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This thread has been linked to the game 'Darksiders II'.
Darksiders 2 is an action adventure RPG developed by Vigil Games and published by THQ. The game’s EU release was on the 21st August for the PC, PS3 and XBOX 360 and the game will also be available for the Wii U on launch.
The first Darksiders was a surprisingly good game considering it was Vigil Games first attempt at an AAA title. The game was generally positively received by critics, but it was also seen as highly derivative. The main influence was seen to be Zelda, with temples and puzzles to navigate through followed by an end boss that is usually defeated by using a recently acquired skill or item. You also had a boomerang, a hookshot, a horse and you could also collect 4 shards to increase your max health/wrath (mana). War had a chaos meter that when filled up allowed him to transform into a powerful Demon with increased damage and defence, similar to Devil Trigger of Devil May Cry. When an enemy reaches low enough health a button prompt would appear for you to perform an execution like God of War. And just as you thought the game couldn’t get anymore shameless, near the end you get the ability to shoot blue and orange portals.
To be fair to Vigil they did manage to come up with something new: The ability to shoot portals through portals. I believe that this helps in creating more complex portal puzzles, but I guess Valve weren’t impressed considering they didn’t add it in Portal 2. This idea makes the game more imaginative than the yearly instalments of Fifa and PES, and yet I don’t think any of the main review sites gave any mention or credit for it.
The plot of Darksiders 2 runs parallel to the story of the first Darksiders. The series is based on the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the first Darksiders had you playing as War. In Darksiders 2 you play as Death. In the introduction, you learn that the Charred Council whom the horsemen serve, informs the other 3 horsemen that War is charged for starting the Apocalypse early. However, Death sees War as the most honourable of the four horsemen and refused to believe this. Death decides to resurrect humanity so that he may find evidence that proves War’s innocence. As Death is unsure of how to resurrect humanity, he sets off to find the keeper of secrets who knows…. stuff. You don’t need to have played the original Darksiders to follow this story.
So after all the derivative comments did Vigil change their ways for Darksiders 2? Hell no, they copied some more. The majority of the new additions seem to be from Devil May Cry, with Death being able to summon a “Deathgrip” hand to pull enemies towards him or use it to swing across to other ledges and climb to higher places, which is similar to Nero’s Devil Bringer from Devil May Cry 4. Vigil also decided to implement an optional Arena mode called “The Crucible” where you can fight 100 waves of increasingly powerful enemies before fighting a final boss. Every time you survive 25 waves you will be asked whether you want to quit and claim a prize or continue and risk losing it. This mode is pretty similar to Devil May Cry’s Bloody Palace which is what I believe they were thinking of when they did it.
Although Death can’t double jump or glide with wings like War could, he has the ability to perform Wall runs similar to Prince of Persia and Mirrors Edge. This is implemented very well and it is easy to perform agile actions like jumping between two parallel walls to reach higher places and wall running is mixed up with using the Deathgrip and Portals to give it more variety.
So did Vigil manage to do anything original? Well, I don’t know which game they got this idea from so you would have to point it out to me. Otherwise, I think they might have managed their second innovative idea! This ability is known as Death Splitting, which creates a Statue of Death where the ability is activated and 2 copies of Death are created: one purple, one green. The two copies of Death can only move so far away from the statue or else Death Split will end and Death will take the place of where the Death Statue is. This means that you have to think about where you should position the statue so that both copies can do what they need to do at the same time. You can only control one copy at a time, but they can do pretty much everything that Death can.
In the first Darksiders, apart from a few interesting ideas in each temple, I only started enjoying the level design when War gets access to creating portals which was the last temple: The Black Throne. In this temple there were many more puzzles than in the other temples combined which made it seem like a puzzle fest compared to the rest of them. In Darksiders 2 they managed to add a few more puzzle ideas to the earlier dungeons so that it seems more balanced. It starts simple with rolling spheres into slots in the floor and they introduce new mechanics and eventually it becomes more fun when you have to figure out how to combine the Death Split ability with Portals and bombs.
One of the temples gives you the ability to create portals that allow you to switch between the past and the present, so that actions in the past modify the temple in the future. It is a pretty good idea and it reminded me of the Dawn and Dusk Towers in Pandora’s Tower where you needed to move between two similar towers to make progress in both.
In terms of depth the combat hasn’t improved much compared to the first. You have a wrath meter like the first which allows you to cast abilities to help you in battle. In Darksiders 2 you have a skill tree to upgrade the abilities that you can activate by using wrath. The left skill tree is Harbinger, which is a Melee upgrading tree, allowing you to do a blink slash or pull off a massive AoE attack. The Right skill tree is a Necromancer tree which allows you to summon minions, crows, shield yourself or blast single targets.
