Infamous 2 — PS3

28 07 2011

So we’re heavily into the summer lull, E3 has announced a plethora of exciting new titles for us to save our shiny pennies for come the winter, but at the moment we should be outside, in the sunshine…so they say. See; now I’ve tried this and all I ended up with was sunburn and the lingering smell of tramp, they can smell fear dontcha know? I assumed the summer would be spent hiding my pastey skin from Apollo’s Lantern, waiting for the leaves to change when, like the bus you’ve waited too long for, along came two games at once. One has you playing the peoples hero, one has you playing the villain your mother always hoped you wouldn’t become (But always secretly knew you would – it was what you did to that frog see…You should be ashamed), it just happens to be that both of them are on the same disk.

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I’m referring, quite vaguely, to Infamous 2. The follow up to Sucker Punch’s original 2009 PS3 exclusive which followed the story of Cole MacGrath, a bicycle courier who one day was given a normal looking package to deliver that had some, quite frankly, shocking contents (Sorry). What the package included was a device called the Ray Sphere which, if detonated around a conduit (a person susceptible to such things), would give that person super hero like powers…not completely cool however as it kills anyone else who isn’t. Lucky for Cole that he was susceptible…or was it luck? (You’ll just have to play to find out.)

He wakes up in the middle of a crater with some gnarly superhero like electric powers and an entire city of really pissed off people. He looks like a terrorist that just killed a whopping chunk of the population, so understandably he isn’t Empire Cities golden boy at that moment. This is where you come in – do you go out of your way to prove the inhabitants wrong by being the bestest superhero you can be by tearing the nasties that have been created in the blast a new one? Or do you use your new found abilities to show them that not only are you a bastard, but you’re a bastard that they will all bow down to or die.

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Now, if you’ve made your choice in the first game you can, upon starting Infamous 2, chose to follow on that decision or start afresh. But either way starts with you battling an enormous, city destroying beast called…uh, ‘the beast’ – talk about hitting the ground running. This monstrosity was hinted at in the first outing but now its right in your face from the very first moments and the rest of the game follows Cole trying his best to become powerful enough in the new city of ‘New Marias’ by absorbing blast cores to be able to take The Beast on and win.

To pigeonhole Infamous would be to call it sandbox, its open world, theres missions dotted about and you progress by completing these missions and opening up more of the map. So, similar to GTA I hear you ask. Well, no, not in the style, or the content – Cole is slightly more athletic than our Nico – cars are not the name of the game. For his travelling needs Cole shares more with Ubisoft’s hooded menace Ezio – its parkour, but easier. Now this was one of the first minor faults I found with the first game. Assassins creed (even the flawed original outing) was a joy to run around in, both assassins had weight and momentum and flowed like mercury around their respective locales. Cole on the other hand was showy, but just a bit naff. Thankfully this has been addressed and then some in the newest outing, and though it still doesn’t have the greased up, cat like, fluidity that I would like when it comes to the scaling of buildings, it certainly feels far more enjoyable than before.

And that’s the biggest thing that Infamous 2 needed – a fun factor. Let’s face it, any geek/nerd/whatever has at some point thought about how cool it would be to become a superhero, whether it was twenty years ago or last Thursday we’ve had those ideas – and at no point was it a boring slog. Whether you wanted to dish out the vengeance on those that had wronged you (let it go, you’ll feel better) or just wanted the perks that came with invisibility (We all know why you wanted those. Again, you should be ashamed), it was always a riot and that’s what Infamous needed to feel like – and it does. The improved static thrusters (read, flight), the explosive thunder drop, summoning tornadoes of simply biblical proportions, it’s all an absolute pleasure. You feel powerful, even the recharge ability, actioned by draining lamp posts/electric generators/cars etc. of their power is fantastic. Suckerpunch have even found quite a believable way of opening these powers up even more by allowing you to share other conduits abilities while in their presence. I’m not going to spoil this too much but suddenly having access to ice based tricks instantly rekindles all the excitement felt when first finding out what Cole is capable of. Even when these companions aren’t around Cole is still constantly evolving his own powers through experience gained so there’s never a chance to get completely bored with what you’ve got.

