Darksiders Review Page 2

19 Jan 2010 at 15:00:04 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (360)

Killing enemies grants you souls which are, in a shock twist for the genre, generally used as cash. Money can be used to purchase and upgrade attacks for your weapons or refill your Zelda-esque vials with restorative liquids. Again, fans of the more “pure” third-person hack-and-slash titles will likely be a little underwhelmed by the selection on offer, but you'll have to make choices     regardless. If you want to focus on making the Chaoseater a certified weapon of mass destruction, it's going to be at the expense of something else, and in the tougher fights you'll likely find yourself wishing you'd upgraded differently. Then you'll unleash one of War's other fantastic powers, like Chaos Form or the flaming steed Ruin, and make a mess of their day.

Which all sounds brilliant, and it is. Once you're past the extraordinarily boring opening hours, the combination of fast-paced action, cunning puzzles, and a drip-feed of new abilities mostly keep the game fresh and entertaining, and the fact that the world environments aren't all the usual post-apocalyptic shade of brown helps.

However, Darksiders is not without some serious problems, the most noticeable of which is the 360 version's screen tearing. This isn't something I normally spot, but here it's not only eye-searingly obvious but disappointingly common. Some areas have almost none; others induce it every single time you turn the camera. This is utterly unacceptable. Let's hope the promised patch actually fixes this.

The second big issue is one of the dungeons which was so terrible it marred the whole game. Being that it's where both giant robots and the Portal Gun (from Portal, and if I have to tell you that, you have a game to play that isn't Darksiders) I can only assume that it was either created when the level designers' food budget could only stretch to wallpaper paste, or on a Bring-Your-Kids-To-Work-And-Let-Them-Design-Levels day. I kid, but only slightly; the slightly odd design decisions are nothing to the overlong, buggy, irritating nature of the level, which relies far too much on repetition of its core puzzle concepts.

Then there are little niggling bits and pieces: most of the supporting cast are a tad bland, War walks far too slowly for a game with this much backtracking, there isn't enough interesting stuff hidden away to warrant you spending hours searching for treasure in previously-explored areas and, as the game moves towards its final act, there's a creeping feeling that not only are most new enemies actually just more powerful versions of previous enemies, but that the combat is perhaps too shallow and simplistic.

But we'll end on a high, because while it lasts Darksiders is still an enjoyable romp. It's one of the most surprisingly cerebral games of late, and while the combat will eventually let you down the build up to that point is great fun, with plenty of fantastic powers and abilities to unlock and unleash. There's no doubt that those who can tolerate a less open Zelda or a less technical hack-and-slasher than the genre kings will enjoy the time they spend with War and the Watcher, and it comes recommended as such.

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