In the first Darksiders I left clicked the mouse over and over until I saw the enemy preparing for an attack and then dodged. This didn’t change throughout the game. In Darksiders 2 I did the same thing throughout only stopping to summon minions or crows. I expected to use Deathgrip to be able to pull shields of enemies, but that didn’t work. Deathgrip is useful to use on projectile enemies as a gap closer but that isn’t necessary. I thought that Darksiders was a tad easy on normal mode and for most of the game I would say the same for the sequel. I believe that the combat is the way it is to remain accessible to many players. One improvement over the original’s combat is that button prompt finishers only appear on random chance instead of always so you don’t get tired of watching the same death animations over and over.
War had Chaos form allowing him to transform into a demon and Death has Reaper form allowing him to turn into a more powerful form. On the PC this ability was bugged and didn’t activate unless you pressed tab and clicked on the reaper icon and then pressed “V” which is the key it is mapped to. This was the only bug that I had to deal with apart from one NPC getting stuck in the wall, which luckily sorted itself out when I reached the next cutscene. However, the first patch from Vigil has solved these issues.
To say that Darksiders 2 rips off Shadow of the Colossus is an insult to Shadow of the Colossus. In the trailer you watch Death leap onto the Colossus and he uses the Deathgrip ability to reach the gem weak spot but I wish this was actually implemented in gameplay. All Death does is climb up the Colossus’s knee and that it. I was expecting Death to be able to platform and wall run up its arms and slowly make his way up to the giant’s head to pick off the last weak spot like any of the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus and I ultimately was very disappointed. It is also a shame that this is one of the best boss fights in this game. In the first Darksiders each boss was huge and required you to use the environment and varying equipment to your advantage. In Darksiders there are a few bosses that require you to use the environment, but the majority of bosses are a simple case of dodging and counter attacking. This is fine, as they are engaging, but they feel too similar normal combat encounters.
The best part about the Colossus fight is the epic music composed by Jesper Kyd of Assassin’s Creed fame. Although I like his soundtrack overall, I enjoyed "The Makers Guardian" song a lot more than the rest of them.
The new loot system really doesn’t do anything for me and I feel that it seems out of place in an action adventure. Loot is randomly generated from treasure chests and creatures that you slay and their stats are compared to whatever you are currently wearing so that you know whether you should swap them immediately. There are also “Possessed” weapons which can consume other weapons to make it stronger which makes it so that even weak weapons are useful to you. It also means that there is never a reason why you wouldn’t want to pick up an item. This is why you can turn on auto-loot to automatically pick up every drop, but doing this means that you can’t see the stats so you have to go into the menu to compare it to your existing items. The original Darksiders didn’t have you comparing stats and spending time upgrading items and I don’t see how it adds to the game.
Darksiders 2 is considerably larger in size than the first, but you end up using fast travel so much that it doesn’t feel that much bigger. There are many treasure chests and collectibles scattered throughout the world which gives you an incentive to explore. There are chests that you aren’t able to get unless you unlock certain abilities, giving it a metroid style incentive to go back to previous areas. Then again the first Darksiders managed to do this just as well.
After finishing the story my Steam timer was clocked at 24 hours and I had barely started any of the side quests or secret dungeons and only managed a bit of the Crucible. To manage the entire Crucible you will have to start New Game+ to increase the level cap from 22 to 30 so you can get stronger gear to be able to survive the stronger waves.
Ultimately I enjoyed Darksiders 2 for the well crafted dungeons with clever use of Death Splitter and Portals. I also loved some of the environments which really helped draw me into the game, although they were let down a bit by the low res textures due to the fact that the game is run on the same engine as the first. However, I was let down by the boss fights as I thought they did a better job in the original. The story didn’t draw me in either and it didn’t help that each quest always asks for 3 of something; it made Death seem like an errand boy compared to War.
That said, this is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played all year behind Pandora’s Tower. I find it funny that they excel at each other’s weaknesses. If only Darksiders 2 had the boss fights of Pandora’s Tower or Pandora’s Tower had Darksiders 2’s level design.
If you enjoyed Darksiders or enjoy the Zelda formula, you should enjoy this, but don’t expect a massive improvement on the original Darksiders. This game is a console port and the first patch has managed to get v-sync to work. You may want to wait for Vigil to add further graphical options, but if you aren’t bothered then I do recommend the PC version. I played through the game with keyboard and mouse controls and they are the key binded the same as the first. I found the keyboard controls easy to use, but some may find it pretty awkward so you can plug in a controller instead.
