Whosiders?

I started playing Darksiders today. I’m trying to decide if I want to keep going. Playing it right after playing Bayonetta was a poor decision.

Bayonetta was an incredibly well tuned action game that just oozed style from every pore. Everything that happens in the game is crazy, sexy, and cool. Like the TLC album. At one point Bayonetta loses her lollipop and instead of just letting it go she runs down the wall and dives toward lava to catch it.

Not only that, but the characters are pretty cool as well. I’m not going to suggest that the characters in Bayonetta are award-winning by any means, but they’re fun to watch the same way Dante is fun to watch in Devil May Cry.

War in Darksiders is the opposite. He’s this one-dimensional World of Warcraft-reject, giant shoulder pads, huge sword, and everything. Normally I have a weakness for a badass with a giant sword but War manages to take everything I like about a character and make it boring. I’m also getting a little tired of the whole “War between Heaven and Hell with Man caught in the middle!” thing.

Total disinterest in the main character aside, the worst part for me is probably the gameplay.

Bayonetta’s long fight sequences were alleviated by the sheer variety of moves and animations. No matter what, you were always doing SOMETHING cool in Bayonetta. Darksiders has been compared to the Zelda series by more than one review and it’s easy to see why. Not only do you go along finding things like bomb plants, the first item you find is a boomerang. The combat, unfortunately, is about as deep. There’s one kind of attack, making any real combinations or moves uninteresting at best. Further, dodging and blocking often just don’t work. If I’m trying to dodge a swing and my character dodges INTO the boss, that’s a problem. Same if he dodges into the swing.

Whilst fighting Tiamat, the grotesque, bare-breasted bat-queen, I eventually set the controller down when I realized the game was making me swear.

Will I go back? Will I play again? Find out next time, on Dukes of Hazzard!