Another vast improvement is the melee combat, previously Cole relied very heavily on his more ranged attacked (little bolts of lighting, electric grenades, shock push etc), but when it got up close and personal it was a little lacklustre. This time you have the addition of ‘The Amp’, a large, electric based, tuning fork looking device that Cole swings like a club as well as some more acrobatic kicks and strikes – its all a little bit ‘Arkham Asylum’ in its execution with special moves becoming available after successful chained attacks – its another improvement that definitely adds to the experience, however, whomever developed the camera position for these special moves, and even the normal melee attacks for that matter, needs their head read. I have, once or twice, actually had the camera pass through Cole as he was pulling off a, probably, very impressive backflip kick thing…I wouldn’t know, I missed it! A small thing as the majority of the combat is still ranged, and it happening at all is rare, but still an annoyance.

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But for me, the single biggest, and most important factor that has changed between this game and the first is that I now give a damn about Cole, or any one else in the story for that matter. Cole is a perfect example of insta-protagonist, he’s white, tattooed, American, shaven headed and reasonably buff…now there’s original – but what made it worse was that Dark Knight Bale voice – theres gravelly, but this was like Cole had chewed his way out through the rubble he’d found himself in. And this poor character development wasn’t just limited to Cole, his ‘best friend’ Zeke was a hillbilly idiot by numbers and his girlfriend Trish was a heartless bitch (and that was even when your karma was good!). I had no attachment to any of them. But from the moment Cole stepped off the boat in New Marias he seemed like a changed man, not only had the voice vastly improved (its still gruff but to a far more acceptable standard, owing to the developers choice to change voice talent), but by golly, within minutes he’d even quipped…and had made me laugh! That an arrow straight to my heart right there. The new love interests, Lucy Kuo and Nix, are a million times more likeable than Trish, with just the right amount of witty sarcasm and frailty that made me want to protect them. Even Zeke was far less of a dick in this outing. It actually feels like the whole team have been introduced to, and spent an awful lot of time with, Nathan Drake and Co. (There’s actually a nod to the Naughty Dog series on a XXX theatre in the seedy part of town, along with a few other gaming references, so maybe there has been some leaf taking), however they’ve done it doesn’t matter, it works.

The whole thing is vastly more polished too, the enemies are more varied, the boss battles are inventive, the side missions aren’t all ‘scale this building and shoot off microphones’, it actually seems like an awful lot of thought has gone into making them varied and original – I wasn’t just doing them because I had to, I was doing them because I wanted to.

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So am I going to tell you to drop what you’re doing and run out to buy this now? Well yes, yes I am. But wait just a moment, because one thing I have to touch on is quite disappointing. I don’t want to because I felt this was a fantastic leap forwards for a franchise but, even the box is lying to you. The accompanying line to Infamous 2 is ‘you decide’ – a reference to you choosing whether to play the hero, or the villain. Now this is accomplished by rewarding you for heroic actions or punishing you for villainous ones, the resulting points having an effect on your karma and therefore the powers that you have access to. There are even karma specific missions where you can approach a task like a hero or blow everything up. What is a gargantuan let down however is that it doesn’t matter which you chose, it will follow a very similar path. It alters the journey, but not the destination and that’s really upsetting. Negative Karma does affect Cole’s appearance and some of the dialogue between him and other characters but it could have offered a totally different adventure and it doesn’t, which is a real shame. Don’t get me wrong, the choices you make towards the games conclusion will give you totally different ending, both of which are excellent in their own way, it’s just a shame that the start of the game is so similar whichever way you decide to go – it makes restarting the game to see the alternate version a bit of an uphill struggle.

So, in conclusion, is infamous 2 worth it? Oh yes, most definitely, easy one. Not since Assassins Creed do I feel a franchise has improved so much between the original and its follow on. I think it would have made a great game a brilliant game had there been a little more responsibility in your actions early on, but even that can’t tarnish just how much I enjoyed playing this. Ok, maybe you don’t get two games on one disk – but you do get one fantastic game. Going back to my earlier comparison (We’re supposed to do that see, gives a sense of closure), it really doesn’t matter that both of those buses turned up at once, neither does it matter that they will travel almost exactly the same route, what matters is what awaits you at your journeys end and whichever bus you get on, I promise you, it’ll be electrifying.