Note that on PC Steam is compulsory and you also have to create a THQ account before you can play the game, so if either of those things is a deal breaker then you should get it for console.
8.0/10
The first Darksiders was a surprisingly good game considering it was Vigil Games first attempt at an AAA title. The game was generally positively received by critics, but it was also seen as highly derivative. The main influence was seen to be Zelda, with temples and puzzles to navigate through followed by an end boss that is usually defeated by using a recently acquired skill or item. You also had a boomerang, a hookshot, a horse and you could also collect 4 shards to increase your max health/wrath (mana). War had a chaos meter that when filled up allowed him to transform into a powerful Demon with increased damage and defence, similar to Devil Trigger of Devil May Cry. When an enemy reaches low enough health a button prompt would appear for you to perform an execution like God of War. And just as you thought the game couldn’t get anymore shameless, near the end you get the ability to shoot blue and orange portals.
To be fair to Vigil they did manage to come up with something new: The ability to shoot portals through portals. I believe that this helps in creating more complex portal puzzles, but I guess Valve weren’t impressed considering they didn’t add it in Portal 2. This idea makes the game more imaginative than the yearly instalments of Fifa and PES, and yet I don’t think any of the main review sites gave any mention or credit for it.
The plot of Darksiders 2 runs parallel to the story of the first Darksiders. The series is based on the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the first Darksiders had you playing as War. In Darksiders 2 you play as Death. In the introduction, you learn that the Charred Council whom the horsemen serve, informs the other 3 horsemen that War is charged for starting the Apocalypse early. However, Death sees War as the most honourable of the four horsemen and refused to believe this. Death decides to resurrect humanity so that he may find evidence that proves War’s innocence. As Death is unsure of how to resurrect humanity, he sets off to find the keeper of secrets who knows…. stuff. You don’t need to have played the original Darksiders to follow this story.
So after all the derivative comments did Vigil change their ways for Darksiders 2? Hell no, they copied some more. The majority of the new additions seem to be from Devil May Cry, with Death being able to summon a “Deathgrip” hand to pull enemies towards him or use it to swing across to other ledges and climb to higher places, which is similar to Nero’s Devil Bringer from Devil May Cry 4. Vigil also decided to implement an optional Arena mode called “The Crucible” where you can fight 100 waves of increasingly powerful enemies before fighting a final boss. Every time you survive 25 waves you will be asked whether you want to quit and claim a prize or continue and risk losing it. This mode is pretty similar to Devil May Cry’s Bloody Palace which is what I believe they were thinking of when they did it.
Although Death can’t double jump or glide with wings like War could, he has the ability to perform Wall runs similar to Prince of Persia and Mirrors Edge. This is implemented very well and it is easy to perform agile actions like jumping between two parallel walls to reach higher places and wall running is mixed up with using the Deathgrip and Portals to give it more variety.
So did Vigil manage to do anything original? Well, I don’t know which game they got this idea from so you would have to point it out to me. Otherwise, I think they might have managed their second innovative idea! This ability is known as Death Splitting, which creates a Statue of Death where the ability is activated and 2 copies of Death are created: one purple, one green. The two copies of Death can only move so far away from the statue or else Death Split will end and Death will take the place of where the Death Statue is. This means that you have to think about where you should position the statue so that both copies can do what they need to do at the same time. You can only control one copy at a time, but they can do pretty much everything that Death can.
In the first Darksiders, apart from a few interesting ideas in each temple, I only started enjoying the level design when War gets access to creating portals which was the last temple: The Black Throne. In this temple there were many more puzzles than in the other temples combined which made it seem like a puzzle fest compared to the rest of them. In Darksiders 2 they managed to add a few more puzzle ideas to the earlier dungeons so that it seems more balanced. It starts simple with rolling spheres into slots in the floor and they introduce new mechanics and eventually it becomes more fun when you have to figure out how to combine the Death Split ability with Portals and bombs.
One of the temples gives you the ability to create portals that allow you to switch between the past and the present, so that actions in the past modify the temple in the future. It is a pretty good idea and it reminded me of the Dawn and Dusk Towers in Pandora’s Tower where you needed to move between two similar towers to make progress in both.
In terms of depth the combat hasn’t improved much compared to the first. You have a wrath meter like the first which allows you to cast abilities to help you in battle. In Darksiders 2 you have a skill tree to upgrade the abilities that you can activate by using wrath. The left skill tree is Harbinger, which is a Melee upgrading tree, allowing you to do a blink slash or pull off a massive AoE attack. The Right skill tree is a Necromancer tree which allows you to summon minions, crows, shield yourself or blast single targets.
