Ah, Darksiders. Vigil Games and THQ's oft-criticised "zelda-clone". Funny how that very criticism is what made me want to buy this game in the first place.
Darksiders tells the tale of War, one of the four horseman, who is tricked into starting the apocalypse early and sentenced to death by the omnipotent "Council". In order to clear his name, he returns to Earth to kill everyone who betrayed him and in the process uncovers a deep conspiracy frmo the lowest pits of hell to the highest peaks of heaven. The story in Darksiders is surprisingly deep and interesting, helped along by some great writing and brilliant voice acting. Mark Hamill leads his best Joker insanity to War's "keeper", The Watcher, a kind of Navi-esque character, but Navi after she's finally gone insane from listening to herself too long and has taken to whiping Link for shits and giggles. Outside of gaming regulars Phil LaMarr and Fred Tasciore, Liam O'Brien lends a haunting baritone to War and Moon Bloodgood provides a righteousness to Uriel that helps highlight the character's tragedy. Also pulling at the heartstrings and beating against your chest is the brilliant soundtrack, easily on par with God of War's epic blasts, but mixed with a tenderness often missing from action games.
And that's the thing, to classify Darksiders as an action game would be doing it an injustice. At it's heart, it is in adventure game very much in the vein of Ocarina of Time. At least at the beginning. War must travel to four dungeons, collecting items in each dungeon and fighting incredible bosses. However, later levels draw from more modern sources by giving you a portal gun and some very interesting portal based puzzles, including a portal based boss and mini-boss. The combat itself is similar to Zelda, you have one button to attack and a lock on, as well as three slots for items and one for a secondary weapon. You can change between weapons and items on the fly, building some easy and effective combos. My only real complaint about the combat is that there is too much of it, especially where it isn't needed. As the game progresses, they begin to throw wave after wave after wave after wave of enemies at you, often mixing in mini-bosses until you're almost numb and frustrated from the endless combat when you'd rather be doing something more fun like puzzle solving or platforming, both of which Darksiders does brilliantly. This is the best dungeon design I've seen since Ocarina of Time, hell, there's even an annoying water temple.
Darksiders may not be the prettiest game, in fact it's received a lot of flak for its graphics and art style, however I am a huge fan of both. I love the over-the-top character design, the burning reds and greens of the demons and against the bright whites and golds of the angelic horde. The graphics remind me of a graphic novel, although they aren't cell-shaded, just exagerrated almost to the point of carriacature. They won't be to everyone's liking, but they suited me just fine and really lent a sense of life to the world. There's also plenty of varied locations, which is good because, like any good "zelda" game, there's a lot of backtracking to be done as new items open up new areas. And there's a lot of hidden stuff to find and collect as well for huge rewards.
Darksiders is not a perfect game, and yes it does borrow heavily from other games, but it does well as its own game. It is fun, challenging and surpisingly deep and clever with a great story to keep you engaged, a well written soundtrack and powerful sound effects to draw you in, and at least 15-20 hours of gameplay. If you're a fan in any way of action-adventure-puzzle-dungeon-crawlers, then this is the game for you. A must play.
Darkiders is available on PS3, Xbox360 and PC. This review is of the PS3 version.
