Coupled with an amazing story of lies, treachery and deceit, Darksiders’ game play essentially builds on already renowned mechanics and adds their own little finer touches. Fans of the hack & slash genre may get the feeling they’ve been here before, but really, the setting and theme of Darksiders is so wildly unique and the characters so deep and graphically impressive, that it feels like a whole new experience.

Graphics & Sound

Right from the glorious, cinematic-style introduction, you get the feel you’re in store for something special. Throughout its entirety, Darksiders delivers on this big budget feel with some brilliant environments and loads of memorable events.

The post-apocalyptic world is surprisingly colourful and certainly departs from the popular trend of dark, gritty cities to get that evil feel across. Its an impressive and definitely welcome change. Due to the fact that most of what you’re seeing is 100 years after the Apocalypse took place, you are witness to nature reclaiming much of Humanity’s civilisation. Once trafficked roads have become eroded and removed by forest and desert. Lush jungle environments are connected by old sewer and storm water channels leading out of crumbling cities. Desert plateaus are infested by arcane demonic creations. The darkness spreads its grip to the farthest of Earth’s landscapes and all are modeled and textured in great detail.

The final piece…

The Chosen are massive demonic creatures, the worlds you find them in generally echoing their predominant characteristics – a sequence with the spider-like Silitha in her lair was very memorable.

Voice acting is top-notch. From the brooding, booming voices of War and the Chosen, to Ulthane – the Dwarven (well, not so dwarfish) weapon-smith, they’re all brilliantly complimented by their voices. The voice acting really gives Darksiders that cinematic production feel.

Conclusion

2010 starts off with a title that is completely worth your coin. My first play-through on ‘Apocalyptic’ difficulty took about 19 hours (and in the process, 4709.78 gallons of demon blood was spilled). Taking into account that I didn’t even manage to fully upgrade a single weapon in this time – and still have a load of accessories and combat moves to buy/unlock, plus finding the hidden collectibles I missed, there’s some serious time to spend in Darksiders. I’d hazard a guess of around 40 hours+ to Platinum.

Is that your sword?…

The time and passion Vigil Games have poured into Darksiders is evident no matter where you turn. Its been a labour of love. Graphically its an impressive feat, enemies and NPC’s are remarkably memorable for their design and story, the world itself is gorgeous.

In 19 hours, its been completely solid, no freezes, no glitches, no noticeable issues whatsoever (something that I can rarely say with games lately) and I’m gagging to get back playing again.

We’ve started 2010 off with an absolutely superb hack and slash title. War is one of the most bad-ass protagonists we’ve seen in a game and with any luck, we’ll see more of him in the future.