In the first Darksiders I left clicked the mouse over and over until I saw the enemy preparing for an attack and then dodged. This didn’t change throughout the game. In Darksiders 2 I did the same thing throughout only stopping to summon minions or crows. I expected to use Deathgrip to be able to pull shields of enemies, but that didn’t work. Deathgrip is useful to use on projectile enemies as a gap closer but that isn’t necessary. I thought that Darksiders was a tad easy on normal mode and for most of the game I would say the same for the sequel. I believe that the combat is the way it is to remain accessible to many players. One improvement over the original’s combat is that button prompt finishers only appear on random chance instead of always so you don’t get tired of watching the same death animations over and over.
War had Chaos form allowing him to transform into a demon and Death has Reaper form allowing him to turn into a more powerful form. On the PC this ability was bugged and didn’t activate unless you pressed tab and clicked on the reaper icon and then pressed “V” which is the key it is mapped to. This was the only bug that I had to deal with apart from one NPC getting stuck in the wall, which luckily sorted itself out when I reached the next cutscene. However, the first patch from Vigil has solved these issues.
To say that Darksiders 2 rips off Shadow of the Colossus is an insult to Shadow of the Colossus. In the trailer you watch Death leap onto the Colossus and he uses the Deathgrip ability to reach the gem weak spot but I wish this was actually implemented in gameplay. All Death does is climb up the Colossus’s knee and that it. I was expecting Death to be able to platform and wall run up its arms and slowly make his way up to the giant’s head to pick off the last weak spot like any of the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus and I ultimately was very disappointed. It is also a shame that this is one of the best boss fights in this game. In the first Darksiders each boss was huge and required you to use the environment and varying equipment to your advantage. In Darksiders there are a few bosses that require you to use the environment, but the majority of bosses are a simple case of dodging and counter attacking. This is fine, as they are engaging, but they feel too similar normal combat encounters.
The best part about the Colossus fight is the epic music composed by Jesper Kyd of Assassin’s Creed fame. Although I like his soundtrack overall, I enjoyed "The Makers Guardian" song a lot more than the rest of them.
The new loot system really doesn’t do anything for me and I feel that it seems out of place in an action adventure. Loot is randomly generated from treasure chests and creatures that you slay and their stats are compared to whatever you are currently wearing so that you know whether you should swap them immediately. There are also “Possessed” weapons which can consume other weapons to make it stronger which makes it so that even weak weapons are useful to you. It also means that there is never a reason why you wouldn’t want to pick up an item. This is why you can turn on auto-loot to automatically pick up every drop, but doing this means that you can’t see the stats so you have to go into the menu to compare it to your existing items. The original Darksiders didn’t have you comparing stats and spending time upgrading items and I don’t see how it adds to the game.
Darksiders 2 is considerably larger in size than the first, but you end up using fast travel so much that it doesn’t feel that much bigger. There are many treasure chests and collectibles scattered throughout the world which gives you an incentive to explore. There are chests that you aren’t able to get unless you unlock certain abilities, giving it a metroid style incentive to go back to previous areas. Then again the first Darksiders managed to do this just as well.
After finishing the story my Steam timer was clocked at 24 hours and I had barely started any of the side quests or secret dungeons and only managed a bit of the Crucible. To manage the entire Crucible you will have to start New Game+ to increase the level cap from 22 to 30 so you can get stronger gear to be able to survive the stronger waves.
Ultimately I enjoyed Darksiders 2 for the well crafted dungeons with clever use of Death Splitter and Portals. I also loved some of the environments which really helped draw me into the game, although they were let down a bit by the low res textures due to the fact that the game is run on the same engine as the first. However, I was let down by the boss fights as I thought they did a better job in the original. The story didn’t draw me in either and it didn’t help that each quest always asks for 3 of something; it made Death seem like an errand boy compared to War.
That said, this is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played all year behind Pandora’s Tower. I find it funny that they excel at each other’s weaknesses. If only Darksiders 2 had the boss fights of Pandora’s Tower or Pandora’s Tower had Darksiders 2’s level design.
If you enjoyed Darksiders or enjoy the Zelda formula, you should enjoy this, but don’t expect a massive improvement on the original Darksiders. This game is a console port and the first patch has managed to get v-sync to work. You may want to wait for Vigil to add further graphical options, but if you aren’t bothered then I do recommend the PC version. I played through the game with keyboard and mouse controls and they are the key binded the same as the first. I found the keyboard controls easy to use, but some may find it pretty awkward so you can plug in a controller instead.
Note that on PC Steam is compulsory and you also have to create a THQ account before you can play the game, so if either of those things is a deal breaker then you should get it for console.
