Graphics

It’s big, it’s bold and it’s colourful, just like the artist responsible (Joe Madureira – also the Creative Director on the game). Many people have compared War with Prince Arthas from World of Warcraft and indeed, I can see some kind of resemblance. The art direction in the game harkens back to simpler graphics and ones that eschew the dirty brown palette of the Next Gen game (see Gears of War 1 and 2 for instance) and replace it with vibrant colours. Don’t be put off by the art style though, it’s great and Darksiders feels like an epic comic book come to life. It has captured the design and image of a world post Apocalypse and feels desolate, lonely and dangerous. From the Ashlands to the Crossroads, the level of detail is superb.

Animation

War is well animated, his combat moves look fluid and he swims really well. He has a variety of cool dismemberment moves and he appears just as powerful as he looks once you get past the brutal difficultly even on Easy. The star of the show is Ruin though, that horse is an incredible piece of work, from the graphics to the animation and the appearance as he comes burning up out of the ground. He’s easily my favourite character in the whole of the game, sorry Watcher, but you got shoved out by a horse. A flaming demonic, psycho steed though.


AI

Good quality AI, the various bad guys all have different attack patterns and push you relentlessly, some are just brawlers, others are sneaky and will line up un-blockable attacks, some work better in packs and so on. It does what it says on the tin and that’s all we could ask for. Boss AI is great, it’s very rarely stuck on the same pattern and since there are no health bars to let you know how you’ve done against the foe, you’ll have to see if you’ve changed its attack patterns or not.

Sound

Darksiders has a good audio suite; the game is packed with lovely ambient sound effects, striking battle noises and epic combat.

Music

It has an epic score, each area has a musical theme that picks up and flows along with the game. The battle music is suitably blood pumping and there are some really nice touches in the soundtrack later on, personally, I’d love this on a CD.

Voice and Dialogue

It’s great to hear the voice of Liam O’Brien (Gaara from Naruto) as War alongside the dulcet tones of Mark (the Joker) Hamill and a cast of colourful characters, voiced by other solid VO actors. The voice work in the game is top notch and War is a brooding sulky bringer of destruction, whilst Hamill’s Watcher character sounds similar to the Joker, he’s darker and even edgier in this game. The Dialogue is well written and fits well with the story, it’s full of posturing and combat talk from War since he has very little time for discourse, and he prefers to beat down his enemies rather than woo them with words, it fits perfectly with his character.

Multiplayer

None, there’s no multiplayer at all. Though it’s been hinted that it was originally planned, the developers cut it and they may add it for a sequel.

What is it good for?

Darksiders does have some issues, whilst I’ve experienced some camera troubles; the game is a mix of a few game types, nothing really innovative. That said, it deserves a good score since what is there comes together nicely, even the part that some reviewers have had trouble with, I found enjoyable and it’s not the first time I’ve played a similar kind of sequence either, I remember God of War 2 for instance. The game is hard, I’ll warn you now, the final achievement for playing on Easy is something like: So THAT was Easy?.

The game offers a big challenge, and whilst the story is relatively short, just shy of around 20 or so hours for me...there’s enough to keep you going back as you level War up again and again, hunt for more powerful items and reap the rewards of a harder difficulty. The future looks bright for War and the other three Horsemen.

We’ll just have to wait and see.