Darksiders II Review- 360 Edition

The original Darksiders was a game that was relatively underrated by both critics and gamers alike, and at the same time, criticized for being a "rip-off" of multiple major franchises such as the Legend of Zelda and God of War. Yet, I liked to see it for what it did correctly. Instead of blatantly ripping off such popular games, Vigil Games instead chose to brilliantly craft certain ideals from those games and blend them together with an extremely engaging story to create a new IP well deserving of your attention. Evidently, Darksiders was popular enough to warrant a sequel but has it surpassed the original? Let's find out.

Without spoiling anything, Darksiders II picks up where the first left off. War, one of the four horseman of the apocalypse, has been convicted for the apparent extinction of the entire human race and his elder brother Death has set out to clear his name. Death's quest will take him to world's unbeknownst to even himself as he struggles to reveal the truth while battling his own inner demons and his facing his mysterious past. Alongside the main quest, which leads you to several different sprawling worlds, each location holding their own cast of characters and side quests to complete. Even though they're all optional, the rewards give a suitable incentive to complete them. Each world you visit is roughly the same size but each has their own gorgeous artistic style and boasts different enemies to face. It's a treat to explore these expertly crafted worlds as they all have their fair share of loot and mysteries to uncover.

The side quests themselves range from simple retrieval missions to fighting in a death arena where each wave becomes drastically harder and harder as you face every enemy encountered throughout the game. In turn, Darksiders II adds in a strong incentive for finding the various collectibles scattered around the world. They are all tied into separate side quests, with some being extremely difficult to finish as it requires nearly complete exploration of the worlds you travel through, while others are merely found along the way.

Death himself is the complete opposite of his younger brother War. Where War is quiet, respectful and honourable, Death on the other hand is sarcastic, cocky, and calculating. His mere presence among the beings he encounters exudes power and strikes fear into those who dare to defy him. Death's unearthly calm and piercing gaze always seem to garner him the respect that he demands and despite his appearance, which is evidently smaller than that of War's, makes him no less imposing. Time and time again, I found myself grinning at how almost every character seemingly undermines Death's reputation and pays for it in the end.

In terms of gameplay, Darksiders II retains the action packed combat from the first game, but being that you play as Death instead of War, the style changes drastically. War was a hulking brute able to take hits and counter the strongest of attacks. Death on the other hand, is far more agile and prefers to evade rather than counter or block. In addition, Darksiders II introduces new ways to traverse the world and it's plentiful dungeons. Taking inspiration from the Prince of Persia games, Death is able to seamlessly climb, run and jump off walls to reach areas that would've been inaccessible to War. While it's integrated brilliantly doesn't mean it's without faults. Occasionally, you'll find yourself running or jumping in a direction in an undesirable direction, sometimes leading to a death during scenes where you must escape an oncoming flow of lava or a rising death trap. It's a minor annoyance but far from game breaking. Alongside this, there is no sprint mechanic in the game so besides the open area's of the world, you won't be able to use your horse and you'll find yourself using the evade mechanic as means to move around faster.

The combat system itself is so deeply fleshed out that it never becomes a tiresome chore to engage in combat. Death has the ability to wield both a main weapon, which is unchangeable, but his secondary can range from heavy axes to hammers, gauntlets, maces, claws and far, far more. The rarer the weapons picked up or purchased, the better they are, although it's almost impossible to compete with possessed weapons. The rarest of all weapons, receiving one of these allows you to upgrade by sacrificing other items in your inventory. In turn, it improves the base stats of the weapon while allowing you to add on stats of your own choice that vary from defence, elemental damage, health, strength, critical damage/chance, etc. Alongside the items and weapons comes an in-depth skill tree. It's split into two halves with one side focusing mainly on Death's physical powers as a warrior and includes skills such as teleport dashing, a spinning scythe attack, etc. The other half focuses on Death's experience as a spellcaster which allows powers such as summoning ghouls to fight for Death.

To help diversify the combat and dungeon crawling, the cleverly crafted puzzles return and help provide a breathe of fresh air between epic boss battles and the hordes of enemies you'll be constantly be facing. Most of the puzzles involve using the environment to your advantage and some require abilities that can only be unlocked by playing through the main quest, which in turn, creates an incentive for back-tracking. None of the puzzles will leave you completely boggled but they do require quick thinking and are extremely satisfying when solved.

