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Darksiders Hands-On Preview for Xbox 360

Darksiders Hands-On Preview for Xbox 360

Like the Zeldapocalypse

December 16, 2009 – It’s been five years in the making, and hopes are high for Vigil Games’ upcoming action-adventure title, Darksiders. The developers themselves have even poured gasoline on the fire, going so far as to compare their gameplay to that of the legendary 3D Zelda games. We recently got a chance to go hands-on with this title for ourselves to find out once and for all if the anticipation is warranted. We already know that Darksiders looks great, but does the gameplay stack up?

Darksiders screenshot

More than any other game we’ve played in a long time, Darksiders is a product of its influences. While the developer has mentioned Zelda among its inspirations, that’s really only the beginning. This is a game which very clearly has roots in many different classic games from the action-adventure genre. The combat is often very reminiscent of God of War, the exploration and pacing sets you back to the Legacy of Kain games, battles are often reminiscent of Devil May Cry, and the bosses will remind you of Ocarina of Time in a very good way.

During our extensive play time, comprising about 8-10 hours, we got a very good feel for Darksiders and came away more than a little impressed. It’s not going to shock you with drastically new gameplay innovations, but it’s definitely going to surprise you with its quality. Most games that aim this high usually end up falling tragically short, but perhaps due to its extremely long development cycle, Darksiders has fulfilled much of its potential and promises.

It might look like another straight-forward, linear action-brawler trying to be the next God of War, but looks can be deceiving. As you travel deeper and deeper into the game, you’ll find that Darksiders continuously opens up to reveal new layers and expand on its original formula. Before you know it, this simple button-mashing slasher has turned into an all-new, complex hybrid, sporting both the grace of God of War’s combat system and the complexity of a Zelda dungeon. And that’s all before you reach one of the several truly enormous bosses.

At first, the game can lull you to sleep with its beginnings as a basic hack-n-slash brawler, but after a few hours, you’ll find yourself smack in the middle of some pretty nefarious dungeons which require a lot of exploration and puzzle-solving. If this was a simple God of War clone, you’d plow through the puzzles one at a time, most of them posing little serious cognitive threat. But in Darksiders, the dungeons are somewhat Zelda-like in that there are small, individual puzzles, but all of those tie into an overarching, meta-puzzle.

Darksiders screenshot

The best example comes in one of the early dungeons, which places you in a hub room with several doors around the perimeter and a pool of lava separating them. You have to constantly be manipulating a series of nine platforms to cross the pool to the next door, and then solve the puzzles in the next room to get the object you need. The goal is to retrieve a huge ornamental sword from each area and bring it back to the original room to solve another puzzle involving those swords.

In a video game landscape which includes less complexity every year, Darksiders refuses to hold your hand. It’s never quite as complicated as a traditional Zelda dungeon, which might take you hours to finish, but it’s refreshingly complex and forces you to think and evaluate your surroundings.

In a game world like Darksiders, so full of bleakness and gray, it would be justifiable to suspect that its underground dungeons would be extremely bland and boring to walk through. However, that never ends up being the case. Comic artist Joe Madureira – who has been on board with this project since its very beginnings – has really crafted an intensely interesting world. Even the underground bits manage to be interesting and full of dead life.

Darksiders screenshot

Vigil Games has stated before that they wanted to create a world devoid of humanity; this is not your average super-powered-human-fights-evil-and-saves-humanity story. These glorified superhero tales are worn out. Which is why in Darksiders, humanity itself doesn’t even seem to be much of a major player at all. This is not a story about the benevolence and innocence of the human spirit, but rather it’s a straight up war story between Heaven, Hell, and the forces that keep the balance.

We’re very excited to get our hands on the final product, because if our time previewing the game is any indication, this is going to be a very satisfying gaming experience that fills a gaming niche that hasn’t been addressed in years. If you’ve been yearning for the same type of gameplay that made the N64 era so special, Darksiders will definitely appeal to you; it has a lot of the same sentiments but with the polish and graphical prowess of a modern title.

