This adds a vertical element to the dungeons that doesn't exist in Zelda since you can only climb sometimes and only jump if you run off the side of a cliff. This makes the dungeons much more interactive and interesting than most Zelda dungeons, though I'll admit that Nintendo knows how to use their self-imposed limitations to make cleverer puzzles than Darksiders pulls out (probably because its the same limitations they invented on the N64!)

Plus you can mess up some robo-angels. 

Anyway, it's a pity there are only 4-5 dungeons in the game, though some of them are so long and have an open-worldy feel that I guess we could count them multiple times. The final dungeon in particular, where you get a portal gun, is stupidly long. While the idea of a portal gun in a Zelda game is actually pretty awesome (and they make some changes to the portal gun, like the ability to shoot portals through portals) and makes for some incredible puzzles, they drag it on for like three hours. Pacing, Darksiders! Learn it!

Come to think of it, pacing is actually a pretty big issue with the game. It starts out great: you fly down during the apocalypse, chucking cars at angels and demons and generally being a massive jerk to both sides. Then you are thrown back into the world all weak where little baby zombies are more your match, and after running around for a bit you have to do some "challenge rooms" for poorly explained "plot reasons." I think it's secretly a tutorial for their paper-thin combat system, but whatever; it slows the game down. Once you finally get to the first dungeon the game picks up, only to be slammed back into low-gear at the end where it tasks you with running back across the world to pick up pieces of a final weapon. Why would you do this? Urgh. 

Suffer not an ugly beastie to live. 

As for the combat, it's better than Zelda, which peaked in the incredible Wind Waker and then forgot all the awesome things it had (counters, fast combat, dodges, enemy weapons) and got dumbed down again, but I guess Wind Waker had the problem where they gave you all these new moves and kept the enemies weak as balls so...anyway, enough of me bagging on Zelda (I swear I still love the games despite my naysaying). Darksiders feels like a dumbed down God of War or Devil May Cry, the "dumbing" being that it only uses one button through most of the game. It sort of works once you finally get some combos that you have to buy from the store, but it suffers from that Viking: Battle for Asgard syndrome of locking all the fun combat early on in an attempt at "progression." The one-button combat can be accented by equipping a second primary weapon (to the "Y" button vs the "X" button), as well as your sidearm (boomerang, gun, etc.) but none of these weapons combo into each other. Still, given the ability to dodge and the difficulty of the enemies, once you adapt to the somewhat clunky combat it becomes quite fun, and adding more moves helps tremendously.

This is an "M" rated game, FYI. 

Graphically the game looks fantastic, with a unique, flavorful art design very reminiscent of comic books or those Warhammer toys. While I'll admit it's all sort of a big goofy - with ugly demons wearing skulls on everything and metallic, gleaming angles - it all fits a unique theme that you'll either totally love or think is just passable. The architecture of the world is especially grandiose, making the majority of locations pretty to look at (with the exception of a few "post-apocalyptic" streets, which fortunately there are very few of) and being quite colorful and, again, fitting that comic-book theme.

I like the look of War particularly, even though his sword is stupidly massive and his hands (or whole body, for that matter) are way bigger than his tiny head. I will say the overuse of skulls all over the place makes the game less "hardcore" and more "goofy." Again, this is M rated Zelda, I get that, but having you collect "skull pieces" instead of "heart pieces" to increase your overall "skulls" is more akin to what a 12-year-old Hot Topic shopper defines as "cool" than actually being "adult."

War ain't afraid of no demons

Despite all my complaints I really loved the crap out of Darksiders, as evidenced by my stupid multiple purchasing decisions. While not exactly the evolution of the Zelda formula one would hope for, it makes excellent strides in the right direction, and provides a fun and violent experience that is mostly familiar with a dash of freshness. Here's hoping the upcoming sequel, Darksiders II, evolves further and presents more new ideas to solidify this series as a true Zelda competitor. 

You can get the game for $20 on the high end, which is absolutely worth it. It's also on every system known to man (except the Wii), so you really have no excuse to not buy it. If you had any sort of fondness for Zelda you'll at least glean a marginal amount of satisfaction from the game, or you could be like me and love it silly.

It's a solid four out of five game, and one of my favorites this console generation. Bring on Darksiders II.