I've had Darksiders I and II in my Steam library for awhile. They were those kind of games that everyone says you need to play. Zelda for grown-ups. So I bought them and then they gathered dust like the other 200 games in my inventory. During the Sream winter sale, it quickly became apparent that I already owned everything. So with 2013 looming, I made a resolution: actually play the games I paid money for. And for whatever reason, the Darksiders series is what I started with. I'm about six hours into the first game, and I do see the appeal. The combat is fun, with big over the top animations and visceral insta-kills. The comparisons to Zelda are apt: big dungeons to explore, puzzles, and an item that you will eventually use to solve the boss fight. And this is in no way a bad thing. It really feels like what the evolution of Zelda SHOULD have been. Again, I'm only six hours in, so time will tell if it can hold up to my expectations. But so far, I'm actually excited to play a game again.

I've had Darksiders I and II in my Steam library for awhile. They were those kind of games that everyone says you need to play. Zelda for grown-ups. So I bought them and then they gathered dust like the other 200 games in my inventory. During the Sream winter sale, it quickly became apparent that I already owned everything. So with 2013 looming, I made a resolution: actually play the games I paid money for. And for whatever reason, the Darksiders series is what I started with. I'm about six hours into the first game, and I do see the appeal. The combat is fun, with big over the top animations and visceral insta-kills. The comparisons to Zelda are apt: big dungeons to explore, puzzles, and an item that you will eventually use to solve the boss fight. And this is in no way a bad thing. It really feels like what the evolution of Zelda SHOULD have been. Again, I'm only six hours in, so time will tell if it can hold up to my expectations. But so far, I'm actually excited to play a game again.

Darksiders is pretty good. There are a few parts that aren't so hot but overall, I feel like the game is smart about level design and doesn't overstay its welcome. One of the best cliffhanger endings I can think of, too.

The sequel however...

I loved 1 so god damn much.

But the lack of interesting story stuff in 2 was massively disappointing. Got around halfway through and just stopped. Plays well, cool puzzles, but apparently the heaven/hell stuff went a long way in making the original so great. I spent so much time in 2 just talking to dead and undead things... which is less cool than Samael and Uriel.

In the sea of new releases that I bought, including Hitman Absolution, Xcom, ACIII, Halo4, 20 steam games from the winter sale and so on, I found myself... rebooting a new game of God of War III. Must have played this game six times already.

Darksiders 1 will always be one of my favorite games of all time. Darksiders 2, though it did improve things a bit, had no soul I thought.

I only played the first one and felt that it tried too many things. It never let any one mechanic mature and it just went on far too long.

The first one is a solid four-star game. It has a handful of issues and not so great parts, but those things are heavily outweighed by the really good parts of the game.

The second one... not so much. The second one plays a whole lot more like a big loot game with third person combat and dungeons with puzzles in them, which sounds all right. Unfortunately, it's terribly uninteresting for the most part. I mean, some parts are cool, but you go from dungeon to dungeon solving same-y platforming puzzles and that's about it. The combat is mostly great, but there's not really a ton of it. It's in serious need of something unexpected and interesting, and I don't necessarily mean story stuff. I mean it needs a new gameplay mechanic tossed into the mix because past the grabber-thingy, there doesn't seem to be anything new.

That's all a shame; the second game has some fairly decent music and some awesome-looking areas, it's just that most of the time you run around inside cramped rooms. I liked the first area a good bit, though, so it's probably worth going through there. It's just that now, I'm in this dull flying fortress with skulls all over the place and I can't fucking make myself play too much more of it. I might finish it one day, but fuck that second area.