Picked up Darksiders last week and played a good chunk of it over the weekend. This is one of the first of many big games that are coming in the early part of 2010. So far checking out reviews it’s doing very well. Personally I currently rate the game above average its not the best I've played and it’s not mediocre either. The graphics are what one would expect for a AAA title currently but nothing really to write home about and in fact on my 360 I experienced a few times with watching the game try to keep up and getting the annoying screen wipe type of look. Action in the game is fast paced but doesn't bring anything new to the action genre. The most intriguing part of the game is the story and frankly it holds this game together. If it didn't have a story Darksiders would fall right in the rent me category. The story starts out saying demon, angels and man are at work but a truce has been called until man was ready for the battle. The current truce is held in place by the Chaos Council and its soldiers the 4 horsemen. Something happened and War, one of the horsemen, was called down to earth believing the truce was off. During his battles he realized he was tricked by someone and due to his actions let to the demon army to wipe out the planet earth and take over. To prove himself and his worth he had the Chaos Council send him back to earth 100 years later to find who tricked him and the council. From there War learns about what’s going on and who is in charge.

As I've stated this is your normal action and smash game with a some wonderful environment puzzles thrown in. To me the puzzles really added to the game and they weren't just thrown in at the last minute they would cover entire maps and were well thought out. Some require just exploring the levels to find the clues or answers needed while others it was plain what you need to do just need to find a way to do it. Frankly this added to the game for me as I always like exploring and this game allows you to do so. Fighting is so-so. It has its moments but overall becomes the same move over and over. My biggest complaint is lack of enemy health bars or even feedback. Basically all you know is they are alive and good or ready to die. You know they are ready to die when you see the quick time events, ok really its just press 1 button and a scripted event happens it’s not bad but get boring quickly. For bosses its annoying cause you have no clue how far along you are and if you should grab that power-up now or save it for later one battle once I figured out the trick I got bored of it cause I was just doing the same thing over and over and had no clue how much longer I needed to do it. I know enemy health bars can break the emersion but some type of feedback other than the button flash would be helpful. The game also has a small rail gun game mode. It’s alright but damn it needed major work. In most rail gun modes moving the character around the screen doesn't change where you are aiming. In Darksiders this happens making avoiding getting hit and killing stuff just a pain in the ass. They also give you a lock-on shot but it’s the same button as the normal fire mode making it annoying when trying hit things. With the rail events I think the developers were trying to program it as if you have a NES controller in your hands than a 360 controller, please use more buttons than there is a reason Microsoft gave them to us.

Like all action games you find power-ups and new toys as you progress through the game. Darksiders is no different you either find or buy new weapons and power-ups throughout the game. I didn't see anything new and exciting with this though seems to be you normal type of variety. Granted later in the game there could be some cool and new things but in my play so far I wasn't too impressed.

As of right now I would recommend giving this game a chance. The story interests me and the game with very playable. I don't think the game has an advantage on any system so pick it up for the system of your choice. Understand nothing about this game screams "MUST HAVE" but if you have some time before Bioshock 2 and Mass Effect 2 it will fill that void perfectly.

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