Take A Walk On The Darkside! DarkSiders Review 

Dishonoured, accused of inciting the Endwar on earth, stripped of your powers and on a mission to Search and exact bloody vengeance on those responsible! From THQ and Vigil Games, comes Darksiders a third person action, adventure game.

The war between heaven and hell has been raging for many a year. Then one day the Human race came to be, and they set aside the war, making 7 seals along with the truce, awaiting the day all 7 seals are broken to incite the Endwar – the final battle. When all 7 seals are broken the four horsemen are to ride and see the Endwar to the end, but WAR the first of the four horsemen was summoned to earth before all the seals were broken, and hence forth was accused for inciting the destruction of the human race, and stripped of his powers!

You play as WAR, a dishonoured horseman of the apocalypse, when you start to play, you play in the time before the sentence, you play in the time where WAR was called to Earth, this gets you a real feel for the game as at this point you are still at full power and can see what the game has in store for you in future. There leads into a large cut scene watching as the council sentences WAR and strips him of his powers. WAR makes a deal with the council to go back to Earth and find who was responsible and make him pay!

 When you go back to Earth, everything has changed, the end of the world happened and the human race was extinguished! All that’s left is demon ravaged wastelands and dungeons for you to explore. During gaming there’s a lot of new weaponry and skills to learn, some are purchasable from Vulgrim, a type of Demon Vendor that was trying to get the attention of the council so he too could work for them, you will see a lot of Vulgrim during the game as he pops up all over, and you can later learn to use his portals for your own use! The non purchasable items are dotted in the game, some handed to you by other characters and others are found, each found item is of great importance to continue the game so don’t just throw it aside and think nothing of it, one item in particular I found interesting which I’m not going to spoil for, but for anyone that knows the line “the cake is a lie” will surely understand.

The Combat system in Darksiders is admittedly my favourite at the moment, big weapons, insane acrobatics and an array of supernatural abilities, even horseback combat is involved, and the “instant kills” that you can use are truly amazing, my favourite little perk is when you lock on to an enemy you get a little bit of the screen cut at the top and bottom, like you’re going into a cinematic, and the camera acts as if it was a cinematic, I find that a really nice touch to the game.

The imaginative creatures brought into this game are really cool, as with most new games these days it’s hard to be original, but the creatures in Darksiders are very well done, pretty much all bosses make WAR look like an ant! The boss fights are really good in the fact that you will die once or twice just figuring out what you need to do in order to kill the beast! But then WAR has a unique way of finishing off each boss which is really nice, not holding back on the gore that’s what I like to see!!! Aside from the Combat and story line, there’s the mass amount of puzzles involved, really makes you think, I found myself stuck a good number of times and spent a good 10-20 minutes just figuring out a single section, really interesting and really immersive I honestly couldn’t put down the controller! THQ are saying it’ll take a good 20 hours to complete, yes TWENTY! And I can see where they’re coming from on that angle, it’s easy to get sidetracked looking for chests and everything, even going through the game without searching for items the puzzles keep you guessing for a good time, Darksiders makes you think in between mindlessly slashing and hacking your way through the dungeons of Earth, which I love in a game, does make a change from the old button mashing games where all you do is kill things!

I finish up my review with giving Darksiders a 10/10; this is probably one of the best games I’ve played in the past few years. Well done to everyone that worked on this game and keep up the good work in future games! With the diverse story line and awesome combat sequences, this game is going to keep me entertained for a good many hours!

to get your copy of Darksiders go to : http://www.darksiders.com/agegate.php?return=

 

Review By: Jamie Gillett