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L.A Noire (360, PS3)

17 07 2011

I’ve been wanting to write this weeks ago, I wanted to tell you about how great L.A Noire’s depiction of 1940′s L.A actually was and how well the interview sequences were but something stopped me. I’d been around the block a few times and I’d seen the same old story time and time over. New game fixation sets in and you find yourself suckered before you know it. It’s like looking across the room at that broad and knowing that, no matter how much you want her, she’ll only lead to trouble in the end. I had to finish the whole case and collect all the evidence before writing to you because not all of L.A Noire’s pieces seem to fit the puzzle.

L.A Noire completes Rockstar’s crime u-turn as they’ve gone from the all out criminal activity of Grand Theft Auto to the ‘bad guy going straight’ drama of Red Dead Redemption and now to the police departments of L.A. You’d probably expect an open city, full of cases you could start at will that would end with you mowing down criminals in your car. If you did then you’d be very wrong as the game takes a whole different idea. In spirit L.A Noire is much closer to old point and click games you used to play on the PC as you comb through a crime scene looking for clues before using that evidence in interrogations to determine who the guilty party was. L.A Noire’s entire premise is seperating the truth from the lies and coming to some kind of conclusion.

Those lies needed some new technology behind them and it became L.A Noire’s biggest selling point in the run up to release. Motion scanning means that each nervous muscle twitch and poker face is evident not through computer animation but through human performance. L.A Noire is the first game in which an actor’s performance can come across fully, not just as a voice placed upon programming. If this part of the game had failed then the whole thing would have come tumbling down so it’s good news that it works extremely well as far as presentation goes. It’s strange to play a game that involves your basic human reaction to detecting lies so much and interrogations often become tense situations.

Yes, that is indeed Matt from Heroes.

Whilst sorted graphically the interrogations have a rather strange flaw in them. Your choices when faced with a suspect’s evidence are bookended by ‘Truth’ or ‘Lie’  which are simple in execution but the middle ground of ‘Doubt’ is where the game hits upon some trouble. You would imagine that doubt would be used if you want Phelps to coax more information out of a suspect because you may not have the evidence to back up your initial hunch. This proves not to be the case as the doubt option is incredibly fickle, sometimes resulting in Phelps screaming his head off about getting them up in front of the Grand Jury. This end up in another lead or it can equally result in a suspect clamming up and shutting down all lines of communication. It’s an annoyance that could have been easily sorted by having some level of consistency or removing the option all together.

Not that it’s a gamebreaking flaw as L.A Noire goes to great measures to make sure you see it to the end. Should your line of questioning mean that a suspect will not reveal a piece of information that is required to continue then your partner will simply suggest you tail them until they take you wherever they were going to end up anyway. Failing an action sequence more than three times in a row will bring up an option to skip it all together and carry on as normal. Each crime scene is also undercut by soft jazz which loses an instrument with each item of evidence found, if you suddenly find yourself wading through the debris of a back alley murder and it all goes quiet then it’s probably time to leave. Essentially, L.A Noire wants you to get to the end and see what becomes of the characters. It’s not a hard game by any stretch.

The L.A Noire Men's Fashion shoot in full swing.

It’s a good job you do get to see that story though as it’s probably one of the best ones that video gaming has had to offer in recent times. This might not be for actual content of the plot but more for the places it dares to go. L.A Noire isn’t afraid to get serious with characters and events. There are moments in the game that are truly gruesome and you wait for the usual small kick of humour that will ease the notion of what you’re investigating, it never comes. L.A Noire has a whole cast of differing characters, some of whom form the lowest of low humanity. Some other games would treat this with a mocking tone in an attempt to shield the player from the serious nature of the story but it’s to L.A Noire’s credit that it plays it straight.

During moments like this, when L.A Noire is brave enough to plough its own, then it hits new heights. Sadly, the more ‘gamelike’ it becomes the more the cracks begin to show. The cover system is horrible as Phelps seems to superglue himself to the nearest wall and stay there regardless. The side missions in which you deal with street criminals always seem to end with you having no other option than shooting them dead in the street. Driving is also twitchy and gains you nothing so it’s much easier and quicker to let your partner drive meaning to arrive at your next scene straight away rather than have to deal with L.A’s traffic system. There’s also the problem that, despite the dialogue and characters leading up to it, each chapter of the game seems to end with a cover based shoot out section chasing the main perpetrator.

