Darksiders 2 Review

Hi all and I'm baaaacccck!!!

Yes, I'm back again to review a product but this time round, I'll be reviewing a game instead of hardware. After all, this is a blog about PC AND Console reviews so games is a must.

Due to time constraints, I only managed to complete the game just recently. I know it's pretty late to post a review but I'd rather post a proper view detailing the entire game rather than give a review when I'm only halfway through the game. Of course, the first DLC for this game was recently released but more on that later.

Now, on to the review.

Darksiders 2 is the sequel to the sleeper hit, Darksiders. The original Darksiders was released for both PS3 and Xbox 360 in early January while the PC port came out later in the same year. Nonetheless, the reviews across many gaming sites and metacritic has been favourable. The last time I checked was 83-84% for Xbox 360 and PS3.

Darksiders, in a nutshell, is an action-adventure game fused with references to the Apocalypse. More specifically, it refers to the 4 Horsemen itself. If you were to read the Book of Revelations, it mentions about the Apocalypse and the Horsemen. Namely, they are named War, Death, Conquest & Famine. In Darksiders, the former two retained their name while the other two were instead changed to Strife and Fury. If you haven't played Darksiders, I suggest you check the game out on YouTube or Wikipedia instead.

I played the game upon recommendation of a friend as I wanted to play God Of War 3. He brought along Darksiders and suggested to me to play Darksiders first. Which I did after work at that point of time and I was immediately hooked. The game has plenty of references to classic RPG and action adventure games (read Zelda and God Of War) and I could see why it has a good rating. And the plot while, average at best, not some mind numbing experience is actually pretty solid with non-playable characters found in other lores and myths supporting the main story.

Darksiders 2 actually builds on the predecessor. It's still the same type of gameplay and the plot is actually parallel to the first. In the original one, you play as War, who got framed for setting off the Apocalypse when it wasn't supposed to happen. So, the old cliche goes, I got framed so I need to clear up my name and find out who is the a**hole that framed me. I'm not gonna spoil it for you here but that's pretty much the whole story is, just added with a lot more bashing and puzzles in between. I'll be using D1 to refer to Darksiders and D2 as Darksiders 2 in this post.

The sequel sets you up as Death, his brother. I have to admit. DEATH IS AWESOME. He's like an ultra-cool badass and I actually prefer him to War due to the game mechanics. I'll get to that later. As I mentioned, the story is parallel to the first so in here, Death actually wants to clear his brother's name. And there's actually quite a backstory here as to who the Horsemen were and how they became the Horsemen.

There's been noticeable upgrades and changes in this game but sadly, the graphics is still based on the original so you don't get to see some Crysis-like graphics although they did improve the menu with in-game animation and more open-worlds. I used the PC version and my config below:

Asus Maximus V Extreme MB with Ivy Bridge i5-3570k 3.4 Ghz OC to 4.2 Ghz
G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 SDRAM 1600 Mhz 4 GB x 4 = 16 GB
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 670 2 GB DDR5 x 2 in SLI mode
HDD: Intel 520 SSD 120 GB with WD Green 1 TB 5400 RPM
Display: Samsung 40" LCD TV

...and a whole lot more but this info is enough as this is what you need to run a game.

As such, my rig is overpowered and enough to run Crysis comfortably at 60 fps in Fraps at the max settings available. No changes here for Darksiders 2 and in fact, it looks beautiful on my TV. No difference here with 60 fps as well although I think that's the max D2 can go. My rig has gone 120 fps before though in some test benchmark game but kinda forgot what was it.

Enough about my PC (sorry, kinda being an ass for showing off my PC. I'll post a separate post on it). I've covered the storyline, the graphics so now it's time to go to mechanics. In D1, War was more of a brute character although you do get to use different weapons such as Fury's guns, Death's scythe etc. But War has always been a brute and he's best used as a crazy ass melee fighter. In D2 instead, Death is more evasive and his fighting style is more on combos and evasion. That's partly the reason why I like Death. I'm always one who likes to move around and ascertain the methods in beating a boss or NPCs. Brutes like War sometimes can be boring when you nailed his combos and it becomes an exercise in button mashing. Death, this time has more combos(although you need to purchase most of it in the game as you progress) and enemies will knock you even when you're in the middle of a combo. So evasion is a must for Death if you don't wish to lose your health quickly. A particular move is impressive if you time your evasion right. It basically projects another Death in his Grim Reaper form while evading an attack and hits the enemy. Pretty cool right? Of course, it doesn't always nail when you're up against a swarm of enemies or enemies that like to jump far. There are of course other moves that utilizes his Reaper form and of course, like D1, Death can enter his second state which is his Reaper form albeit for a short period.

