Take Metroid, Ratchet and Clank, God of War, Legend of Zelda, Portal, Devil May Cry, and wrap them in the World of Warcraft art style and you’ll have Darksiders. I would go into detail about these games and how they are represented in Darksiders, but that would ruin the fun of finding it yourself. I’ve been hearing a lot of other reviewers talking down this game due to that fact but the truth is, if it works why complain? Vigil Games have created a very entertaining game, you play the game as War. He is one of the four horseman of the apocalypse and he was summoned down to earth but there’s one little problem, the seventh seal wasn’t broken. So without going in to details War is accused of starting the apocalypse on earth.

As you can see from the opening sentence this game borrows from a list of games, and does so very well. The one game it borrows the most from is the Legend of Zelda, now if your like me that might seem hard to believe seeing that every video and screenshot makes it look more like a God of War/ Devil May Cry type of game, but Legend of Zelda is the game most referred. It follows the layout of a Zelda game by which I mean you go around finding weapons and upgrades and as you do using those upgrades and weapons to beat bosses. At first this was a bit of a turn off, why would I want to play a game that’s like another games? But as I was playing it and seeing all these different games in action I started to really like it. Not to mention it nice to see a game like this on a system not named Nintendo.

The story really hooked me in from the start, it has the epic feel of a God of War but with more of a RPG feel. There is also a great variety of enemies throughout the game and like most other action adventure games, you’ll run into mini bosses that later in the game become regulars. The game starts like a Metroid game in which your fully powered at the beginning, lose it all, then fight to get it all back. The upgrades are straight out of Legend of Zelda with a more apocalyptic feel to them. There are many to find and a good use for them not only against enemies but just to explore the world. It’s hard to describe this game without giving out spoilers mainly because we’ve heard so little about it up until launch.

The game has very good production values and last about an average of 15 hours. It does has a few technical issues, screen tearing seems to be the biggest of the issues, the frame rate also seems to have a slowdown when there’s a lot going on. That didn’t affect my feeling on the game, because it really didn’t get in the way of enjoying the game and for a team that doesn’t have any console games under their belt this is an awesome first effort. Now for full disclosure I’ve never really been a big fan of the Zelda series so I haven’t really played this type of game before and maybe that’s why I don’t understand the bad feelings this game has received. I understand if you’re a fan of Zelda you’ve been through this before but, this isn’t Nintendo and this isn’t Link your playing with. This is the game you’ve wanted with the great graphics to go with it.

Little has been told about this game, so far what most people know is that you play as this guy and you have a huge sword and have a giant fiery horse. So below I will describe how the game begins and how the story is set in motion. All of it takes place with in the first few hours, but if you haven’t heard much on this game and want to get a better understanding, it a good way to start.

[Spoiler-ish]

The game starts with the end of earth, the battle of Angels and Demons kills every human on earth. War is summoned and this is where you take control. It starts with a tutorial, showing you the basic controls and how to maneuver. You are put up against Angel and Demons alike and running into what at the time are mini bosses. You don’t really get a feeling of how powerful you are until you reach the end of this area and are face a huge demon by the name of Straga. As you go for the finishing blow something stops you cold and you are killed by Straga. You then have to face the council, who created the four houseman and holds the balance of the 3 kingdoms (Heaven, Earth, and Hell). They blame War for the apocalypse on Earth and sentence him to death. War then convinces them to let him return to earth so he could find who betrayed him and at the same time get his revenge and if he fails then he dies anyway. They agree but attach a powerful demon to War’s arm known as the watcher.

Your first real task is to meet this demon named Vulgrim. He is pretty much your store, as you kill angels and demons you collect souls. Some are for health, some are for chaos, and some as currency to buy upgrades from Vulgrim. You collect enough souls to get the earth caller, which is pretty much a key to open these huge gates. After you complete that your told by Vulgrim there is a powerful demon who can help you, he is in a prison and you have to free him and once you do the game really takes off.’

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If I had to give it a score I would give it a 9 out of 10.