Team Bondi have concentrated on certain sections of L.A Noire in order for it to reach the bracket of ‘interactive fiction’ and it’s obvious that getting the facial scanning correct was top of the list during development. Whilst this is truly the case it does appear that other parts were left until the last minute and are rendered a gaming cliche as a result. The game climbs many highs over its 10 or so hours duration but the rough edges soon show themselves. It might not ruin the experience completely but it stops the game from reaching the upper levels of class that Rockstar’s previous releases have obtained. L.A Noire remains a decent enough game but it’s far more a demonstration of what might be possible in the future than a modern classic of today.


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Mortal Kombat (360, PS3)

29 04 2011

Shock value certainly diminishes over time. In the early to mid 90′s Marylin Manson wandered around middle America in high heels, said he was a ‘drug user not abuser’ and was considered the anti-Christ. These days however, he’s seen as a somewhat ridiculous doom monger with a nice line in eye shadow. It’s also hard to consider that the ketchup splat blood in Mortal Kombat once caused such a backlash that Nintendo chose to release a toned down version at retail lest they ruin the family friendly image. Mortal Kombat continued throughout the 90′s before descending into self parody by the new millenium. Midway’s original violent shocker had now developed a nice line in eye shadow. Mortal Kombat 9, Mortal Kombat 2011, Next Gen Mortal Kombat, whatever you call it is here to reboot the series in the hope of reaching its former heights.

Mortal Kombat begins with a rather thinly veiled admission that the series has nose-dived. The beginning of the story mode shows Shao Kahn knocking about the last survivor of Earthrealm, Raiden. Before he is able to commit to the final death-blow the Thunder God sends a message back to his past self warning him of how events got to this terrible stage. Cue then, a complete rewrite of the first three Kombat games which are generally regarded as the best of the series. They haven’t bothered trying to continue the dead-end they’d got themselves into and, although it visits some familiar ground, it feels fresh enough to warrant such an action. The story mode is also a fantastic way of stitching the single player campaign together and the greatest compliment I can give it is that it feels like an animated Mortal Kombat movie with interactive fight scenes. The saga of Raiden trying to tip the balance of power in favour of Earthrealm has more emotional depth than many other fighting game stories. You’ll play as a variety of warriors each with their own individual agenda. The battle between Sub Zero and Scorpion is age-old in gaming culture but the animated sequence before their fight and Scorpion’s decision as to kill or spare his long time enemy gives a simple one on one battle a huge emotional weight (and ‘emotional weight’ is something I never thought I’d write about a Mortal Kombat game during my lifetime). Considering even Super Street Fighter 4′s single player mode consists of random fights, then a rival fight before meeting Seth it’s a revelation to have Mortal Kombat get one over Capcom in this aspect.

Scorpion, about three seconds before saying "Get Over Here!".

I was 430 words in and the mention of that game has occurred. It’s strange to consider that nearly 20 years after they last fought it out for attention in the arcades and home consoles Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat are brough back together. Whilst Capcom always produced the balanced, intricate fighter Midway would attempt to find ways of being louder and more gore filled than anything Japan was putting out at the time. In a strange way that’s still the case now. Mortal Kombat might have an improved fight engine, it’s far smoother than the titles of old, but it probably wouldn’t pass for the fast flowing tournament play games such as Street Fighter get. It’s a little too shuddering sometimes, moves sometimes don’t seem to register as they should and it’s possible to spam some moves to near comical levels in order to gain victory (anything involving a teleport usually). This isn’t to say that fights fall down and become simplified affairs but it does mean that you’re in for a culture shock if you go into this expecting Virtua Fighter levels of detail. Boss battles can also fall victim to the rougher edges of the system. Goro might be big and have four arms but he has the added advantage of a health bar that seems to go on forever and a couple of moves that will hit you no matter where you are on the screen. The design of all the boss battles seems to have missed the section marked ‘challenging’ and moved straight onto ‘frustrating to hell’.

