Darksiders II

Typically, the only death I have any time for in my life is Terry Prachett's characterisation of Death and his constant fascination with humanity's foibles. Unsurprisingly, the Death of Darksiders II is a different incarnation altogether, a less bleak and more blood thirsty kinda guy. Darksiders II Purple blaze Life's not …

[Anonymous Coward]

Not too sure myself

I sort of liked Darksiders I, even though it was kind of linear and eventually started to feel a bit repetitive. But the whole idea and story was kind of intriguing nonetheless. I eventually started to lose interest a bit when all of a sudden the game went from 'all fighting' to 'all puzzling' which felt a bit out of place. After a pause I picked up where I left off and notice that some fights also became a little more tactical, which was fun in itself (like first getting portals opened up, then using said portals to move behind a boss and get him).

But I'm not too sure of number II. The story starts to feel a bit enforced to me. I mean; you're playing Death; a biblical figure which is supposed to be pretty much invincible. Yet you need to build up your powers (makes one wonder how he ever would have been able to perform the Apocalypse) and most of all; you can die? The situation somewhat made sense with War given that he was accused and bereft of his powers. But here we're talking about a powerful being coming straight from his normal place of residence. Who still needs to "level up" and all, which somewhat dents the idea of dealing with one of the powerful riders of the apocalypse.

Don't get me wrong; I can see it has all the potential of being a great game by itself. But apart from gameplay I also like the storyline to make at least some kind of sense.

A bit comparable to Fallout for example. In both games (3 & New Vegas) you also start off with hardly anything and need to build up, but it gets explained through the storyline. In the first one you actually need to build up your life, in the second game you've just been shot and need to go from a simple courier job to a wasteland survivalist. It adds up more IMO.

Some games such as Infamous go even further; in the first game you start from scratch. In the second game you already have most of your powers and need to extend to them. That makes a lot more sense storywise than "ok, version 2: time to start all over again".

[Agamembar]

Re: Not too sure myself

Other than well its a game and the need a prgression system as someone who read Darksiders: The abomination Vault (wasn't a terrible book, quite entertaining), its a bit complicated but they do explain it as he gained new gear during the course of that story as well, the four horsemen were originally Nephilmin and were gifted most of the things that make them the horsemen by the Char council so while they are really (almost stupidly so) powerful they can still be defeated.

Hence how the council stripped War of most of his powers., they never really explained that stuff in the first game as far as I remember.

Its a bit gamey when they are beat by random foot solider though I'll admit and the loot stuff but I'll excuse that because it looks fun.

[Lloyd]

Hmmmmm

Darksiders started off okay and just got so damned repetitive I never finished it. Doubt I'll buy this until it goes sub £10 (same as the original).

[Rathernicelydone]

Superb game

I didn't play the original but have been playing this game and have really been enjoying it. Ended up ditching Prototype 2 for this instead. Great storyline, excellent voice acting, very satisfying combat, lots of loot (better weapons, armour, amulets as well as upgradeable weapons), puzzles that are not too difficult and great level designs. The boss battles are stunning and the game is just so damn huge...

Not sure about 95% but it a defo 90%+ game.

[Juillen 1]

Mine should be turning up today..

Absolutely loved Darksiders.. The storyline was amusing, dark, yet occasionally light hearted, and engaging..

The puzzles are enough to make you think, without being so tough that you need to go off and ask someone. Watching and thinking was the key.. As for replayability.. I'm on about the 6th run through; it's like picking up a good book and re-reading it again. On the latter run throughs, I'm finding things get easier every time, not by rote muscle memory, but because I find out more things I can do to make my playing style more efficient, and more tactics that give better result.

If this one is even half as good, I think my life will be sunk into it until Guild Wars 2 springs out of the woodwork.. Then I think I'll need a clone so I can be in two places at once.

[Anonymous Coward]

Go / No-Go for me is always:

By 'Action RPG' do you mean you actually use real-time combat controls and button bashes, rather than clicking a couple of times on a menu or icon strip then go off and make a cup of tea?

[Rathernicelydone]

Re: Go / No-Go for me is always:

This is definitely action RGP - the stats are there but this is live button bashing. I forgot to add if you don't have a control pad for the PC (especially an x-box controller) you will probably not enjoy it as much.

[ColonelClaw]

Engine

It looks very pretty - what engine did they use? There's no mention on the Wikipedia page

[Anonymous Coward]

graphics

yep,graphicaly it looks great,on my mates gaming rig it looks briliant,but like nearly all this type of game it soon gets a bit repetetive,it bought to mind for me of a more complex serious sam,but without the comedy angle.

s.s is the only game that i still go back and play for the sheer fun of it even though its now considered ancient code and engine but i dont care,its still fun.

problem with games like ds2 is that you will soon get bored and it does not have a realy gut grabbing reason to keep and play still in few years time.

but it does look bloody good on good kit.

[Spoonsinger]

Sometimes, the world is black.

And tears run from your eyes.

And maybe we'll all get really sick.

And maybe we'll all die.

Sooooooooooooooooooo...

Let's build a snowman!

We can make him our best friend.

We can name him Tom or we can name him George!

We can make him tall, or we can make him not so tall.

Snowman!

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to waste hours leveling up on games like this

then I took an arrow in the knee

[Jelliphiish]

looks

a bit like Karsa Orlong.

[Ben Morgan]

Sorry

I hate to be the one who jumps in just to moan about the lack of proof-reading but the sheer number of mistakes in this article have forced my hand. Love the review, great pictures and opinions but sometimes the prose was almost unreadable due to the repeated words and other basic grammatical errors.

[Martin Huizing]

Re: Sorry, I hate to be the one who jumps in just to moan

But we all love you for it anyway!

[ScarabMonkey]

Onlive version available.

You should mention that this is available on OnLive as well as PC/XBox/PS3