The Legend of Zelda: Death Is a Badass

Before jumping into this review, I want to give you bros a foreword.  Darksiders 2 is pretty much the metal version of Zelda.  Swish that thought around, and let it culminate….  

 

DEATH IS ZELDA’S NEW BADASS BOYFRIEND!!!! Death is literally the most badass version of Link that I could’ve asked for; yes more so that Shadow Link.  No, this isn’t heresy.  I’m a massive fan of the Zelda franchise (albeit majorly disappointed with the latest outing, Skyward Sword), but I feel like this is the Zelda game I’ve been waiting for a long time.  Let’s break it down.

Story

I honestly couldn’t tell you what the first game is about.  I played the first Darksiders a long time ago, and all I remember about that game was War (one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) got screwed over and got his ass landed in some eternal imprisonment.  I can gather flashbacks of angels and demons, and very boring, clunky gameplay.  I liked the first game, but I had no hype for it.  I had no urge to ever pick it up ever again.  Fast forward some time later, the trailer for DS2 was released.  There was something very different about this game, and it really piqued my interest.  There was something that was dark, mysterious, and adventurous about it.  

Darksiders 2 picks up as Death, War’s brother, searching for a way to free War; they’re bros after all.  Death looks for this witch/weenie/crowman to magic a way to get his brother back.  Well, a heated argument ensues, and Death ended up killing the guy –WOOPS.  A magic amulet breaks, and Death is warped to a WHOLE NEW WORLD (cue Aladdin carpet ride).  It’s the dwarf kingdom…wait these guys are huge, but look like dwarves and they make everything….Hmm.  FORGELANDS.  So you do some stuff for these giant ass dwarves, who I might add, seem completely capable of doing, and you find out a lot more shit going on behind the scenes.  There’s something corrupting all the lands, and blocking Death’s means of saving humanity and War – its called corruption.  10/10, great name!  Corruption has something to do with Death’s people, the Nephilim (Stupid strong, blood thirsty peeps).  So after a certain point DS2 involves Death adventuring around different worlds and freeing them of the corruption. 

I should probably mention the story is definitely one of the low points of the game (not the lowest).

Game Feel

There’s something INCREDIBLY satisfying about this game.  It’s instantly relatable if you’ve ever played Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, or even Wind Waker.  At its core, Darksiders 2, is an action adventure game, and to its best merit it is exceedingly fun to explore its unique world.  Like I mentioned earlier, Death visits several different worlds in this game, but without a doubt, the first one (the one with the oxymoron dwarves).  There is something incredibly breathtaking when you get the chance to roam the massive grasslands...of the Forge Lands.  The scenery is totally magnificent, and they do a great job of making each world have a different look and feel.  In the Forge Lands, it makes you feel like you’re a part of some lost side story in Lord of the Rings AND IT’S FUCKING AWESOME.  You find a lot of ancient ruins, tombs, and dungeons that look and feel like it’s been around for centuries.  Another great world is the World of the Dead; and its stupid creepy.  I really love it; the ground is dark and decayed with a continual rolling fog.  It feels bleak, looks like it belongs on a cover of a 70’s metal record, AND IT’S FUCKING AWESOME. And lastly there is Lostlight; it’s some middle ground between Heaven and Hell.  And it lets you teleport to Earth, too – PSSST. Earth’s pretty lame.

Most of the fighting in this game is kind of like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta in the sense that it’s high adrenaline, 3^rd person hack ‘n slash.  I really enjoy that style of gameplay because it’s fast-paced, relentless, and very difficult.  I guess I forgot to mention there’s no blocking…unless you have a shield equipped! A blue hedgehog put it best; “GOTTA BE FAST!”  So in other words, it’s rewarding when you defeat a room of skeletons or skittish giant-ass panthers.  You can also become ultimate reaper when some bar fills up, big gaming cliché – I think that’s the only aspect I don’t like of the actual combat. Besides using a scythe, two actually, you can use a secondary weapon.  There are a couple different types of secondary weapons including a staff, claws, AND A BIG ASS HAMMER.  Guess which one is my favorite!  There’s also magic.  Magic is what I focused on in my play through; mostly because I felt like it leveled the playing field – there’s rooms where it’s at least 10 to 1 with one or two BIG ASS versions of the regular evil minions.  Magic’s focus was to play more defensively; you can summon several ghouls that are quick and fierce to fight your foes for you.  The best part was they rack up your combo meter like crazy.  You can also summon a swarm of crows to peck away at your foes – it’s helluva lot more useful than it sounds (Think The Birds!)  There’s another skill tree that’s more focused on melee combat, but I didn’t use that one.  From my understanding it’s more about using big, sweeping attacks, and agility, teleporting moves as well.  Then we have the enemies.  

