OnLive: Darksiders Review

Does everything have to be original? The obvious answer to that is no. Almost every great game or movie in history has ripped off some aspect of something. Blizzard’s StarCraft is one of the most respected RTSes in history, but almost everything about it blatantly rips characters and concepts from Warhammer 40k.

Does that bother you? Is your opinion of StarCraft scarred forever? If so then Darksiders is not the game for you.

Darksiders literally cut and pastes the best parts of some of your favourite franchises into its own framework. How much you enjoy Darksiders will be almost entirely based on whether that fact ruins the game or makes the game for you.

Darksiders is a great game in its own right, flirting with but not quite reaching the level of greatness that makes a game more than memorable. While the post-apocalyptic setting is nothing new, the mix of fantasy and Bible prophecy that’s set forth is, simply put, cool. The plot doesn’t take any startling twists, and you can almost script the storyline once you pass the opening level and cinematic. The voice acting, however, helps lift the story. (Do you recognize War’s voice? Yeah, that’s Illidan from Warcraft III. Sweet. And yes, that’s the legendary Mark Hamill channeling a bit of Joker as the Watcher.) Plot shortcomings aside, simply being able to play as the freaking Horseman of the Apocalypse was awesome.

The perfect word for the gameplay is polished. Darksiders has been lovingly crafted, and the work Vigil put into this title shows. The combat is a fluid mix of The Legend of Zelda and name-your-action-game-here. It’s Zelda with upgradeable combos and M-rated bloodshed! And yes, there’s lots of combat. Vigil actually adds a pause menu counter called “Gallons of demon blood spilled.” Needless to say mine was in the high thousands by the end of my game. The combat system is…good. It doesn’t quite reach the level of perfection that Bayonetta gave us, but it’s more than satisfactory. It’s easy to learn, and does a decent job of giving you more than one combo you’ll enjoy using. It does offer a simple counter system, but it seemed to be inordinately hard to accurately use on anything other than the basic kill-fodder demons. You’ll more than likely just mix it up between relentlessly swinging your giant sword and dodging attacks with the simple dash move.

The action can get slightly repetitive, but nice touches like the God of War-style execution maneuvers help keep you feeling like a bad-a**. The boss encounters, while epic in scale, tend to disappoint in the difficulty level. You’ll have a harder time reaching the boss than you will in slaying it.

Now onto the gameplay that’s not combat. Here Darksiders whole-handedly takes the Zelda formula and works it over. Is that a bad thing? Well, is the Zelda gameplay formula a bad one? There’s your answer. Darksiders may not be original, but it’s a fine copycat. You have your basic world hub with short travel times to each dungeon. And what’s in each dungeon? An item to find that will help you complete said dungeon. Cue Zelda treasure chest jingle. The puzzles aren’t brainteasers, but also aren’t boring and will sometimes make you stop and ponder. If you think that Darksiders couldn’t possibly steal ideas from more franchises, just wait until you see the dungeon item whose concept is so directly taken from one of your favorite games that it’s only missing the Aperture Laboratories logo.

This game runs near flawlessly on OnLive. Vigil designed the graphics to have a more animated feel, and while this choice will never get Darksiders on any “best graphics” list, it works for the game, and it works for OnLive. Every so often the graphics will muddy up for a second during the action, but nothing so bad that it mars the experience. The game is crystal clear when your slowly rotating the camera and admiring War’s battle-scarred armor. Lag is minimal to nonexistent. Darksiders is an exclusively single-player experience ( something else it shares with Zelda), and the OnLive version is as fully featured as any platform out there.

Does my content review tend to sound like I’m putting Darksiders down? Cause I’m really not. Darksiders is a fine game that’s more than worth your time. Vigil is smart enough to know that if your going to steal ideas, steal from the best. Darksiders won’t stand in the halls of the truly great, but in all reality most games don’t. Vigil creates an interesting story with refined gameplay that keeps you playing, and sets up an ending that decently satisfies with an ending cinematic that screams for a sequel. Which we’re getting.

Darksiders isn’t perfect, but neither are you. This doesn’t keep Darksiders (or you, for that matter) from being a lot of fun, and entirely worth spending some quality time with.

Stephen Peterson

Writer/Editor for OLF News, OLF forum moderator, host of OLF’s The Breaking Point podcast. Avid video game enthusiast, attorney, husband, violinist, and so on.