Darksiders
Last night I went on a trek. A trek to buy Darksiders. Little did I know this would become an hour affair. Walmart was too lazy to stock their shelves, and EB Games shut the door in my face because it was six minutes past nine. So, in a last ditch attempt I went to Blockbuster, lo and behold they had it, tucked away in their tiny little glass case. I had it, and I promptly ran home, placed it in the PS3, ordered Blood on the Sand, and began to play.
Now The Impressions Actually Start
I'm having a ton of fun with this game. It's not without it's jenkyness, but it shines in so many areas. The story hasn't really garnered much of my interest, but from what I understand The Horsemen, of which there are four, are basically the peace keepers. If heaven and hell start fighting again, the horsemen are there to smack some bitches back in line.
So you play as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I'll start by saying I love War. I like his voice acting, he animates well, and he's a total bad ass. The over-sized weapons he lugs around look like something straight out of Final Fantasy, but the art direction is great. The bulky character models fit in well with the weapons, and everything shares a very nice fantasy look.
Basically, War chops dudes up. You can do that by mashing your greasy palm on the square button, or you can take the time to learn some of the intricacies. Either works well. I found after unlocking a few abilities, using them correctly would string in to a really awesome combo. When it worked out this way my mouth dropped
You see there are two animations for finishing a type of monster. For the first hour I've played, I haven't exactly seen the largest variety of enemy types. This leads to a lot of repetition when you pull of a finisher. As cool as they are (picking up a zombie and crushing his skull by clenching your fist), they start to wear on you.
The comparisons to Zelda are accurate. Combat, puzzle solving, and light platforming are all central parts of the game play. Towards the end of my session I came across some challenge room type things. The large rock monster in my path informed me that until I destroyed the eyes watching him, I couldn't move along, lest he get in trouble by his master. The rock beast threw me into the shadow realm, and sent me on my way to kill about five eyes. Upon entering each eye, to my surprise, it thrust me in to some kind of timed challenge. In each of these rooms you were basically required to kill enemies in the way specified. Straight up cutting dudes, air combos, finishing moves, etc. In one, my health was slowly draining, forcing me to destroy all enemies before I lost all my health.
And that's where I am so far. There's some cool looking weapon customization and gear stuff in the menus, but at this point I haven't gotten too deep in to that. Upon finishing I'll be doing a full user review, so I do hope you'll come back then.
-DanielJW
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