8.0/10
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Darksiders 2 is an action adventure RPG developed by Vigil Games and published by THQ. The game’s EU release was on the 21st August for the PC, PS3 and XBOX 360 and the game will also be available for the Wii U on launch.
The first Darksiders was a surprisingly good game considering it was Vigil Games first attempt at an AAA title. The game was generally positively received by critics, but it was also seen as highly derivative. The main influence was seen to be Zelda, with temples and puzzles to navigate through followed by an end boss that is usually defeated by using a recently acquired skill or item. You also had a boomerang, a hookshot, a horse and you could also collect 4 shards to increase your max health/wrath (mana). War had a chaos meter that when filled up allowed him to transform into a powerful Demon with increased damage and defence, similar to Devil Trigger of Devil May Cry. When an enemy reaches low enough health a button prompt would appear for you to perform an execution like God of War. And just as you thought the game couldn’t get anymore shameless, near the end you get the ability to shoot blue and orange portals.
To be fair to Vigil they did manage to come up with something new: The ability to shoot portals through portals. I believe that this helps in creating more complex portal puzzles, but I guess Valve weren’t impressed considering they didn’t add it in Portal 2. This idea makes the game more imaginative than the yearly instalments of Fifa and PES, and yet I don’t think any of the main review sites gave any mention or credit for it.
The plot of Darksiders 2 runs parallel to the story of the first Darksiders. The series is based on the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the first Darksiders had you playing as War. In Darksiders 2 you play as Death. In the introduction, you learn that the Charred Council whom the horsemen serve, informs the other 3 horsemen that War is charged for starting the Apocalypse early. However, Death sees War as the most honourable of the four horsemen and refused to believe this. Death decides to resurrect humanity so that he may find evidence that proves War’s innocence. As Death is unsure of how to resurrect humanity, he sets off to find the keeper of secrets who knows…. stuff. You don’t need to have played the original Darksiders to follow this story.
So after all the derivative comments did Vigil change their ways for Darksiders 2? Hell no, they copied some more. The majority of the new additions seem to be from Devil May Cry, with Death being able to summon a “Deathgrip” hand to pull enemies towards him or use it to swing across to other ledges and climb to higher places, which is similar to Nero’s Devil Bringer from Devil May Cry 4. Vigil also decided to implement an optional Arena mode called “The Crucible” where you can fight 100 waves of increasingly powerful enemies before fighting a final boss. Every time you survive 25 waves you will be asked whether you want to quit and claim a prize or continue and risk losing it. This mode is pretty similar to Devil May Cry’s Bloody Palace which is what I believe they were thinking of when they did it.
Although Death can’t double jump or glide with wings like War could, he has the ability to perform Wall runs similar to Prince of Persia and Mirrors Edge. This is implemented very well and it is easy to perform agile actions like jumping between two parallel walls to reach higher places and wall running is mixed up with using the Deathgrip and Portals to give it more variety.
So did Vigil manage to do anything original? Well, I don’t know which game they got this idea from so you would have to point it out to me. Otherwise, I think they might have managed their second innovative idea! This ability is known as Death Splitting, which creates a Statue of Death where the ability is activated and 2 copies of Death are created: one purple, one green. The two copies of Death can only move so far away from the statue or else Death Split will end and Death will take the place of where the Death Statue is. This means that you have to think about where you should position the statue so that both copies can do what they need to do at the same time. You can only control one copy at a time, but they can do pretty much everything that Death can.
In the first Darksiders, apart from a few interesting ideas in each temple, I only started enjoying the level design when War gets access to creating portals which was the last temple: The Black Throne. In this temple there were many more puzzles than in the other temples combined which made it seem like a puzzle fest compared to the rest of them. In Darksiders 2 they managed to add a few more puzzle ideas to the earlier dungeons so that it seems more balanced. It starts simple with rolling spheres into slots in the floor and they introduce new mechanics and eventually it becomes more fun when you have to figure out how to combine the Death Split ability with Portals and bombs.
One of the temples gives you the ability to create portals that allow you to switch between the past and the present, so that actions in the past modify the temple in the future. It is a pretty good idea and it reminded me of the Dawn and Dusk Towers in Pandora’s Tower where you needed to move between two similar towers to make progress in both.
In terms of depth the combat hasn’t improved much compared to the first. You have a wrath meter like the first which allows you to cast abilities to help you in battle. In Darksiders 2 you have a skill tree to upgrade the abilities that you can activate by using wrath. The left skill tree is Harbinger, which is a Melee upgrading tree, allowing you to do a blink slash or pull off a massive AoE attack. The Right skill tree is a Necromancer tree which allows you to summon minions, crows, shield yourself or blast single targets.