The graphics are a stand-out improvement over the first game. The world and it's fantastically intriguing characters are wonderfully rendered and there are times where you'll find yourself just staring off into the distance, completely enamoured with what revolves around you. While the artistic graphics are a wonder to behold, technically, they aren't anything to brag about. Textures still could've needed more tweaking, but the near perfectly consistant frame-rate easily makes up for it. Easily the most admirable portion of the game has to be the voice acting. Each actor plays their part superbly and helps bring life to the character they portray. The dialogue has it's humorous moments but can suddenly become just as grim as the situation around the characters.

Now brings us to the loot. The original Darksiders had no such thing. You unlocked different weapons as you made your way through the story, but besides that, you had no option to alter War's appearance or change the weapons he wielded. Darksiders II changes that, and for the better. Loot is never scarce and you'll find yourself spending hours just trying to build the perfect character as each piece of loot has it's own unique set of stats that help strengthen Death. To be honest, loot has never been done so well outside of games such as Diablo and Borderlands and it's easily the most impressive part of the game. Although, considering how much loot you receive throughout the games various dungeons and quests, it also makes the majority of the items that merchants provide completely obsolete., but a minor gripe in the grand scheme of all things. Death is completely customizable from his shoulder armour, the gauntlets he wears, boots, pants, and even talismans.

To put it simply, Darksiders II is quite easily one of the best action/aventure-role playing games of it's generation and can be easily held up to the likes of the Elder Scrolls, The Legend of Zelda and the Witcher 2. With a story that can last up between 15-20 hours without completing the majority of side-quests, arguably the best combat system to ever grace an action-RPG and a universe with such rich lore, it will leave you researching and begging for more.

Final Score: 8.75

Temporary absence

What's up readers. Sorry I haven't posted in the past week or so but I've been relatively busy. Fret not though as I have a Darksiders 2 review headed your way shortly and possibly followed by a Borderlands review in honour of the sequel releasing on Tuesday!

Stay tuned and thanks for reading!

Justice League #12: Is it all justified reasonably?

As many, and perhaps very few know, I'm not a huge fan of Geoff Johns. I love his work on Aquaman and Green Lantern, but those are the minor exceptions. Ever since he was listed as the writer for Justice League alongside superstar artist Jim Lee, there was a decent amount of skepticism rising inside me. The first few issues were done fine, it was your basic superhero beat em-up that we expected from an early Justice League team-up. But one particular moment in the series has pissed me off beyond belief. In all of the series thus far though, not once has Superman nor Wonder Woman shown any innate interest in each other. There was the one time comment from Superman concerning Diana's strength in the battle against Darkseid's parademons as well as Diana's apology for the infamous sucker punch she landed on Clark after he attempted to calm her down in Justice League #12. So through that, it's deemed logical to force the two to pucker up?

Past the awkward stage I guess

But truly, besides those two instances, when has there ever been reasoning given for a relationship between Clark and Diana. Up to this point, they've spoken as much as a few sentences to each other in total. Considering they've been teammates for roughly five years, you'd expect Diana to at least know Superman's real identity or even refer to him by his Kryptonian name as she occasionally did in the Pre-52 universe. Honestly, Diana wouldn't have been my first choice for Clark's first love interest in the New 52, but at least they've attempted something new(sort of). My main problem with the entire situation is, as I stated not the kiss itself, but the lack of ANY sort of build-up towards it. Neither Diana nor Clark have shown any interest towards each other besides camaradiere as teammates and respect. From what was shown, Diana has spent the majority of the series focusing on her past relationship with Steve and how she has apparently avoided him all these years to keep him from danger. That's fine and all, but given all that Diana has gone through regarding the past few issues and Steve's "death", it'd be safe to assume that she'd attempt to avoid a relationship of any sort, despite how long it takes to open up again. And yet, after the entire ordeal with Graves and her visions showing her true feeling for Steve manifesting, she jumps directly to Superman with seemingly no regrets.