There are some new elements to the combat though, mainly through the SF style power bar at the bottom of the screen. Filling the first section allows you to enhance any move in your arsenal (ie- Scorpion will throw two harpoons rather than the one), the second allows you to break through your opponents combo and the third opens up the X-Ray attack in which Mortal Kombat spends a few moments revelling in the ultra violence. As the name makes rather obvious it’s a brutal combo, performed in slow motion, in which you’ll witness every bone snapping under the beat down. Necks will snap, tendons will rip and eyeballs will be gouged out with absolute ferocity. It does make you wince sometimes which is probably what they were after all along.

But the ultimate selling point of Mortal Kombat was always the fatalities. In an age in which movies such as Hostel and Saw do the rounds in cinemas on a regular basis your ordinary fatalities were never going to cut it with MK’s target audience today. Back to the drawing board they’ve gone and they’ve come back with something far more macabre than before. Some produce slight giggles if you’re that way inclined and many generate full on ‘Eeewwww’ moments. Noob Saibot using his shadow alter ego to tear apart the body of his fallen opponent complete with the audio of ripping flesh and snapping bone is a top grade example. They’ve taken Mortal Kombat’s unique selling point and ran with it. The results are exactly what a Mortal Kombat game should have.

The damage done to combatants does stay throughout the fight

NetherRealm have essentially given us the game Mortal Kombat fans were wanting and it’s certainly a massive improvement over the depths to which the series has shrunk to. It’s not a fighting game designed to knock Street Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter off their perches at the top of the genre tree. The combat system isn’t deep enough nor flexible enough to match those titles but it does serve fans of the original series extremely well by expanding on what the series did to begin with. Some of the flaws that have plagued Mortal Kombat in years gone by have somehow remained but, whilst annoying, it’s nothing game breaking. As an all round package of a fun fighting game that isn’t burdened by the weight of learning vast combinations and fight styles Mortal Kombat succeeds in grand style.

It probably still has good eye shadow as well.


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Way Out West

17 05 2010

Far be it for me to  cast judgement on a game before release day but Red Dead Redemption is out this Friday and I’m rather excited about the whole thing.

Yes it’s a Rockstar game and it appears to be Grand Theft Auto put back 150 years. It features many of the same elements from the adventures of Niko Belic and the like. There are still guns to use and prostitutes that I would imagine you can kill right afterwards and claim your money back. Why then, does this not cause the usual outrage in publications such as The Daily Mail? Probably because it will be the first time that Rockstar have gone for a truly ‘mature’ setting whilst using the GTA engine.

You might think that the Grand Theft Auto series had, to use the horrible phrase, mature gaming down to a fine art. It dealt with the grim underbelly of city life and the seedy characters found within. It had all the swearing, drug references and sexual content to gain itself an 18 rating before release. The problem is that a fair portion of GTA’s fanbase are not over 18 at all, it’s the game that clueless parents buy their offspring so that they can have some peace whilst the kids chainsaw some civilians to death.  One of the main themes of the GTA series has always been a base humour of projecting drawings of a penis on the side of a building, having cars named after sexual positions and fitting in as many slang references to homosexuality in as possible. This is not humour that generally appeals to those who can be reffered to as ‘mature’, it’s simply the humour of schoolboy sniggering.

I find it impossible to imagine that your average 15 year old, whilst waiting to convince their parents that Grand Theft Auto is just a driving game so that they can lay their mitts on it, has a desire to play a game based in the Wild West. At no point have they gazed upon the previews and uttered the words ‘Wow, you get to ride a horse!’ or ‘You can trade bear skins!’. The media backlash after every GTA game probably saves Rockstar a few millions on their advertising budget each time around but Red Dead Redemption won’t have that because the Western setting suits the kind of gameplay that Rockstar put forward. The older generation has grown up with movies about cowboys and indians so therefore won’t be shocked by shootings and bloody violence as long as there’s a cactus nearby.

Early reviews released today seem to suggest that Redemption is a Game of the Year contender and the gaming press have welcomed it as a sample of games at their finest. I personally look forward to having an open world to wander around in that isn’t trying to cram as many modern day cultural references in as possible. It would seem to have also put off the sniggering schoolboys for now also. This town is simply not big enough for the both of us.