In D1, you get to use a lot of equipments which allows you to travel to certain near impossible places or solve tricky puzzles. Death grip (homage to GOW) a grappling claw, Voidwalker (another homage, this time to Portal) a portal device, Soul Splitter, an ability to split yourself into 2 with a third becoming a statue with and Interdiction, an ability to call up to 2 dead souls to reach certain locked areas or do certain actions (they even fight with you if there are enemies nearby) are all available in D2.

In D1, War had to reclaim his horse, Ruin as one of his quests. In D2, you don't have to. Death's horse, Despair (I loved how they named the horses; in line with the character) is available from the start. Although Ruin seemed much more menacing to me in my opinion. The same as in D1, you can only use the horse when in open-world environments. When you're in a dungeon, unfortunately, you won't be able to. But significantly, your attacks when horse-riding does increase in power and when you level  up pretty high, you can one-shot the small minions pretty easily.

Health, Wrath (the game's version of mana, used for magic spells) and Reaper meters are retained with an additional meter which is actually your experience. This is where D2 takes a significant bump in upgrades. This time round, Vigil Games (the developers) has introduced an RPG style element into weaponry and armour. It pretty much follows your standard RPG classes and it's subsequent colours. Orange of course is the highest with white being the lowest in terms of stats. As such, there's an element of looting in this game. This, to me, is a definite upgrade to the original as it allows more customization and allows you to try out different builds. Plus, the skill tree has been significantly upgraded so it pretty much depends on how you play the game. Also, there's a gem system where you collect gems called stonebites and after trading 3 of it (there's 3 different stones so there's different combinations), you get a permanent stat upgrade which is pretty cool, although there's a limited amount of the stones. Another good addition to the weaponry is the "Possessed" class. This class basically allows you to sacrifice weapons to increase it's stats. It's similar to certain card games where you increase it's stats by "sacrificing" a lesser value card. So, after completing a level and gaining a "Possessed" weapon, you can actually sacrifice all the useless weapons and armour you gained to increase the stats of this weapon. Pretty cool concept.

One new concept in D2 is the arena style battles where you go through a number of rounds fighting different enemies you encountered in the main and side quests. Win and survive those rounds and you get a treasure chest containing a piece of armour or weapon. What's interesting is that you can actually not choose to take the prize but instead go on to fight more rounds. Basically, it's similar to a double or nothing system. Of course, as you go for more rounds, enemies become harder but the prize becomes better. The last time I checked from other gamers was that if you actually complete all the rounds, you actually get the Abyssal armour which was the top armour in D1. It is a nice distraction from all the puzzles and platforming, as it allows you to basically button mashing here. One note of advice: Stock up on plenty of health and wrath potions. You definitely gonna need it in this arena.

I've pretty much covered there is to Darksiders 2 without spoiling too much. So, without further ado, I'll be giving my actual review rating.

My rating consists of:

Gameplay
Graphics and Sound
Plot/Storyline
Mechanics (RPG/Strategy/Puzzle etc)

1 being pathetic and 10 being AWESOME. 7 would be good of course.