In the first Darksiders I left clicked the mouse over and over until I saw the enemy preparing for an attack and then dodged. This didn’t change throughout the game. In Darksiders 2 I did the same thing throughout only stopping to summon minions or crows. I expected to use Deathgrip to be able to pull shields of enemies, but that didn’t work. Deathgrip is useful to use on projectile enemies as a gap closer but that isn’t necessary. I thought that Darksiders was a tad easy on normal mode and for most of the game I would say the same for the sequel. I believe that the combat is the way it is to remain accessible to many players. One improvement over the original’s combat is that button prompt finishers only appear on random chance instead of always so you don’t get tired of watching the same death animations over and over.
War had Chaos form allowing him to transform into a demon and Death has Reaper form allowing him to turn into a more powerful form. On the PC this ability was bugged and didn’t activate unless you pressed tab and clicked on the reaper icon and then pressed “V” which is the key it is mapped to. This was the only bug that I had to deal with apart from one NPC getting stuck in the wall, which luckily sorted itself out when I reached the next cutscene. However, the first patch from Vigil has solved these issues.
To say that Darksiders 2 rips off Shadow of the Colossus is an insult to Shadow of the Colossus. In the trailer you watch Death leap onto the Colossus and he uses the Deathgrip ability to reach the gem weak spot but I wish this was actually implemented in gameplay. All Death does is climb up the Colossus’s knee and that it. I was expecting Death to be able to platform and wall run up its arms and slowly make his way up to the giant’s head to pick off the last weak spot like any of the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus and I ultimately was very disappointed. It is also a shame that this is one of the best boss fights in this game. In the first Darksiders each boss was huge and required you to use the environment and varying equipment to your advantage. In Darksiders there are a few bosses that require you to use the environment, but the majority of bosses are a simple case of dodging and counter attacking. This is fine, as they are engaging, but they feel too similar normal combat encounters.
The best part about the Colossus fight is the epic music composed by Jesper Kyd of Assassin’s Creed fame. Although I like his soundtrack overall, I enjoyed "The Makers Guardian" song a lot more than the rest of them.
The new loot system really doesn’t do anything for me and I feel that it seems out of place in an action adventure. Loot is randomly generated from treasure chests and creatures that you slay and their stats are compared to whatever you are currently wearing so that you know whether you should swap them immediately. There are also “Possessed” weapons which can consume other weapons to make it stronger which makes it so that even weak weapons are useful to you. It also means that there is never a reason why you wouldn’t want to pick up an item. This is why you can turn on auto-loot to automatically pick up every drop, but doing this means that you can’t see the stats so you have to go into the menu to compare it to your existing items. The original Darksiders didn’t have you comparing stats and spending time upgrading items and I don’t see how it adds to the game.
Darksiders 2 is considerably larger in size than the first, but you end up using fast travel so much that it doesn’t feel that much bigger. There are many treasure chests and collectibles scattered throughout the world which gives you an incentive to explore. There are chests that you aren’t able to get unless you unlock certain abilities, giving it a metroid style incentive to go back to previous areas. Then again the first Darksiders managed to do this just as well.
After finishing the story my Steam timer was clocked at 24 hours and I had barely started any of the side quests or secret dungeons and only managed a bit of the Crucible. To manage the entire Crucible you will have to start New Game+ to increase the level cap from 22 to 30 so you can get stronger gear to be able to survive the stronger waves.
Ultimately I enjoyed Darksiders 2 for the well crafted dungeons with clever use of Death Splitter and Portals. I also loved some of the environments which really helped draw me into the game, although they were let down a bit by the low res textures due to the fact that the game is run on the same engine as the first. However, I was let down by the boss fights as I thought they did a better job in the original. The story didn’t draw me in either and it didn’t help that each quest always asks for 3 of something; it made Death seem like an errand boy compared to War.
That said, this is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played all year behind Pandora’s Tower. I find it funny that they excel at each other’s weaknesses. If only Darksiders 2 had the boss fights of Pandora’s Tower or Pandora’s Tower had Darksiders 2’s level design.
If you enjoyed Darksiders or enjoy the Zelda formula, you should enjoy this, but don’t expect a massive improvement on the original Darksiders. This game is a console port and the first patch has managed to get v-sync to work. You may want to wait for Vigil to add further graphical options, but if you aren’t bothered then I do recommend the PC version. I played through the game with keyboard and mouse controls and they are the key binded the same as the first. I found the keyboard controls easy to use, but some may find it pretty awkward so you can plug in a controller instead.
