Darksiders (How to make a Darksiders)

Back in the 90s, Joe Madureira was one of the hottest artists in comics, working on X-men. Soon thereafter, he left to create his own fantasy inspired comic, Battlechasers. Unfortunately, Battle Chasers met with a lot of delays with most of them rumored to be video game related. Not so much Madureira working on video games but playing them instead. It's apparent, and possibly a little too apparent, that Madureira loves video games with what should really be called Joe Madureira's Darksiders.

In Darksiders (by the way, the name means absolutely nothing or at least it has no explanation in the game) you play as War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, called down to Earth only to find out, WHOOPS!, the apocalypse has started a tad too early and the blame is placed squarely on your grotesquely muscled shoulders. You're then stripped of your powers and sent on your way to find out who is to blame, all the while fighting the forces of Heaven and Hell alike. (As an aside, I think it's interesting that this is the second week in a row where one of the enemy types are angels...)

Not much has changed from my initial hands-on impression of the game, sure most of the aesthetics of the game have been cleaned up, but the combat still feels the same. It's pretty much a stiffer version of God of War. As you progress through the game, you collect souls which you use to buy various combos for your primary melee weapons, the sword (called Chaoseater), the scythe and the gauntlet. I say "primary" weapons because through the course of the game, you'll pick up a number of secondary weapons, ranging from a large shuriken-like boomerang to a gun. You can change both your primary and secondary weapons on the fly, but that doesn't make combat any less derivative or stiff. There's really nothing wrong with the combat per se, it's just that other games have done combat much better.

The other big gameplay component of Darksiders are the various puzzles you encounter along the way, which borrow heavily from the Legend of Zelda series. You'll complete puzzles with your newly acquired gear to unlock and uncover previously unaccessible parts of the world. Of the many games that Darksiders borrows from, the puzzle element is the strongest. While it's nothing that you haven't seen before if you're an avid gamer (move this, hit that button, light the torches with your boomerang), I found the puzzles to be the best part of the game.

The worst part, however, are the controls. Because the game borrows heavily from a few distinct types of games, trying to cram all of those various control schemes into one controller makes for a steep learning curve. For example, in most combat games, if you can pick something up, the same button that picks up something also throws it. Not so with Darksiders. The pick up button and the throw button are two separate buttons! This may not seem like a huge deal, but when you consciously have to think about what button does what, things are a wee bit too complicated. There seems to be an internal logic to the controls, i.e. it seems to be a mix of beat-em ups and first person shooter controls, but button layouts are similar across games for a reason. Cramming so much into one game needlesly complicates things and makes things more frustrating than fun.

Being familiar with Joe Maduriera's work in comics, everything in this game feels like it's got his hand prints on them. From the obvious, character designs and storyline, to the not so obvious, gameplay elements and controls, this is Joe Maduriera's game. I can totally imagine day one of Darksiders' development being Joe Maduriera in front of a host of programmers and designers saying, "My favorite games are Zelda, God of War and first person shooters... make me something like that." And to their credit, they succeeded in doing that. But I think the game would have been stronger had it not been pulled in so many different directions.

Rating

Like I mentioned in the Bayonetta review, the biggest compliment I can give to the game is to want to continue playing it after finishing the review. Unfortunately, I can't say this for Darksiders. After finishing the game, I didn't have an overwhelming desire to pick up the controller again. Or even to find some of the secrets that I knew were out there. But it's not a bad game. I'd say "rent" Darksiders to see if it's your cup of tea.

Recommendations

Play with the Pimps!

In the coming weeks, I'll try to pin down more of the details. You can check the comic every Friday for more updates or our message board. Hope to see you guys there!