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God Of War III (PS3)

27 03 2010

Everyone’s favourite chain-blade wielding psychotic skinhead is back in his first proper PlayStation 3. And what a game it is! As long time fans and players who bothered to import God of War Collection will know, GoWII ended with Kratos having nipped back in time, brought the Titans with him and is all set to wage war on Zeus, the Gods and Mount Olympus itself, and GoWIII picks up the story right where we left it. Within seconds, it’s obvious that epic scale of the game benefits from the extra power of the PS3 as the camera zooms back until Kratos is no more than a speck on Gia’s back. Remember the first level of the original game when you’re fighting undead soldiers on the deck of a ship? Well God of War III is like that, multiplied by 10 for 80% of the playing time.

We all know that great graphics doesn’t equal great game, but one of the first things you notice, as you send Kratos whirling and slicing his way through the legions of soldiers, is just how good the graphics are and how much they add to the atmosphere. Sparks fly as your blades scrape off walls, baddies are sent flying in all directions and Kratos is drenched in blood. Make him barge into a group of Hades’ finest, twirling like some angry spinning-top of death and soon the red sticky stuff is splattered across walls, ceilings, floors and you, slowly running off. Heads are torn from necks excruciatingly slowly and legs are sliced off above the knee – pouring with virtual blood and leaving a git of thighbone sticking out the end. Make no mistake, this game is gory.

Just a few minutes into the game and you’re into your first epic boss fight against one of the Olympians before you plunge back to Hades for the fourth time in the series. In the previous outings on the Playstation 2 and PSP, these levels formed a substantial part of the game. Just before I resigned myself to wading through hell all over again (and not long after completing Dante’s Inferno either) God of War III threw me slightly with another huge boss fight and then I was back on Olympus. This time, Kratos’ revenge is relentless and the number of Gods you slay in the first few hours reflects that. I counted five. There are some nice nods to the previous games as well. While you’re on your little jaunt in Hell, you find Hades’ shrine to his late missus Persephone, who was slain by Kratos in Chains of Olympus – the PSP prequel. Apparently, Hades is a little miffed about it. Although he didn’t seem too bothered when he helps you out in the original PS2 game.

Not that hacking and slashing are the only things you’ll do in this game. There’s the usual mix of exploration and puzzle solving. Perhaps it’s unfortunate that God of War III features an M. S. Escher inspired puzzle so soon after Dante’s Inferno’s mirror level, but Santa Monica Studios’ one is at least as good. Possibly better. It doesn’t really matter though, as you’re quickly immersed into figuring it out. There’s also an excellent section where you must keep another character alive. It’s well thought out if a little short. Personally, I’d liked to have seen a few more puzzles in this instalment, but in truth the game doesn’t need them. This time, it’s all about revenge.

Unlike the first game and the PSP prequel, Kratos’ driving force is less the death of his wife and daughter at his own hands (thanks to Ares’ trickery) as it is the constant need to vanquish Zeus and the other Olympians. At first this seems like a betrayal of the original game’s backstory, but it’s soon apparent that Kratos is placing the blame firmly upon his Godly Dad, who has allowed the Olympians to ride roughshod over the fate of mankind.

The supporting characters of the final chapter of the series is excellent, with some first class acting from the instantly recognisable voices of Linda Hunt, Clancy Brown, Malcolm McDowell and Rip Torn, as well as a host of less well-known names who do an equally commendable job. T. C. Carson sounds angrier than ever as Kratos, if that’s possible. Along the way you’ll meet Poseidon, Dedalus, Hercules (played by Kevin Sorbo, natch), a brilliantly irritating Hermes and a hilariously drunk and bitter Hera, Zeus’s wife and mother of Ares. That did leave me wondering if she drinks herself stupid out of guilt. She is Zeus’ sister as well, after all. According to Greek myth, the King of Olympus shagged everyone and everything. Thankfully, Sony had the sense to leave that out. I’m not sure how Santa Monica would’ve worked Zeus’ erotic escapades with his brothers into a level. That said, there is the usual smattering adult naughtiness that goes on in a God of War game. But as with previous outings, it’s all rather tastefully ‘off-screen’.

In all, I found God of War III to be an excellent finale to a genre-defining series. Go out and buy it. Then buy the remastered PS2 games and remind yourselves why GoW was such a great game in the first place.

