Darksiders - Legend of Razael: Ocarina of War

Some games are unique. Some games are derivative as fuck. Some games are uniquely derivative as fuck. Poetic, neh? Anyway, while I'm waiting for my English diploma to come through I may as well ramble about Darksiders.

Darksiders didn’t engorge my interest gland in the first instance, which is a bit bizarre as the plot is the kind of cobblers that I masturbate furiously over (being a heavy metal loving dork). The story revolves around War (of the Four Horsemen), who turns up on earth to usher in the apocalypse as Heaven and Hell have started leathering each other (signalling the end times). Except, the problem is he’s the only of the 4 riders there. It seems that the Seventh Seal wasn’t broken and Death, Strife and Fury (yes, I know) are still at home with their feet up, having a cup of tea and some cake. Meanwhile, War get’s his behind handed to him by a big bastard and lays in limbo for a century. The Charred Council then try him for treason whereupon war pleads his innocence and he’s sent into the world to find out what happened, albeit tied to a ‘Watcher’ to keep an eye on him, as voiced by Mark Hamill. (It should be noted at this point that Mark Hamill can usually do no wrong in my eyes, but this time the Watcher sounds too much like the Joker from Arkham Asylum).

This is where the game begins in earnest and you’re thrown into familiar territory. REALLY familiar territory. You know in the 80’s when people just used to develop well known games and call them “Space Raiders” or “Frog Crossing The Road”? Well…

Basically, as you may have ascertained by my incredibly witty title, the game robs wholesale from The Legend Of Zelda, Soul Reaver and God Of War. If you’re going to nick stuff, nick it from the best. The game plays out as a third person action adventure, where you break open chests for items, orbs to fuel your health/wrath(magic)/and currency (for upgrades) and go around laying waste to the denizens of hell while trying to piece together what went wrong. The world is airy, but not totally free roaming, as is traditional with these games certain areas are closed off until you obtain the corresponding move/item. Like a hookshot. Seriously, there’s a boomerang, a hookshot, you collect fragments to extend your life bar and wrath(magic) bar. If I were Nintendo I’d be kicking their door down as soon as the bloody thing came out. And later on you get Ruin, your horse. Now, this isn’t to say that it robs directly from Ocarina of Time, I mean, he is a Horseman Of The Apocalypse after all but you can’t really ignore the parallel. Anyway, if you’ve played any of the 3D Zelda’s you’re in familiar territory.

The combat is satisfying and chunky, with upgrades to Chaoseater (your sword) becoming available as you progress and littered around the game are the 4 artifacts of the horsemen and secondary weapons (like Death’s scythe), although in actual fact all you need to do is mash the X button and Y occasionally. Still, it’s not nearly as tedious as some other games I’ve played so it did the job fine.

As you stomp about, you enter massive dungeons, pull switches, solve puzzles, get a Portal style power and teleport about (the colour of the portals is even the fucking same), smash some more shit in the face and find the big bastard boss at the end.And they all have cool names, like ‘Tiamat’ (the bat boss in the Cathedral which is the first dungeon and, ironically, the hardest one in the game). It’s all very cool.

The problem is, I’m having a hard time explaining the game beyond that. It’s Zelda with better combat, and that’s the best way you can summon it up. It has all the draw of Zelda with the back tracking to use the items you have to get to previously inaccessible areas, and I spent a lot more time than I normally would doing this. I think I only missed out on 2 or 3 of the small insignia’s in the end, which is unheard of for me because I usually just try and plough through as quick as possible while I’m enjoying it. The game is derivative as fuck, but my god it’s satisfying, entertaining and downright fun. It’s helped that the story is actually quite good in it’s hokey, end of the world way and has some genuinely brilliant voice acting (Uthane being particularly funny).

One last thing I should mention about this game, which some people have unfairly criticised and that’s the art direction. The art direction is fucking brilliant. Of course the art direction is fucking brilliant, it’s done by Joe Madureira, he of X-Men artistry fame. The characters have bags of it (character, dur), it’s actually a very colourful game, they’re all massive and chunky and have weapons bigger than they are and put a lot of other games to shame. Fact.

If only the bastard would finish Battle Chasers…