Many games are set in the aftermath of the apocalypse, but few actually let you participate
in the end of the world itself. In the case of Darksiders, this is exactly where the action
begins. Heavily influenced by games like God of War and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of
Time, it offers an expansive world to explore, which is peppered all throughout with satisfying
combat and intriguing puzzles to solve. It falls prey to a poorly-fleshed out story and
some overly complex controls that don't always work the way they should, but Darksiders is
nonetheless a fun and visually engaging adventure that manages to take some old ideas and make
them feel fresh once again.
As War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you're job's pretty simple--you keep the balance
between the forces of Heaven and Hell. Your most important duty, however, is to heed the
call of the Endwar and punish everything on Earth. When you're somehow prematurely summoned,
and subsequently charged with upsetting the balance, you're sent back to Earth to get
your vengeance on, or die trying. Though it's a grand setup, once the first hour or so of
gameplay passes, the plot quickly runs out of steam and the various plot twists and turns
are both predictable and unsatisfying.
War takes out his boundless rage on the legions of both Heaven and Hell in fun and brutal
combat. Slow-paced and methodical, battles pit you up against large numbers of foes,
which the wide, sweeping strikes of War's weapons allow you to hit en masse. Eenemies
can be brutally executed with the press of a single button when sufficiently weakened,
and War can also have a secondary weapon equipped, such as his brother Death's scythe. Surprisingly
nimble for such a bulky guy, War can transition instantly from a combo into an execution move,
making fights feel extremely fluid. But while it's incredibly satisfying to eviscerate a
devil or cut the wings off an angel, battle is, surprisingly enough for a guy named War,
only one half of the equation.
When not on the warpath, there's an enormous world waiting to be explored, and dozens of
intriguing puzzles to solve along the way. Moving from one area to the next isn't always
straightforward, for your progress is often hindered by your gear, or more often than
not your lack of it. The many dungeons in your journey contain useful new items such
as a bladed boomerang, each of which opens up new paths for you to travel and is used
in creative ways to solve puzzles and defeat bosses.
Puzzle complexity ramps up nicely, and each new variation encountered is a fair step up
from previous ones. Though some can initially look overwhelming, they never feel impossible,
and are always gratifying to complete.
Darksiders does a great job of constantly rewarding you with new pieces of equipment,
weapons, and abilities to keep you going. The downside of this is that there are so
many different things to keep track of that it can get confusing sometimes. Not helping
to make this any better is a set of controls that are simply too complex. Certain actions,
such as throwing a charged boomerang at several targets, requires a dizzying array of inputs
to be made, and because only so many items are immediately accessible at a time, you'll
find yourself frequenting the cumbersome inventory menu in the latter parts of the game.
Varied and imaginative, the open world of Darksiders looks great thanks to its comic
book influence, though there are some unfortunate graphical issues with the Xbox 360 version.
Screen-tearing is a huge problem that surfaces almost any time the camera is rotated and
is bad enough to distract even when you're just exploring. Similarly, battles that get
too big cause the framerate to suffer, causing graphical slowdown. The PlayStation 3 version
suffers neither of these issues.
Darksiders unapologetically borrows gameplay ideas and mechanics from all over the spectrum
and is constantly cramming new ones in all the way up to the very end. While it's not
innovative by any stretch of the word, neither is it entirely derivative, as these all these
features not only gel together surprisingly well, but when put together even feel fresh
again. Though hobbled by a disappointing story and excessively complex controls, Darksiders
is nonetheless a fun and entertaining adventure.