5 January 2010
Darksiders
Still, while on the surface of it Darksiders feels like a game with a lot of good ideas but only a few of its own, where even a brief flying section on an angelic mount owes rather a lot to Panzer Dragoon, overall the silly old story and wonderful art style give terrific heft to the universe, and the clockwork of the puzzles and game systems are precision-engineered in a manner that you come to trust implicitly. It may be a game of betrayal and redemption, but you won’t feel hard done by if you choose to begin 2010 in its company.
(Eurogamer, 8/10)
It’s this level of polish and creative assuredness that really make Darksiders such a delight in the end. It’s bold and recklessly inventive in ways that games rarely are these days, and virtually every aspect of Darksiders shines with quality, making for an experience that, while not exactly original, still feels fresh, satisfying and, above all else, enjoyable. It’s far from the soulless fighter THQ’s marketing would have you believe and the deft mix of combat, platforming and puzzle-solving makes for an action adventure that genuinely does feel like an epic endeavour. It’s a genre too few developers try their hand at these days and one that’s rarely done well. Despite some flaws, Darksiders is an expertly designed, frequently dazzling spectacle – and if it really is the first in a series as Vigil suggests, we’re genuinely looking forward to seeing more.
(IGN, 8.9)
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