This game has a great variety of enemies, mini-bosses, bosses, and secret ass bosses.  I love ‘em all.  I will admit, however, towards the end of the game the enemies are lame and pretty cheap.  I’ll get to that later.  I think my favorite part of this game is there’s many dungeons that you completely can skip or accidently pass up, that have really great bosses and dat sweet loot.  Speaking of loot, it’s an important factor in DS2.  You get chunks of armor and weapons when you kill baddies or open dem sweet azz chests.  You’ll find different pieces of armor with varying attributes or bonuses (like frost damage).  It can actually become quite engrossing to find all the chests in a dungeon because you gotta know what you might find.

Most of the game takes place in varying dungeons based on which world you are on, and most of them are great.  Every dungeon has an overlying theme (Kind of how Zelda has Fire Temple, Water Temple), and has puzzles based around newly acquired gear or gameplay mechanic.  This is great with me, because the puzzles are varied and change up the gameplay from fighting all the time.  The level design on some levels is truly inspired; there’s a huge elevator themed level that you try to open the different levels to get to one specific one to fight the boss.  In every venture in the dark dungeons, Death employs a great skill of acrobatics or PoP’s (Prince of Persia).  If you hadn’t figured out yet, Death is a very agile bro-killer.  He is adept at climbing around, jumping, and doing general PoP acrobatics like wall running.  It’s a positive change of platforming compared to the first Darskiders, where you just walk into a room and kill dudes – Yeah, that’s the whole game.  

I want to briefly talk about Lostlight; aka the poop.  This level is kinda boring because you are tasked to go to Earth, Heaven, and Hell.  I say this is boring because it’s hackneyed, and we’ve done this too many times in video games – Diablo says hi.  Lostlight is actually just a hub for the other three worlds.  This is kinda disappointing. Earth is all post-apocalyptic and dirty.  There’s zombies running around, and it’s awful.  For whatever dumb reason you are pretty much forced to play this area as a 3^rd person shooter, and it is not fun.  You have to find three things and shoot dudes while looking.  I can’t for the life of me figure out why they would suddenly change gameplay so drastically, and it feels really, really rushed.  I ran into three or four glitches in this area, and one of ‘em corrupted my save file (that wasn’t too bad because I had several saves going on).  Even more frustratingly, I couldn’t turn in my quest in one glitch.  I kept going back to Earth to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and this was making me lose my mind. Heaven and Hell aren’t nearly as bad, but Earth definitely soured my experience.

My favorite side quest-esque thing to do in this game is play in the Crucible.  The Crucible is a endurance/fighting arena you can participate in for really great loot.    You don’t get an opportunity to save in between waves, and when you finish five at a time you talk to the champ.  He’ll let you leave with a prize or continue the greedy fight.  You get to replay a lot of the bosses you encounter, and it’s incredibly difficult.  I spent a couple hours playing just this; it’s really addicting to try to finish the whole damn thing.

 

End of the line, Darksiders 2 is incredibly fun.  If you’re in the mood for a more hardcore adventure game, this is your best bet.  I’m actually happy to say I had way more fun than I ever anticipated, and EVERYONE SHOULD BUY IT.

Rating:

My Hype Train of Opinion 2: Picking a new system is kinda like voting.

He just got run over by a Warthog...