Note that on PC Steam is compulsory and you also have to create a THQ account before you can play the game, so if either of those things is a deal breaker then you should get it for console.
8.0/10
The first Darksiders was a surprisingly good game considering it was Vigil Games first attempt at an AAA title. The game was generally positively received by critics, but it was also seen as highly derivative. The main influence was seen to be Zelda, with temples and puzzles to navigate through followed by an end boss that is usually defeated by using a recently acquired skill or item. You also had a boomerang, a hookshot, a horse and you could also collect 4 shards to increase your max health/wrath (mana). War had a chaos meter that when filled up allowed him to transform into a powerful Demon with increased damage and defence, similar to Devil Trigger of Devil May Cry. When an enemy reaches low enough health a button prompt would appear for you to perform an execution like God of War. And just as you thought the game couldn’t get anymore shameless, near the end you get the ability to shoot blue and orange portals.
To be fair to Vigil they did manage to come up with something new: The ability to shoot portals through portals. I believe that this helps in creating more complex portal puzzles, but I guess Valve weren’t impressed considering they didn’t add it in Portal 2. This idea makes the game more imaginative than the yearly instalments of Fifa and PES, and yet I don’t think any of the main review sites gave any mention or credit for it.
The plot of Darksiders 2 runs parallel to the story of the first Darksiders. The series is based on the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse and the first Darksiders had you playing as War. In Darksiders 2 you play as Death. In the introduction, you learn that the Charred Council whom the horsemen serve, informs the other 3 horsemen that War is charged for starting the Apocalypse early. However, Death sees War as the most honourable of the four horsemen and refused to believe this. Death decides to resurrect humanity so that he may find evidence that proves War’s innocence. As Death is unsure of how to resurrect humanity, he sets off to find the keeper of secrets who knows…. stuff. You don’t need to have played the original Darksiders to follow this story.
So after all the derivative comments did Vigil change their ways for Darksiders 2? Hell no, they copied some more. The majority of the new additions seem to be from Devil May Cry, with Death being able to summon a “Deathgrip” hand to pull enemies towards him or use it to swing across to other ledges and climb to higher places, which is similar to Nero’s Devil Bringer from Devil May Cry 4. Vigil also decided to implement an optional Arena mode called “The Crucible” where you can fight 100 waves of increasingly powerful enemies before fighting a final boss. Every time you survive 25 waves you will be asked whether you want to quit and claim a prize or continue and risk losing it. This mode is pretty similar to Devil May Cry’s Bloody Palace which is what I believe they were thinking of when they did it.
Although Death can’t double jump or glide with wings like War could, he has the ability to perform Wall runs similar to Prince of Persia and Mirrors Edge. This is implemented very well and it is easy to perform agile actions like jumping between two parallel walls to reach higher places and wall running is mixed up with using the Deathgrip and Portals to give it more variety.
So did Vigil manage to do anything original? Well, I don’t know which game they got this idea from so you would have to point it out to me. Otherwise, I think they might have managed their second innovative idea! This ability is known as Death Splitting, which creates a Statue of Death where the ability is activated and 2 copies of Death are created: one purple, one green. The two copies of Death can only move so far away from the statue or else Death Split will end and Death will take the place of where the Death Statue is. This means that you have to think about where you should position the statue so that both copies can do what they need to do at the same time. You can only control one copy at a time, but they can do pretty much everything that Death can.
In the first Darksiders, apart from a few interesting ideas in each temple, I only started enjoying the level design when War gets access to creating portals which was the last temple: The Black Throne. In this temple there were many more puzzles than in the other temples combined which made it seem like a puzzle fest compared to the rest of them. In Darksiders 2 they managed to add a few more puzzle ideas to the earlier dungeons so that it seems more balanced. It starts simple with rolling spheres into slots in the floor and they introduce new mechanics and eventually it becomes more fun when you have to figure out how to combine the Death Split ability with Portals and bombs.
One of the temples gives you the ability to create portals that allow you to switch between the past and the present, so that actions in the past modify the temple in the future. It is a pretty good idea and it reminded me of the Dawn and Dusk Towers in Pandora’s Tower where you needed to move between two similar towers to make progress in both.
In terms of depth the combat hasn’t improved much compared to the first. You have a wrath meter like the first which allows you to cast abilities to help you in battle. In Darksiders 2 you have a skill tree to upgrade the abilities that you can activate by using wrath. The left skill tree is Harbinger, which is a Melee upgrading tree, allowing you to do a blink slash or pull off a massive AoE attack. The Right skill tree is a Necromancer tree which allows you to summon minions, crows, shield yourself or blast single targets.
