THE GAMER REPORT REVIEW: DARKSIDERS

War! Huh, good God! What is he good for? Well, for the sake of this game review, kicking ass and taking names! War, the main character in Darksiders, kicks ass on a daily basis. Although you never really get the backdrop on why he is such a 'BAMF', it's clearly evident from the get-go that your name definitely gets around. Ultimately in the end, you'll have the urge to sink your teeth into this story more than the game allows you to do so. So let me warn you from the start, if you are one of those story-savvy gamers that gets all butt-hurt when a story is not deep or immersive enough, than do yourself a favor and skip this one. If ass-kicking, and hack-n-slash with a heaping dose of clever puzzles is your particular brand of Vodka, then you are going love Darksiders.

Darksiders feels like the lovechild of God of War, Zelda and Ninja Gaiden. I was sold when I found out the art was done by Joe Madureira, famous for the Uncanny X-Men, and several other Marvel comics. The comic book-style approach to the art is evident the moment you fire up the game. The artists and designers held nothing back, and the game just oozes with attention to detail. However, I am in no way saying the graphics are earth-shattering. It's just the little stuff that really caught my eye. Like the designs on the blades of the the weapons and the physical addition of new gadgets, weapons and power ups to War's character model. It's all just very clever, and sort of stands out in its own brand of subject matter.

The game seems to be a mix of many different games even follows recent ones with one awesome CG cutscene at the beginning of the game, and the rest is filled with poorly animated cutscenes from the in-game engine. The aforementioned brief backdrop on whats going on in both War's life, and the post-apocolyptic world he is slashing his way through, kinda leave you wanting more, and also makes you a little curious as to how the world got to the torn-up state it's in. Once you decapitate or slash a few goons in half, all that curiosity flies out the window.

It's a little scary how similar this game plays to the newer 3D Zelda titles. It's also slightly scary how similar to God of War and Ninja Gaiden it is as well. Though, you won't be pulling off extravagant 3 button timed combos in Darksiders. Instead the combos are dumbed down to one button per weapon, which are switchable on the fly, mid-combo. Start off with a few sword slashes, and then break out your Scythe to deal out some hurt. Once you punish enemies enough, the "B" button will finish them off with a God of War-esque finishing QTE. These Quick Time Events are pretty sweet, and range from slicing an enemies legs off, slicing their bodies into thirds or the occasional decapitation. These sequences also follow into the boss battles as well. The boss battles though I found were the weaker elements of the game. The campaign consists of quite a bit of dungeon crawling, often very long dungeons. Lots of back and forth, obtaining keys, unlocking doors etc. Once you conquer these labrynth-style dungeons, the boss fights were pretty easy and felt a little lackluster. It does not take from the overall experience at all, but when you compare it to the likes of Devil May Cry, and Ninja Gaiden's bosses, it surely feels underwhelming.

The game is paced quite nicely. Often times you will find yourself coming back to previous areas once a specific gadget or ability is unlocked. These gadgets and abilities are definitely the highlight of this game, and again, take most of their heritage from Zelda and other games you know and love. You will obtain the Abyssal Chain, identical to Zelda's Longshot, and even a thrown krull star exactly like the boomerang. There are even bombs just like the world of Zelda! You will also get a horse named Ruin that controls and behaves exactly like the horse from Zelda. (Starting to see a pattern here?) Well then how about obtaining a pistol a la Devil May Cry? Believe it or not, this game actually had some 3rd Person Shooter sections. Certain enemies carry cannons that you can pick up and the cannons perform almost identical to the detachable turrets in Halo 3. Pick one up, and wield different types of ammunition ranging from harpoon-style rockets, to machine guns and tracking energy blasts. It's obviously nothing new or exciting, but just feels fresh in this hack-n-slash.

The last gadget I want to share might be a spoiler, but its just too damn cool and under the radar to mention. Again taking its que and DNA from another succesful title, the Voidwalker is the exact clone of the gun from Portal! It differs a bit in that you can only shoot on gate-holes that look a bit like Orange, stained-glass windows. The same momentum priciples apply, and it just feels incredible. You only get it for about the last section of the game, but you will use it quite a bit not only to navigate levels, but also to fight bosses. One memorable section pitted War against a gigantic boss with a club-like mace. When he reared back to swing his mace at you like a baseball bat, a portal on the back of the club was visible. Shoot the portal gun on the back of his club, then next to you on the wall. Once he reared back to swing again, jump through a nearby portal and fly out of his club to land behind him and DO WORK!

All of these gadgets, puzzles and weapons (heck, call them knock-offs if you want) make the adventure feel like a hack-n-slash with weird out of place elements from all your favorite games, that somehow just feels right. The games puzzles were certainly the toughest I have played in a game in a while, and the platforming works well. The gameplay felt very smooth, no framerate issues and no texture problems in sight. It's a great adventure, but extremely long. My playthrough clocked in at over 33 hours. I don't know about most of you, but I certainly appreciate a lengthy playthrough. Too many single-player games these days are over so soon. Even though at times it felt a tad redundant,

Darksiders really took me by surprise. At times during the game I thought to myself, where are the other riders of the Apocolypse? Well, a pretty cool ending that I will not give away, will answer that question. If you have not played the demo, it's over a hour long, and provides a nice introduction to what you will expect in the full game. Give it a go, and if you enjoy long Zelda-like back and forth hack-n-slash, you're simply going to love Darksiders. It defintely ranks above Bayonetta and Dante's Inferno in my humble opinion.

Darksiders receives a 7.9/10 on the Dig-O-Meter.

-DIGGITY OUT