Darksiders

So I’ve recently completed the game Darksiders. I played it on the xbox360 and can safely say that I enjoyed it. The game features the apocalypse triggered by heaven and hell and War, one of the four horseman, is dragged into the scene. His quest for revenge to uncover the events that led to the fall of man and the epic struggle on earth lead him through a series of dungeons regaining his power as he goes.

In terms of gameplay, this game is far from anything new. It borrows shamelessly from other games mainly the Zelda series, but I don’t actually mind this. I enjoy Zelda games, and it’s nice to see that game style in a more mature environment. Spilling demon blood and decapitating angels is somewhat more satisfying than slaying goblins and chickens in Zelda.

The storyline as described above doesn’t exactly sound gripping, however it is in fact quite a bit deeper than I summarized. I enjoyed the tale of betrayal and deception between arch angels and the events leading to the end war, and it also ends rather nicely setting itself up for a sequel. 

I have read that THQ want to make this into a key franchise of theirs, and I can certainly see why. It’s a well produced and fun game to play which really promotes what THQ is about: Creating beautiful Finished products.

Some publishers like to rush out their developers products and this can either cause a product to come out rushed, or just plain unfinished. Held together with thin strands of duct tape. These are games that have not been tested fully, the animation flow just doesn’t seem to work and often are full of exploits.

In articles I’ve read, horror stories have emerged about tight deadlines, long working hours and almost no rest time between projects. This leads to games being forced out by developers rather than let to grow and flourish in their own time. Now for seemingly obvious reasons developers need some sort of timetable on their hands to make a game otherwise they may struggle to make a return on the game and go bust as a result. A balance must be found between developer and publisher in order for a great game to emerge.

In other news, I am off to the Eurogamer Expo in London tomorrow so hope to write much more about the foreseeable future in games. Also hope to hear Mr Molyneux’s talk and to play the Kinect!