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Darksiders Hands-On Impressions

By Jason - December 5, 2009 - 07:30 UTC

Darksiders is a strange beast.  Firstly, I’ll just say that this will be more ‘impressions’, and that my ‘hands on’ perspective can be found here.  If anything, Darksiders reminds me of a lot of products,  and trust me when I say that each of these games is epic.  Zelda, God of War, Legacy of Kain are just some of the connotations that come up when I think of this title, which is by far not a bad thing.  In fact, I’m putting money down right now and saying this will be one of the bigger hits in 2010, or at least in my book.  (It’s a big call, I know, but it’s mine to make, dammit!)

The game looks good, for starters, they’re not gorgeous visuals in-gamebut the cutscenes do look great.  Don’t let this put you off though, as the gameplay more than makes up for it, as does the sound.  The music ramps up in dramatic moments of combat which I find really helps the atmosphere of the game.

Darksiders puts us in the shoes of War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  There’s a balance between Heaven and Hell, kept in place by the Charred Council; the end of the world will happen when all seven seals have fallen.  In comes War, he’s one badass mofo with a huge sword and the ability to morph into a demon. Within a few minutes of kicking ass, we find out that War isn’t meant to be there and that the call never happened.  In a very Metroid move, we start out all powerful, only to have all of that stripped away within thirty minutes and go back to being weak.  But, if my hopes of the game hold true, I have little doubt you’ll get all of that back and more later on.

Now, the title clocks in at around 35 hours, I was told.  I had hands-on with the first five hours, and I really feel like I was just skimming the surface.  I didn’t even finish the first dungeon, of which there appear to be five.  Not to mention there’s three difficulties and a LOT of collectibles.  In fact, I sort of imagine that if you were to replay it, you could easily do so with a completely different moveset, thus making the game very, very different.

The combat is where the game shines though.  Starting out with almost everything right off the bat, you’ll quickly get used to being awesomely powerful before it makes you weak, and this is a tried and true mechanic.  It doesn’t drop you in the deep end too early, and you’ll have plenty of health early on to make mistakes and take hits; this mechanic will prove very useful later when you realise that your health really isn’t in long supply.  Hell, even I died a few times (three [don't hate me!]) within my playthrough.  Once you unlock  more weapons (I purchased the scythe first), the combat changes again.  A new list of moves appears for the new weapon (on top of which you can buy extra moves for) and the ability to switch weapons is instant, unlike in games like Devil May Crywhere it was switched with the d-pad.  Whilst I played I found myself switching from Chaoseater (War’s sword) to scythe with no dramas, and quite easily got my combo metre well above 40.

However, do not feel as though this is just a clone of God of War.  On top of the hack-n’-slash formula, once you get to a set of dungeons, the game changes completely.  Sure, you’ve still got baddies inside dungeons to make your life that little bit harder, but you’ll also find heavy emphasis on the puzzle elements here.  In fact, I actually found myself stumped by some of these puzzles for a few minutes (that’s rare for me in any game) until I gathered my wits and looked at the problem completely logically.  Thankfully you’ll be provided a map and a hoardseeker, a handy little device to show you where the treasure chests are located in a single dungeon…sounds familiar, yes?  I didn’t actually get to the first boss in my five hours, which says a lot for the duration of estimated game time.  I think I came close, judging by the map.

On top of the three weapons you can purchase in game, there’s also a levelling system.  The more you use your weapons, the higher their damage goes.  In addition to this, you’ll also have enhancements to add to your weapons, increasing their damage again, or adding special effects to them.  Then you’ve got the tools, things like the crossblade, a four-bladed boomerang that will cause much pain to enemies and help you in puzzles.  If you’re feeling swirly, there’s also the ability to send it flying into flames to make the enemies burn.

As I mentioned, I barely scraped the surface of this game when we were playing it.  I do know one thing though; I’m chomping at the bit for more…

Darksiders is due for release on January 5 2010 in the USA and January 7 2010 for the PAL regions.

And finally, uh-oh, who’s this badass with Chaoseater?