I actually beat Darksiders a short while back but I’ve just now gotten around to writing a review. Writing this review is important to me because I think Darksiders is a fantastic game and I want people to know that – that way people buy it and we get a sequel.
The main premise of Darksiders puts you in the role of one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War. In the beginning of the game you are tricked into helping start the apocalypse early and your mission is to help bring order to the chaos and get revenge on those who falsely summoned you. I don’t want to go into much more detail than that so that you can enjoy the story without spoilers. The plot can be slightly confusing at times but it’s an intriguing story.  The characters are interesting; War is a cool character. The entire game has great voice acting including Mark Hamill who voices a character named The Watcher (who sounds a lot like The Joker).
Darksiders is a combination of several other games. It plays a lot like a Legend of Zelda game. There’s an overworld that you can explore and dungeons to go in to like classic Zelda dungeons with keys to open doors. In each dungeon you’ll find a new item that will help you solve puzzles and get to areas you couldn’t reach before. You can even get more life containers like in Zelda. The reason you go through dungeons is to kill the bosses who are “Chosen Demons†and take their hearts. Completing dungeons advances the story much like in Zelda games. This is all a good thing. People talk about wanting a more mature Zelda, and this is essentially that. These similarities to other games all help the game and work out really well. Nothing about these similarities is a negative thing.
The game also has similarities to God of War. There are chests located around that you can open for health and energy. War has the ability to scale certain walls and ceilings very similar to how Kratos can. The fighting mechanics, while similar to Zelda with the ability to lock on to a target, offer up combos that make it feel more like an action game like God of War. War also gets a handgun that reminds me an awful lot of Dante’s from Devil May Cry.
Darksiders’ visuals are very nice. The war-torn post apoc cityscape is very atmospheric. The game runs at a high framerate but suffers from screentearing which the devs say will be fixed in a patch. I was really worried that the screentearing would be bad enough that it would detract from the game, but it wasn’t bad enough and they’ll be patching it up anyway. From what I hear, the PS3 version does not have the tearing issue but has framerate issues.
There isn’t a lot of replayability since there is no new game+ with collectibles, but you can keep your armor from a previous game. I played through enough to get all of the achievements which does add time to the game, but on average you can expect the game to last you about 15-20 hours on a single playthrough.
While Darksiders does not do many new things it does take what has already been done, combines it with and interesting premise and some very well thought out characters, and turns it all into a great game.
We give Darksiders a 4 out of 5.
To view our scoring system please visit our reviews page.
Thanks for the review.
looks like devil may cry, god of war, ninja gaiden…
i checked out game play on youtube and it just makes me happy that i DONT own any consoles..because this is the generic crap they keep putting out for them.
Far from “generic crap”. It’s one of the few console games that I was actually interested in playing after Graev was done. Reminds me of Kameo and Zelda.
Crud. Then I still have to go with “opposite” mode and choose to not play this, as I do not play anything suggested on this site.
Bummer… really was interested too.
@openedge1: How very odd.
Thanks for the review, might give this a shot!
People must have such lonely and unfortunate lives to actively visit sites that they claim to dislike just to act out. Somebody needs a time out..
FYI this is the same company making the Warhammer 40k MMO.
Have you all seen the Zero Punctuation vid on Darksiders? It’s the first thing I saw and it radically colored my view of the game.
Glad you all enjoyed it though; that is what matters.
Thade, to be fair yahtzee hates everything. The best compliment he gives something is not wanting to kill himself while playing it.
I haven’t played it because i simply don’t a console of the latest generation but Thade you shouldn’t watch Zero Punctuation as a reliable method to review games or else you will stop playing videogames.
Watch Zero Punctuation only after playing the games that actually interest you.
For those wondering: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1404-Darksiders
He really does hate everything… save for 1 or 2 games a year.
On yahtzee: It’s hard to tell what he doesn’t and does like. Take his Dragon Age review.
If they steal from other games, who cares, as long as it works well.
Sounds fun but not sure it appeals to me. I think I’d rather wait for God of War 3. Would you say at this is a “lite” version of GoW?
Yahtzee does his stuff as comedy, not as a reliable review. Although he usually points out the logical inconsistences in the games.
I feel like I’ve played as many games as Yahtzee over as many years and I have become very, very picky…so it’s not that Yahtzee takes away my ability to enjoy games: more that, for me, he shields me from games I likely would not enjoy. For the games I played before he reviewed them, I still found myself nodding in agreement during his reviews. <3
That said, it's not Darksiders, or Yahtzee: it's me. Though, the few games he does like have all been remarkably good ones, save Painkiller (which I just can't stand…too many FPSs for me I think).
@Thade
I am not saying Yahtzee is wrong in what he says. He points out valid issues with games. My point is that you could still enjoy a game. The Dragon Age review of his is the perfect example. He roasts it the whole time then at the very end says he can’t stop playing it.