 | Darksiders PS3 Reviewed – No Tom Hanks, These Are Angels And Demons |
| Nick de Bruyne - January 29th, 2010 at 4:00 pm - 457 views - 4 Comments |
Vigil Studios, created by the immensely talented comic artist Joe Madureira takes it’s first baby steps into the world of gaming with Darksiders.
Darksiders puts you into the very awesome shoes of one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Which one? Well, War of course. You arrive prematurely at what you think is the end of the world party and things go belly up from there.
Hit the jump for our review
You wake up around about a century later and the world is pretty much a goner. All the people are dead, Angels and Demons are still battling it out and you are on a mission to redeem yourself for what looked like a very good idea at the time.
Darksiders, as many of you may have already heard, borrows a lot from other franchises. To get it out of the way, it basically plays a lot like the Legend of Zelda series mixed with God of War. This would usually be a negative for a lot of people, but it has been pulled off masterfully and no matter how much has been borrowed, the game is a lot of fun and a joy to play. There is a great mix of puzzles, action and boss fights and is all brought together by my next point.
The art direction. Joe Madeira is one heck of an artist and thanks to Darksiders being his baby, the characters, locations and art style will charm you to no end. The art style really is the glue that brings all the elements together. The designs for the Angels, Demons, enemies and environments are gorgeous and really show how much videogames can benefit from a great artistic mind.
The graphics engine runs at a good pace, complimenting that art style and something that stood out for me was the amazing use of sound, especially when Demon’s voices boom and echo as they speak to you.
Darksiders may not be a perfect game, but sure as hell is a lot of fun. It embraces the pure essence of what it should feel like to play a console game and takes your mind back to the good old days of playing “tv games”.
If you already own a PS3, then this title will keep you very well distracted until God of War III. If however, you only own an Xbox 360 then I think this title is much more appealing as it is one of the best in it’s genre on the system.
For Fans Of: God of War, Legend of Zelda, Heavenly Sword
Scoring
Gameplay: 9.0
Complex enough for creativity but simple enough for anyone to pick up and play
Presentation: 9.0
Amazing art direction that shines throughout the entire game.
Sound: 9.0
Solid effects, booming voices and a dynamic soundtrack to keep things interesting
Value: 9.0
Will run you in the decent region of 10 hours or so, and it’s a great couple of hours making it worthwhile.
Overall: 9.0
A great action/puzzle adventure that brings together some of the best things about console gaming. Fun.
[Reviewed on Playstation 3]
Related Awesomeness
The above list was chosen because I slapped the following tags onto this post
darksiders, God of War, Joe Madureira, Link would be scared, PS3, Xbox 360
January 29, 2010
5:50 pm
Nice game but one problem… its too simple.
Zero Punct. was 100% correct about this game.
I’ve played for for about 4~ish hrs then got rid of it.
With many other Hack&Slash games out now, rather try before buy with this one.
January 29, 2010
5:57 pm
I found that the longer you played it the more interesting the combat gets as you unlock more weapons and powers
January 29, 2010
6:47 pm
Someone:
Shame you gonna miss out the game actually evolves over time and becomes more puzzle based then combat later on an the story only starts revealing itself later. I would advice you give it another try, it is a long game but well worth the trip
February 4, 2010
10:24 am
Darksiders took me just over 20 hours to complete and it was absolutely awesome. On your first go, you’ll have to REALLY fly through it to get it done in 10.