Game Features:

  • Apocalyptic Power of War – Unleash the wrath of War with devastating supernatural abilities; an extreme arsenal of angelic, demonic, and earthly weapons; and his fiery red phantom steed, Ruin.
  • Epic Quest – Battle across the wastelands and demon-infested dungeons of the decimated Earth, discovering new weapons, learning new abilities and uncovering ancient relics to aid in your quest for vengeance and redemption.
  • Battle Heaven and Hell – Destroy all who stand in your way – from war-weary angelic forces to Hell’s hideous demon hordes, and confront the nefarious Destroyer, the very harbinger of Armageddon.


  • It’s the End of the
    World as We Know It

    July 14, 2009 – Darksiders: Wrath of War is a game that takes place during the apocalypse. The world is ending, and angels and demons are duking it out in the streets over the fate of what’s left of the world. However, there’s just one problem: this apocalypse was never supposed to happen. When it is realized that it was never supposed to happen, everyone seems to be pointing the finger at War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and the only one to appear so far. Now War has to fend off some fairly upset angels and demons as well as find the being responsible for causing such a ruckus in order to restore his innocence.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War screenshot

    Unfortunately, until War finds out who is behind this untimely apocalypse, he’ll have to fight all manner of supernatural beings and with limited powers to boot. When you first start playing, War is in pretty sad shape after the majority of his powers have been striped from him by an inter-dimensional congress known as the Charred Council. As you progress through the game, however, your actions will be guided by a being known as The Watcher, who has been appointed to guide War’s path to redemption. Although The Watcher can kill War at any time, he’s more apt to helping guide your actions and to giving advice at pivotal points in the plot.

    Once we got through the amazing back-story, we were finally able to get some hands-on time with Darksiders. The game plays a lot like God of War (for obvious reasons). The battle system works like your basic button-masher, with plenty of standard attacks as well as advanced-level combos and devastating finishing moves. These moves are controlled with a wrath meter that, once filled, will allow you to unleash some destructive and far-reaching attacks in accordance with War’s current progress in the game.

    Even though we spent some time playing with a powered-down version of War, I was surprised at how user-friendly the battle system was. As soon as you figure out some of the more simple combos, dispatching enemies is quite easy. We were also able to take a spin on War’s horse, Ruin, and combat while saddled up is even more approachable. We were easily able to mow down enemies and run our swords along even the most daunting of foes.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War screenshot

    However, we were assured by one of the developers that there will be more than just button-mashing and slashing in the gameplay. In addition to running through hordes of Angel and Demon enemies, you will also have to solve puzzles in dungeon-based settings. These puzzles can involve anything from manipulating the environment in order to open a door to complex boss battles that involve some sort of puzzling to complete. Although we weren’t able to test out the puzzles for ourselves, it seems like a much-needed element to give players a reprieve from the constant button-mashing that playing this game is sure to entail.

    Although the gameplay did seem a little too much like God of War (complete with the requisite QTEs), one area that really helps this game set itself apart is the visuals. The game’s art style is phenomenal, and everything from the architecture to the enemy designs exudes a certain apocalyptic charm. Since the Human race is all but extinct, the remains of the Earth as we know it are presented in fantastic detail, and the layering of the ruins of human civilization with new Angelic and Demonic structures is quite striking.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War screenshot

    Even more striking still are the combat animations, which will definitely fuel the most staunch gamer’s lust for gore. War’s sword is quite massive, and you will be able to see some very detailed kill animations that involve severed limbs (including Angel wings), broken bones, and plenty of lost heads. The kill animations in particular are especially gory, and the team behind the visuals certainly has the “shock” factor going for them in this respect.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War looks like it is shaping up to be a very interesting title. Though the combat does seem like a run-of-the-mill God of War clone, the story, puzzle elements, and visuals should be enough to make this title unique among its peers. Darksiders: Wrath of War is currently slated to be released sometime early next year.