Sony has confirmed there are more God of War games in the works, so we haven’t seen the last of Kratos yet. Whether they can make any future instalments so epic in scope remains to be seen.

This review has been written by Bob Lowes, you can follow the man himself on Twitter by searching for @boblowes.


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Darksiders (Xbox 360)

5 02 2010

Darksiders is a game that has taken me a fairly substantial period of time to develop a review for… I would like to have been able to say that this is due to me having been so engrossed in playing the game that I merely have had no time to even think about a review. Sadly, this couldn’t be further from the truth. I haven’t been able to review it until now because it has taken me until today to muster up the desire to play enough to even warrant me writing a review about it. This lack of interest isn’t something that I generally have trouble with as a gamer, so it’s necessary for me to explain what made me feel this way about Darksiders.

The game’s story focuses upon War, one out of four of the eponymous Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. After a prolonged and contrived introductory sequence, our protagonist is thrust into a cartoony version of modern New York, during what seems to be the Apocalypse. Screaming humans, explosions, lava, angels and varying sizes of demon are rife and War sets about smiting pretty much anything that he crosses paths with. In these opening sequences, Darksiders is guilty of one of my least favourite video-game crimes of recent times: allowing you to begin with all your über-awesome health, mana and powers (a la Prototype) and then stripping you of them and leaving you feeling like a friggin’ wuss-bag weakling failure.

Perhaps it’s my history of playing RPGs, but I feel that a character’s strength and power in video-games is something that should be developed and earned over time by playing the game, not dangled in front of your face like a proverbial carrot as an incentive to compel you to continue playing the game.

After a large boss battle, involving the throwing of car, War is summoned to an audience with the powers-that-be (in this case, some caves with faces) and accused of bringing about an early end-of-the-world. He is stripped of his powers but begs for a chance to redeem himself and is given the opportunity to return to Earth, a century after the apocalypse, to restore order. He is forced to have another being (known as the Watcher) accompany him. Even the voice talent of Mark Hamill isn’t enough to stop him being an annoying little incorporeal git, though. Believe me, you’ll get extremely tired of his snide ‘advice’ in a relatively short time period. Upon returning to Earth, you find a broken, dirty, hell-hole (literally) of a city, populated by demons and zombies.

Unfortunately, it’s at this point that the game began a steady decline, in my opinion. The main plot-line of trying to find ‘The Dark One’ (presumably Satan, although this game enjoys being vague) in order to kill him, exact your revenge and restore the Earth just holds no interest for me. It’s just too clichèd and not unique enough. The battles soon become boring and repetitive, comprising of the same combat-buttonmashing and quick-time events against enemies that simply aren’t varied enough. It does get quite old quite quickly. A variety of other reviewers have summed this game up as a poor-man’s God of War and it’s quite easy to see why. The levelling and menu system is awkward and too similar to many other games of this genre. I had hoped for something more individual.

In addition to the poor combat aspects of the game, I feel that it also comes in below par graphically. Coming out only a couple of weeks before Dante’s Inferno, a game of similar ilk, it’s chunky cartoony styling just doesn’t stand up well. Also – and this isn’t something that I would usually point out and I don’t enjoy doing so – for the first time since I made the step up from SD to HD gaming, I noticed major frame rate issues and near constant ‘clipping’ problems (e.g., certain areas of the image movement not keeping up with the rest). On occasion, this combined with lip-syncing issues during cut-scenes and really impeded my ability to enjoy the game.

It would be hard to imagine Darksiders having any kind of longevity. It follows too linear a route and each and every battle that you have will be extremely similar to the last. Even when you find yourself battling a boss, the same tried-and-tested routine of throwing something, waiting for injury and then attacking falls into place. Honestly, it all becomes a frustrating chore and that’s not how I want to be feeling when I play a game.

I consider myself to be a fairly patient individual and I believe that it is fair for me to say that it would take someone considerably more patient than myself to really get a wholly enjoyable experience from Darksiders. My own personal recommendation is that if you’re looking for an interesting new hack’n'slash experience, you would be wise to save your hard-earned cash, give this game a miss and patiently await the upcoming release of God of War III on the PS3 or run out and buy Dante’s Inferno on Xbox 360 or PS3 (Coincidentally released today – 5th Feb. 2010 – and set to be my next review for BfF!).



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