The Road to Ruin
Congrats, Darksiders, you're the first must-have PS3 game of 2010.
Published: January 2, 2010
Vulgrim represents a rather interesting peek into the world War arrives back to after being apparently summoned into the final conflict between Man, Heaven and Hell -- except that's only supposed to happen when all seven seals are broken, Revelation-style, and all four Horsemen are supposed to show up. They don't. War is accused of siding with Hell (despite losing nearly all of his powers upon crashing to earth as the war has already begun), begs to be sent back to find out what really happened (oh, and to clear his name), and arrives to find humans are gone (replaced by zombie-ish... things), Hell has effectively won the battle and more than a few creatures in this world have either been cast aside or cursed by the big baddies from The Pit. In short, things are screwed, and Vulgrim's all too happy to take souls from both sides as long as it serves his means.
He's not the only one; one of the biggest strengths of Darksiders is in its cast of demonic semi-allies and ancient enemies that stand in War's way. Both perfectly cast and incredibly animated -- particularly in the lip synching --- these baddies and not-quite-friends are a great source of give and take, leaving War ripe with sneered, completely badass responses. All of the voice cast does a great job, but War in particular carries with him a kind of smoothness to his show of epic dismemberment and evisceration that backs up all those hacks and slashes with more than a few great one-liners (including the final, epic line of the game that had me wanting to play Darksiders 2 now). Much was made about Mark Hamill voicing the Watcher, a kind of demonic Joker, but it's a testament to the whole cast that it felt more like an ensemble than the Joker Sound-Alike Show. Oh, sure, there's some cheese in there, but it's fun cheese, the kind you want to hear when the lead character runs around in a cloak with glowing eyes and a sword half his size.
The music, too, is fantastic, mixing some choral chanting, almost constant droning and plenty of epic, driving percussion and strings. It's not unfair to compare the aural bits to God of War too -- there's even a sort of musical accompaniment to unlocking part of a dungeon's puzzle. The sword slashes are meaty, hit with thunderous impact and slice through enemies with a wet, crunchy slop. Hitting something is almost as satisfying sounding as it is visually impressive. One of the most bizarre moments in exploring the audio for me was running into an area where War's feet were crunching into the snow... until I remember it wasn't snow but the ashes of all humanity piled into drifts by the wind. Cool beans.
And the visuals are very, very impressive indeed. This was an engine built from the ground up by Vigil for the PS3 and though it uses a transparent background install while you're playing, there's also a fairly significant amount of constant streaming to minimize load times (you'll rarely see an actual pause for a loading icon outside of the initial boot). It's not so much about texture detail (though at times there is that) or a solid framerate (only two areas, the Ashlands and one other late-game area I'd rather not spoil, bog the game down, though it is fairly constant at times).
No, Darksiders' best visual asset is just that it's so damned coherent. The enemy designs mesh with War's design and his animations (like the cool little flick he'll do with his sword before driving into an enemy's skull) mesh with the world and the environments are just... I defy someone to take a peek at the crumbling skyscrapers or sunny glades or barren plains or webbed canyons when the game is actually running and tell me it looks anything less than amazing. There's a consistency and self-assurance to the world Vigil has made that's completely counter what most freshman efforts are supposed to look like -- especially for a first game on the supposedly difficult PS3 hardware. This is a fantastic looking game, and one that keeps giving through all 15 hours.
That self-confidence bleeds into the dialogue, into the narrative and into the characters. Where other games would leave you feeling embarrassed by the over-the-top nature, Darksiders somehow manages to come off as earnest. Pure fantasy, sure, but the kind of fantasy that isn't afraid to show a cleaved head or amputated limb. More than all that, though, it's just plain fun to figure out the dungeons and the puzzles and the boss battles and the world. Darksiders is, above all else, an absolute blast to play, and deserves to be in everyone's collection. Go play it, because no amount of talking up the game's strengths can match that first half hour after the end of the world.