So last night I had a thought, picking a new video game system is like voting. Most of us have already made up our minds on the best system a year before we even see them. There is a reason for this, just like the political parties, we pick what fits our needs. I realize now, that I could not live without my PS3. I love my NFL Sunday Ticket, oversized Blu-Ray player, and Uncharted. So, when I first hear of the PS4, I will probably be all over it like Cartman's mom was all over the Denver Broncos.. Basically I have turned into a Sony slut. I had an Xbox 360 that I did love, because of the online service but I can live without that. I have found other features to be more important.

Same goes for handhelds, as much as I think the Vita looks cool, I will pick Nintendo every time. I cannot turn down handheld Mario and the rest of the first party games. The point is, the company's are not competing for experienced gamers, they are competing for the noobs. Just like campaigning for President, the old folks minds are made up. You have to convince the youth.

Now if you look at each system like a political party it goes something like this:
1. I believe the Playstation 3 is our Republican candidate. It is not extremely accessible, but it has a strong and determined fan base that will never turn on it. Also, Playstation is the older company that still is looking out for the best in gaming. It can be a turnoff for people that have never played the God of War series, but may not want to jump in on the 18th iteration. Sony fans will eat up everything put out though. Thus, there is massive love for there first party games and the characters that inhabit them.

2, Xbox is the democrat. The 360 tries to incorporate and appeal to everyone. Men, women, children, animals, ghosts... whatever, they all love an Xbox. Microsoft finds out what people may want and then tries to convince them that they do by producing the crap out of it. Just look at the Kinect. People wanted motion control that felt like they were totally in control and Microsoft delivered. They are always to give everyone something that they want. This has also been an issue. They lack first party games and their fan base is not as loyal as the PS3's they are much more likely to flip and make an educated opinion in what is best for their gaming. With that being said, they have a HUGE fan base and are generally loved.

Ugh.

3. Nintendo is our independent. Half the time I do not know who their audience really is (One minute it is kids, the next adults, and the seniors)  and what in the heck they are doing. Like Ron Paul, they will say and do a billion smart things, just to do something absolutely crazy. I love them for that.

Like I said, most people's minds are already made up.. Just like elections in the United States. Both sides have strong forces that are trying to pull the new players and the confused to their side. My advice, stop trying to appeal to everyone (looking at you motion controls) and stick with what ya know. Do what you have been doing for years, fix what us fanboys want, and the rest will fall into place.

My Hype Train of Opinion 1: Treyarch vs. Infinity Ward

Last night I played Black Ops II until 4 in the morning. While this may not seem like a huge feat to anyone, it is for me. I absolutely hated MW3... I refused to pay for another Call of Duty and would be content waiting for Battlefield 4. Then I remembered that this was a Treyarch year. That's right, I think Treyarch makes better CoD games than the creators of the series Infinity Ward. This seems to be an uncommon way of thought based on some conversations I have had through the years, but look at the evidence. Even at Treyarch's worst (World at War), they still created something funny and original. Those darn dogs were terrifying and silly at the same time.

Treyarch has always taken some chances where Infinity Ward has not. Just look at the zombie mode they created. Sure, Infinity Ward had Survival Mode in MW3 but it can not touch the originality of the original Black Ops' Zombie Mode. JFK and Fidel Castro working together? Are you kidding me?! The mode was so off the wall and created a very complete game. It did not feel like an add-on, but instead showed how hard the studio had worked to make Call of Duty something for everyone. My girlfriend who hates video games even played zombie mode with me. Zombies were such a great low risk way to get everyone involved in the game.

THE ORIGINAL NUKETOWN... CHATEAU!!

Now, this is not a review for Black Ops II. I will say it has beyond exceeded my expectations. I am addicted in about every way and I think it has finally replaced my all time favorite Duty, the Original, OG, Call of Duty. That game had it all and was an extremely innovative shooter. Treyarch still attempts to be innovative, Infinity Ward does not. The original Modern Warfare was exciting but it's sequels took no chances. They never changed the formula. There was no growth and it seemed to me they were just in it for the money. Treyarch takes less popular ideas (going back to WWII for World at War, and just the whole Black Ops idea) and make an incredibly creative experience. I hope Treyarch continues to pump out fun shooters that never take themselves too seriously. Now, back to shooting up futuristic LA... looks about the same to me.