Darksiders II Preview

The Legend of Death

by Robert VerBruggen

While Darksiders wasn't quite a mega-hit for THQ, it was certainly an enjoyable, bloody romp that competently blended of God of War's combat with Legend of Zelda's dungeons. If you ever wished that Kratos would use his puzzle-solving abilities more, or that all of Link's sword-slashing would produce some gore, Darksiders was the game for you. But will its sequel, due in 2012, build on this foundation, or just retread old ground?

Plotwise, the game isn't exactly a sequel—or even a prequel—even though the original ended with a cliffhanger. It takes place during the very same time period as the first game, the twist being that you control a different one of the Four Horsemen (Death, instead of War). At the beginning of Darksiders, War was convicted of starting the Apocalypse early and sent to Earth—and Death, knowing this couldn't be true, set out to prove his fellow Horseman's innocence.

He figures that if he can resurrect humanity, he can undo what War is accused of, working out some of his own demons while he's at it. Death travels to the Nether Realms, a sort of limbo between heaven and hell, to search for evidence of what really happened and save the human race. The Nether Realms is just one of many worlds besides Earth, a fact that introduces an extra element of fantasy to the franchise.

The great thing about this plot is that by changing the location, it forced the developers to come up with all-new environments. Reportedly, Darksiders II's game world will be twice the size of the original's, with at least four cities that serve as hubs, dungeons galore, and huge, open stretches of land in between. And if War's horse couldn't fill the Epona-shaped hole in your heart during the first game, you'll be glad to know that Death's horse will be quite useful for getting from place to place.

    From a technical standpoint, development studio Vigil was able to create so much content so quickly by using "modular pieces," which they liken to a LEGO set they can use to build environments rather than hand-crafting every tiny detail. You'd think that would make the visuals look dull and repetitive, but from what we've seen of the screenshots, that's simply not the case. This should be, like the original, a very good-looking game.

THQ has convinced us that there will be tons of content, and even the first game wasn't exactly a slouch at fifteen-plus hours. What remains to be seen is whether everything will be polished and action-packed enough to keep our attention the whole way through.

    One thing that should help is that Vigil is adding some new elements to the formula. Death will have twelve slots to fill with armor and other items. He will also level up and unlock skills on tech trees. Furthermore, he's a lot more nimble than War, which opens the door to a lot of platforming and fresh combat options. He can't block, so he'll need to dodge instead, and in place of War's clunky sword will be a shape-shifting weapon that morphs to fit the moves Death is executing. Of course, it will be important that all of these elements are executed well and combined seamlessly. For every genre-bender out there that actually shakes things up, there are ten games where developers took a bunch of different features from popular games, failed to polish them, and stuck them together even though they didn't fit.

Also, there is one important caveat to bear in mind if you own multiple consoles. This will be a launch title for Wii U, so we'll finally be able to see what a Nintendo console does with a high-definition third-party game. The developers have said that between the new controller and the more powerful hardware, the Nintendo version of the game might even be the best one. However, the developers have said they had problems getting the game to run on PlayStation 3, so before plunking down $60, Sony fans might want to check reviews to make sure everything turned out okay in the end. (Side note: Multiplatform developers are still having PS3 issues? Still?)

Vigil and THQ did not let us down with the original Darksiders, and they seem to have very ambitious goals for the sequel. With an interesting new plot, a much bigger world, and a whole host of gameplay additions, Darksiders II will definitely not be a simple retread of the first game. Further, the early indications, including screenshots and developer interviews, indicate that the process is going smoothly (give or take a PS3 glitch or two).

But will it be worth your time and money in the end? For that, you'll need to check back next year for our review.

By Robert VerBruggen
CCC Contributing Writer

Source: cheatcc