Yes, they’re getting ever more irregular. I apologise. I’m still a little off my game. I will endeavour to be better. In the mean time, let’s carry on with another of my top games from the year that was 2010. You can find the previous sections here: 10 & 9-7.
6. Darksiders
Games released right at the start of the year tend to fair quite badly in end of year lists, so I’m glad my memory extends back far enough to remember that Darksiders was probably my biggest pleasant surprise of the year. I remember reading about it late in 2009 and it certainly sounded intriguing; a Zelda-esque adventure set in a post-apocalyptic, neo-gothic version of Earth where you get to play as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, War? AWW HELLS YEAH! I actually ended up pre-ordering it in a “well, the premise and what I’ve seen of it so far interests me enough to take a chance” kind of way. Don’t you just love it when a risk pays off?
This is War. You do not mess with War.
Before we really get into it, there is one major negative that I need to point out: The Start of The Game. No really, that’s it. The start of the game IS the negative. The first hour or so of Darksiders is shit. Unbelievably shit. I don’t think I’ve EVER played such a good game that has an introduction as shit as this one. It’s boring, slow, completely linear and not really any fun whatsoever. It doesn’t help that this is quite a tough game (more on that later) and I don’t recall getting much in the way of tutorials or explanations of the mechanics. Seriously, I had no real idea what was going on during the opening. I just know I was incredibly glad when it was over. Please persevere with it though, please!
I mentioned earlier that it’s quite Zelda-esque in its design. That is quite the understatement, because it’s almost a carbon copy of how Zelda works: enter a dungeon, do some fighting, solve some puzzles, kill the boss, get a new piece of equipment, use that new equipment to access new areas, repeat. Fortunately, once “that intro” is out of the way the game blossoms into a beautiful, expansive world, ripe for exploration. If you’re the kind of player that loves exploring every nook and cranny of a game, you will surely enjoy this game. For me, the key thing that makes Darksiders so good is the quality of the dungeons. With the exception of one, where you spend a lot of time fighting and riding your flaming (literally) horse Ruin, the dungeons are brilliantly designed chunks of adventure gaming, each with its own identity and style, smart puzzles, and plenty of levels to explore.
This is War's flaming horse, Ruin. He is summoned out of the ground. AT WILL!
Darksiders is a bit too easy on Normal difficulty. Actually, it’s very easy. All the forums and reviews I’d read had suggested to play it on Hard (“Apocalyptic”) difficulty for more of a challenge. And boy is it a challenge. There’s no middle ground here; either you fight and win all your battles easily on Normal or, on Apocalyptic, every single fight you engage in, no matter how seemingly insignificant the opponent, becomes a tense, sometimes infuriating battle for survival. There were quite a few difficulty spikes throughout the game. One of the early bosses is far harder than most you will fight later in the game and some encounters with standard bad guys will occasionally test your patience. It gets really silly when the “big” enemies you had trouble with early in the game arrive in packs as the small, minion-type characters later on! Combat is handled adequately but sometimes it can feel difficult to create decent combos – the controls are good though.
Lastly, it’s worth spending a bit of time talking about the characters. They’re excellent. Character designs are bold and exciting and with the exception of a few of the minor enemies, everyone helps add to the fantastic look and feel of Earth part-taken over by demons. The voice acting is brilliant, bringing the conniving, devious characters to life and there’s a reasonably good story, full of twists and turns. Oh and the ending is amazing. Seriously. I won’t spoil it, but I had goosebumps.
