Re: Games Discussion Thread
Alright, yeah. After finishing Darksiders (no, it's not a short game, I just played the hell out of it) I have to admit that my initial estimation was off. The game is very zelda-ish in the later running, especially with the armor pieces and quarter skulls you can look for. One thing I absolutely did not expect though, was the portal gun.
Yes. You get an item that lets you create an orange and a blue portal, and you use it to solve puzzles. It's the hardest I WTFed the entire game.
Further thoughts - The story is fairly straightforward with a bit of a twist towards the end. The boss fights actually get EASIER the further along in the game you come, once you figure out the one vital twist to each of them. To even that out, some of the normal enemies are THE DEVIL, taking off an ENTIRE health bar with one attack. What's worse is that the further you get along, the more difficult enemies start popping up in areas you've been to before.
Combat is mostly hack & slash, God of War style, mixed with some shooting sequences and a tiny bit of riding (for being one of the four horsemen, you spent entirely too little time with your HORSE). Once you learn to counter-attack, you should practice it, and lots, as it is a true life-saver. The puzzles are actually somewhat challenging, though the area you get the portal gun in is by far the most difficult in that regard. Also nice is that you can revisit any area you've been to, even the ones people tell you you can't.
The enemy design is... fairly standard. Detailed, sure, but nothing extraordinary. Alice: Madness Returns constantly made me go WTF when it introduced another enemy type. This game, however, has palette swaps, and lots of them.
On the whole, I got about 16 hours of gameplay out of it, and I don't really regret getting it for the price I paid. One thing that majorly bugged me is that the PC version is so clearly a console port it's not even funny. Ironically, I found myself unable to play with a gamepad because the buttons were all mixed up, and I couldn't move the camera.
TL;DR - if you're looking for a game with satisfying gore and challenging fights, I can recommend Darksiders, but not at full price. Get it for a console.