Yeah, I'll get the responses claiming how "similar they are", or "they're both alone and just want to be human", but truly, that's complete nonsense. Diana wants nothing of the sort. She has no interest in being normal or living among the humans as simple common folk as Clark does. She was raised as a Princess and hasn't been taught the same ideals and virtues that Clark was raised with. He's alone in the Universe for a reason. His entire race has gone extinct, and as such, his solitude was not of his own doing. He's been stated on several accounts to be the most powerful being on the planet and yet, he considers doesn't consider himself above the human race. Instead, he prefers to be one of them, live among them, to simply fit in. In what way does this make him similar to Diana besides the fact that they're both basically "gods" among men?

Some consider it a logical choice to pit the two together. They're both perfectly capable of handling themselves. One is a highly trained warrior with years of experience, while the other is nigh invincible and supposedly the most powerful being on the planet. Given their power-sets, they would have less to worry about compared to if they were in relationships with normal humans such as Steve or Lois for example. But instead of unbearably forcing the kiss so early on, would it really have been hard to creatively build up their relationship or interest in each other over the course of a few issues? Give the readers a reason to care for why they are together instead of just tossing it all together so blatantly.

I barely know you... but let's make out.

Could I possibly be overreacting or pulling the trigger too quickly? Perhaps, and maybe I should let events unfold over the next few issues or so, but thus far, this entire ordeal has seemed to be just like a massive publicity stunt to attraction further attention on top of the New 52.

Quick Thoughts- Sequels: Reaction, Anticipation and Expectation

We've reached a point in the current console generation where developers are more or less refusing to release brand new IP's. Be it that sequels are guaranteed to sell or that they're worried that a new IP won't kick off and their efforts would be left in vain. Regardless, we live in a time riddled with an overabundance of sequels and are left wondering if the lack of creativity is a factor or merely that sequels are one-way tickets to the bank.

Now, sequels aren't necessarily a bad sign either. An original game launches, a fan-base becomes established and gamers are left wanting more. Sequels grant the opportunity to build upon what could've been, but time was a restriction. Developers are given the chance to experiment with different mechanics or elements to the game that was dropped previously and essentially; a new game is born. In most cases, a game will become a break-out hit and will launch the developers into stardom and the publishers attempt to take advantage of the success. But does every successful outing truly deserve a sequel? 

Take for example the Call of Duty series. It's first beginnings were a mild one at that. Starting out as a simple First Person Shooter with a WW2 setting, it was set to challenge Medal of Honor for the throne. Each game that followed improved on the previous and even introduced several mechanics that are wide-spread throughout the FPS genre even to this day. With what might be regarded as the most influential releases of its time, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare skyrocketed the Call of Duty series to such a popularity that a sequel was warranted annually from two different developers. While each game retains the same formula and the game's play fantastically, critics and gamers alike began to jump onto the hate bandwagon towards the series. Stating that the lack of innovation or creativity each year hindered each outing and that the series reached it's peak with Modern Warfare. 

But Call of Duty isn't the only series that can be said suffers from massive sequel anxiety. Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Mario, and plenty others have all suffered from constant over-exposure, albeit not all critically panned, it's merely that the lack of breathing room has caused gamers to start to question the purpose of purchasing an "expansion pack".

On the flip side, it can be considered that the non-stop media exposure and rising expectations might hinder's a sequels worth. Is it more satisfying to pay as little attention or restrict knowledge of an upcoming game as much as possible to reserve that feeling of surprise or remain unbeknownst of what to expect? Some developers prefer to keep trailers to a minimum and reveal as little as possible to keep the game feeling fresh, but others feel that if that remains restricted, then excitement for said sequel cannot be established. 

What it can come down to is what the player is seeking and/or expecting. Are they satisfied with receiving a sequel that endures little to no significant changes at all. Re-tracing our steps back to Call of Duty, the series constantly breaks sales records with every release, proving each year that gamers are satisfied with how it remains. If it ain't broke, don't fix it as they always say. On the other hand many gamers, myself included, enjoy learning about the upcoming release as it gives you the opportunity to know what to expect.

Sequels will and always have existed if they're truly demanded. Not everyone wants or expects the exact same thing when concerning a sequel so there will always be someone who ends up being disappointed. But the true potential in sequels lies in what the developers can cook up, improve, alter, or even expand further upon when such opportunities weren't available with the original.