Gameplay:
8.5 out of 10

Gameplay was refreshing as Death isn't a pure melee fighter. You can use a gun to shoot enemies from far or use Death Grip to pull enemies towards you and beat the crap out of them. It's pretty much the same type of gameplay as in the original but there's a lot more effort involved in movement. This isn't a pure button mashing although at times it does when you're high up in exp levels. Enemies now have much more variety in their attacks although there is the typical dumb AI at work when you drag them from a certain area and choke them into a previous area. Bosses are fantastic, ranging from your normal huge bosses to extremely huge badasses. With Death being much more on agility, it does change your gameplay every now and then, plus with the ability to learn new combos, there's a lot more variety in pressing certain buttons rather than your usual 3-4 presses of light attack or alternating light-heavy attack. Puzzles definitely have a certain difficulty although it doesn't really mindf*** you except for 2-3 of them which many people said was actually pissing them off including me. My one gripe was that Despair is pretty under-utilized here. In D1, you had to use Ruin for one of the sub-bosses, if not death is certain. Even some of the platforming and puzzles require Ruin. In D2, Despair became a tool for moving from point to point. I do hope in the next iteration, they incorporate the horse into some of the platforming puzzles or at least bosses fights. Also, arena style fighting was a welcome inclusion and with it's "double or nothing" system as well as extremely satisfying rewards, it would definitely allow gamers to get extremely powerful equipment before even completing the final chapter. I decided to give it an 8.5 with it's engaging gameplay.

Graphics and Sound:
7.5 out of 10

Nothing really stands out here. It's pretty much the same graphics you see 2 years ago in D1. In this respect, D2 could have really used a major upgrade in the graphics department. Even dungeon looting games like Diablo 3 went through a major overhaul. I'm not asking much but there are at times where I see shadow filters not doing its job or weird texturing appearing in a corner of the screen. Of course, not asking Crysis-level graphics but they could do with more refinement to the character models. In this current time where games' graphics have improved tremendously, the characters in D2 do look similar to cartoon characters but i think it has more to do with the new changes and upgrades they've done to the entire game. Sacrifices do have to be made to incorporate those upgrades. So, I'm giving it a respectable score as the sound and music was, too me, above average as well.

Plot/Storyline:
9 out of 10

I really loved games that have a story. I happen to be one of those old-school gamers where we play games for hours in single player mode due to its storyline. Sadly, nowadays, most of the games have terrible plot and even rehashed storylines. D2 stands out here as it actually built on D1's story while at the same time giving at least a proper backstory to the Horsemen. Even the side-quests have a link to the main storyline so you don't lose out in terms of story content. There's actually a twist in the ending but rest assured, you won't see the last of Death. I'm giving it a high score for actually having an expansive storyline and proper backstory while not leaving too many gaping holes.

Mechanics:
9 out of 10

High score is a must from me. RPG elements present in equipment and skills is a welcome addition. Skill tree was definitely revamped and easier to use. Platforming was fluid and easy although certain areas do need to have more guidelines, especially those in dim lighting. Puzzles was definitely fun although later parts actually made me wanna scream and throw my controller at my TV. I would say it is much more refined now and with so many new additions, it does allow my version of Death to have my own custom build. Check out Youtube and you can see plenty of builds. So, thumbs up for that. My only wish: Vigil games release a mod kit which allows gamers to build mods of the game as well as incorporate multiplayer. I do hope they include that in future iterations although the network and matchmaking mechanics have to be flawless. I'd be happy if they used Steam network considering that both Darksiders and the sequel is on Steam store. Matchmaking would be easier and there would be many more achievements for gamers to try and achieve.

Overall score:
8.5 out of 10

The old adage, "If it works, don't break it" seems to be the rule here. At heart, it's pretty much the same Darksiders we know but with added new features and mechanics. Kudos to Vigil for actually improving the game. Some of the flaws I mentioned are minor details of course but if they can improve on that, it'll definitely be a day-one buy for many gamers. Homage to many other games especially Portal, Zelda and GoW was definitely pleasant. What really stood out for me was the inclusion of RPG elements into the gameplay and mechanics. While some games failed at incorporating RPG elements into their core gameplay, Darksiders 2 is a welcoming sight as it fits perfectly well into the gameplay. I do hope they take multiplayer into consideration and of course bump up the graphics. Textures could use a little CryEngine or Unreal Engine here but that's wishful thinking of course. Overall, if you're looking for a single player game that will hook you for hours with a storyline and gameplay that is reminiscent of certain classics, then Darksiders 2 is the game to get. You won't regret it.

What do you guys think? Sound off in the comments below!