Darksiders (2010)

So, Darksiders becomes the first game assassinated from my new 2018 edition of The 26. I’ve had this game in my library since Christmas Eve 2010, which is also the last time I played it. I bought it directly from the Steam store for $9.99, and considering it was available in bundles for only $1 two years later, I have some regret about that. But, it was also a fairly new title, released in January of that year, and I still managed to defeat one of the first bosses – Tiamat – and garner nine achievements before Christmas. Sadly, it was then tossed upon the slowly-growing backlog for another seven years. Until now…

Darksiders is a complicated game to describe. It does nearly everything well, and nearly nothing well, all at the same time. Mostly, it’s good. But only “good” – not amazing in any aspect. Sort of like the title itself – “Darksiders” – there’s some intrigue there, but then I don’t recall the word ever being mentioned in the course of the game apart from the title screen.

It was definitely made to be played with a controller, and this may be a portion of where my difficulty lay when I had first picked it up in 2010. I got lost a lot, and didn’t really know what I was doing. That didn’t happen much this time around, and I attribute a part of that to just learning the general gaming tropes of the action/adventure/puzzler genre. Yes, “puzzler”. You aren’t just fighting things in this game, you’re also solving environmental puzzles. A lot! It’s very similar to Prince of Persia, or The Legend of Zelda.

The fight system is adequate, but I would occasionally long for the smoothness of the Arkham series’s combat. In Darksiders, there’s a “counter-block”, but typically you’ll just be spamming attacking and dodging 99% of the time. I’m not sure if you could avoid ever getting hit, but it might be possible, if very very difficult. I played on Normal difficulty, and the game seemed appropriate to my skill level most of the time. The game doesn’t punish you too much when you die, either, which is nice. In all, you explore around ten or twelve small to medium sized areas, hunting for secrets and whatever story goal brought you there in the first place. It took me about 25 hours, and then I spent some more time trying to finish off an armor set without referring too much to a guide, but I decided I’d rather just finish the game than collect everything. Sadly, there’s no “New Game+” mode, although you can bring over that collectible armor set into a New Game if you manage to complete it. This game needs a “New Game+” mode. I was very surprised that it didn’t have one. You unlock quite a few new trinkets and abilities over the course of the game and it’s a shame to see them used only a few times. Also, I was finding it very difficult to max out my weapons, since I was running out of enemies by the end; maps that had had decent fights were becoming mostly-empty wastelands.

The voice acting is good, if needlessly grave. The art style is cohesive and reminds me of comic books (McFarlane’s style in particular), Blizzard’s art style, and a cartoonish version of Dark Souls. The music isn’t particularly memorable, but works well in that I don’t remember ever being annoyed by it. The level design is pretty good, and some of the chests are rather cleverly hidden. The characters are… okay. I like the Blacksmith, but otherwise they’re mostly just tropes. And the story is a complete mess at the beginning (you’re War, a horseman of the Apocalypse, but the Apocalypse shouldn’t have happened, and the other three horsemen didn’t come out, and now everyone’s pissed at you for doing… something…?), but at least it comes together okay for a pretty decent finale.

Overall, I can’t quite recommend it unless you just want a more heaven-and-hell themed 3D Zelda adventure. If you only have a few games, it’s an honestly great addition to a gaming library, but if you’re spoiled for choice, there are much better choices. Still, I’m keeping Darksiders III on my wishlist, and will (eventually) get around to Darksiders II.

Also, there’s a DLC Scythe that likely requires a hack to use on PC, but I didn’t miss not having it. And according to the forums, achievements may not unlock unless you restart Steam between game sessions (I didn’t have this problem though, and it’s fixed in the Warmastered Edition).

• Darksiders
  #1 of 26 (2018)

  34 hours playtime

  30 of 43 achievements

Life…

Was watching Awesome Games Done Quick when I could. Missed a bunch of it when I was away, but I’m very much looking forward to watching the recorded version of the four-way Ori and the Blind Forest race!
Also, my personal/projects HDD failed in December. I think I’ve finally recovered all my personal photos and videos now (thanks to backup/sync services), but I don’t actually remember what the other 400 or so gigs of stuff I lost was… o_0 (hopefully that’s for the best…). Hadn’t played any games during those first weeks of recovery, not wanting to risk destabilizing the system any more than it was, and I had just gotten back from two weeks in Pennsylvania (yay, got some snow for Christmas! :D), so I was jonesing to get back to DiRT and Dark Souls and couldn’t! Oh well… things are (probably, hopefully…) okay now… until my C:\ drive fails… same model as the personal/projects drive, and ten years old.

Also playing…

• The Purring Quest (started)
  Cute, simple, not quite as cat-smooth as I’d hoped, but it should be easy to 100%.
• Cuphead (started)
  Thank you, GF, for the wonderful Christmas gift! :D Started playing this with her (though I don’t expect her to continue) and managed to get through a few easy (“simple”) levels and bosses, and even beat one boss on “regular” before calling it quits for now.
• The Sexy Brutale (started)
  Saved four house guests and loving the game so far, and although I wish I could move faster, I understand why that probably had to be very balanced during the design work for this game.
• Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (started)
  Never played this back in the day. Reminds me a bit of Jagged Alliance, in a good way. Real-life war footage is great for immersion. On Mission 3 (or 4?) now, the dam.
• Dead Cells (continuing)
  Great rogue-like gameplay loop in this one… I’m usually “meh” about those, but this one’s really nice! Smooth and speedy!
• Android games…
  This month, beat “Purrfect Spirits” (it’s okay, at least it’s not an infinite clicker, but it almost feels like it will be, and it requires watching around 60 or so ads over time in order to complete the game)., and in a few months prior, beat “20B wives” (cute, also just okay, but at least it wasn’t too difficult to finish), “10000000” (also just okay, but has a decent amount of polish – it’s also on Steam), and “Prune” (a beautiful game! very glad to have gotten it on Humble at some point!).

Need to get back to!…

• Dark Souls
• DiRT Rally