    Game Features:

  • Apocalyptic Power of War: Unleash the wrath of War with devastating supernatural abilities; an extreme arsenal of angelic, demonic, and earthly weapons; and his fiery red phantom steed, Ruin.
  • Epic Quest: Battle across the wastelands and demon-infested dungeons of the decimated Earth, discovering new weapons, learning new abilities, and uncovering ancient relics to aid in your quest for vengeance and redemption.
  • Battle Heaven and Hell: Destroy all who stand in your way – from war-weary angelic forces to Hell’s hideous demon hordes – and confront the nefarious Destroyer, the very harbinger of Armageddon.

  • August 1, 2007 – War is nothing new for gamers. In fact, gamers could consider themselves pros playing in any of the mediums of war. Just earlier this year, we had the return of Kratos, everyone’s favorite God of War. THQ, along with Vigil games, seems to have an answer to the intoxicating draw of that particular character. Darksiders will be the answer to that game, however there is something rather special about this particular title. There would have to be, considering the fact there are a few titles that seem to be riding the waves of Kartos’ popularity. The reason this game is among my most anticipated is that one of the designers behind the game is one of my all time favorite comic book artists, Joe Madureira.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War screenshot

    The thing about Joe Mad is that when he first splashed onto the comic page, it was in a time that comics needed a shot in the arm. Joe delivered this with a high kinetic energy that blended American art with the Japanese art of manga. Fans of the X-Men comic will know him best. He was also one of the artists that started the Cliffhanger comics line, along with J. Scott Campbell and Humberto Ramos. Unfortunately, many fans were left with a bitter taste in their mouths considering the severe delays in his creator owned series Battle Chasers. Couple that with the fact that when the story seemed to be preparing the series to branch off into new venues, it was no longer to be continued. The reason for the self-imposed cancellation is Joe wanted to pursue his other love – video games, a move that caused some fans to begin to doubt. Since that time, we have only seen slivers of his artwork and hopes for that all-important video game to finally hit. Well, Darksiders may not be the game that he originally started working on, but I for one am excited that finally his dream seems to be becoming a realization, and the game looks beautiful, even if it is the early stages of development as THQ revealed at this year’s E3.

    The plot of the game will be the simplest of ventures in video games: revenge. Seems kinda hard to believe that the horseman War would have any reason to seek out revenge, but that is the basic gist of it. Someone has betrayed War, and they will soon find out the reason people say that War is the hardest thing to live through. The combat will be similar to that of God of War with combos. We will also have several weapons to aid us in our journey of payback. However, one of the interesting things revealed during the press release about the game is that Ruin, War’s horse, will be the most powerful weapon we will have in the game. Not sure how this will play out, but it makes sense considering War is a horseman after all. Another aspect revealed is how we will have a free roam type way to play through the game. To clarify, instead of playing through level after level of the game only to proceed through the storyline, we will also be able to backtrack through previously played lands with suped-up weapons to discover some hidden areas we had not been able to discover before. These little snippets of gameplay actually make me wonder what else will be in store for the game once it is finally released.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War screenshot

    As I said before, the artwork that has inspired the game looks great. A few of the screenshots shown from the game do show a few of the areas that might need to be worked on, but mostly it is just a polishins issue. Other than that, so far, Darksiders looks great. If the art will be any indication of the score we can expect, then I can imagine it would be something along the lines of a melodic guitar riff that will echo throughout the game.

    There may not be enough information around this game to amp up the anticipation level so soon. However, I feel confident that the folks at THQ and Vigil will deliver on the title. If this will be any kind of indication that the mediums of comic books and video games are taking that next step in creating some of the best gaming experiences, then I am on board. The year is not even over yet, and I am looking forward to 2008 with great anticipation. Of course, with great titles already mentioned for the coming year, who can blame me? We will have more on this in the coming months so keep your eyes peeled.

    Darksiders: Wrath of War screenshot

    Features:

  • Art design by fabled comic book artist Joe Madureira.
  • Battle as the horseman War using various weapons including his horse Ruin.
  • Explore the worlds of the game as many times as you can, creating an already impressive gameplay aspect to the game.

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