In the first Darksiders I left clicked the mouse over and over until I saw the enemy preparing for an attack and then dodged. This didn’t change throughout the game. In Darksiders 2 I did the same thing throughout only stopping to summon minions or crows. I expected to use Deathgrip to be able to pull shields of enemies, but that didn’t work. Deathgrip is useful to use on projectile enemies as a gap closer but that isn’t necessary. I thought that Darksiders was a tad easy on normal mode and for most of the game I would say the same for the sequel. I believe that the combat is the way it is to remain accessible to many players. One improvement over the original’s combat is that button prompt finishers only appear on random chance instead of always so you don’t get tired of watching the same death animations over and over.
War had Chaos form allowing him to transform into a demon and Death has Reaper form allowing him to turn into a more powerful form. On the PC this ability was bugged and didn’t activate unless you pressed tab and clicked on the reaper icon and then pressed “V” which is the key it is mapped to. This was the only bug that I had to deal with apart from one NPC getting stuck in the wall, which luckily sorted itself out when I reached the next cutscene. However, the first patch from Vigil has solved these issues.
To say that Darksiders 2 rips off Shadow of the Colossus is an insult to Shadow of the Colossus. In the trailer you watch Death leap onto the Colossus and he uses the Deathgrip ability to reach the gem weak spot but I wish this was actually implemented in gameplay. All Death does is climb up the Colossus’s knee and that it. I was expecting Death to be able to platform and wall run up its arms and slowly make his way up to the giant’s head to pick off the last weak spot like any of the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus and I ultimately was very disappointed. It is also a shame that this is one of the best boss fights in this game. In the first Darksiders each boss was huge and required you to use the environment and varying equipment to your advantage. In Darksiders there are a few bosses that require you to use the environment, but the majority of bosses are a simple case of dodging and counter attacking. This is fine, as they are engaging, but they feel too similar normal combat encounters.
The best part about the Colossus fight is the epic music composed by Jesper Kyd of Assassin’s Creed fame. Although I like his soundtrack overall, I enjoyed "The Makers Guardian" song a lot more than the rest of them.
The new loot system really doesn’t do anything for me and I feel that it seems out of place in an action adventure. Loot is randomly generated from treasure chests and creatures that you slay and their stats are compared to whatever you are currently wearing so that you know whether you should swap them immediately. There are also “Possessed” weapons which can consume other weapons to make it stronger which makes it so that even weak weapons are useful to you. It also means that there is never a reason why you wouldn’t want to pick up an item. This is why you can turn on auto-loot to automatically pick up every drop, but doing this means that you can’t see the stats so you have to go into the menu to compare it to your existing items. The original Darksiders didn’t have you comparing stats and spending time upgrading items and I don’t see how it adds to the game.
Darksiders 2 is considerably larger in size than the first, but you end up using fast travel so much that it doesn’t feel that much bigger. There are many treasure chests and collectibles scattered throughout the world which gives you an incentive to explore. There are chests that you aren’t able to get unless you unlock certain abilities, giving it a metroid style incentive to go back to previous areas. Then again the first Darksiders managed to do this just as well.
After finishing the story my Steam timer was clocked at 24 hours and I had barely started any of the side quests or secret dungeons and only managed a bit of the Crucible. To manage the entire Crucible you will have to start New Game+ to increase the level cap from 22 to 30 so you can get stronger gear to be able to survive the stronger waves.
Ultimately I enjoyed Darksiders 2 for the well crafted dungeons with clever use of Death Splitter and Portals. I also loved some of the environments which really helped draw me into the game, although they were let down a bit by the low res textures due to the fact that the game is run on the same engine as the first. However, I was let down by the boss fights as I thought they did a better job in the original. The story didn’t draw me in either and it didn’t help that each quest always asks for 3 of something; it made Death seem like an errand boy compared to War.
That said, this is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played all year behind Pandora’s Tower. I find it funny that they excel at each other’s weaknesses. If only Darksiders 2 had the boss fights of Pandora’s Tower or Pandora’s Tower had Darksiders 2’s level design.
If you enjoyed Darksiders or enjoy the Zelda formula, you should enjoy this, but don’t expect a massive improvement on the original Darksiders. This game is a console port and the first patch has managed to get v-sync to work. You may want to wait for Vigil to add further graphical options, but if you aren’t bothered then I do recommend the PC version. I played through the game with keyboard and mouse controls and they are the key binded the same as the first. I found the keyboard controls easy to use, but some may find it pretty awkward so you can plug in a controller instead.
Note that on PC Steam is compulsory and you also have to create a THQ account before you can play the game, so if either of those things is a deal breaker then you should get it for console.
8.0/10