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‘It’s like Zelda.’ Now
call me crazy, but I
can’t help but feel
that over the years
these three words
have never done
the first Darksiders
justice, incorrectly rendering this
stylish (and brutal) action adventure
as little more than an inferior take
on its contemporaries. It’s simply not
the case. That’s why, to prove this
tact, I recently thought it worth diving
back into Vigil Games’ cult classic
hack-and-slasher in the lead up to its
upcoming prequel game. Alongside
his brother and new horseman Strife,
War will once again be back in the
saddle for Darksiders Genesis. And
if his efforts in this awfully titled
Warmastered Edition of the original
are anything to go by, that game will
be all the better for it.
For anyone unaware, Darksiders
instantly reinforces how cool it is by
starting you off during the end of
the world. This is a universe where
the fabled Four Horsemen Of The
Apocalypse are real, and you as one of
them, War, find yourself caught in the
battle between the forces of Heaven
and Hell. Not even two seconds into
playing there are already buildings
crumbling around me, demons
popping up from underneath
and I’m swinging my
hefty Chaoseater sword
around with wild
abandon. Darksiders
always did start with
a bang, sticking to the
classic videogame trope
of letting you wreck shop
with all your powers, before
stripping you of them. I’ve now had
my taste of god powers, and that’s
more than enough encouragement to
seek them out again.
Doing so involves clearing out
arena-sized rooms of enemies,
exploring countless ravaged settings
and most importantly completing a
string of dungeon-like locations. The
first of these is called the Twilight
Cathedral – a place that works as the
perfect exercise in how to merge funtraversal with puzzles. It doesn’t take
long for me to get into the swing of
things, uncovering all relevant doors,
spiral staircases and avoiding plenty
of lava pits all in search of my first
target: Tiamat the bat queen.Highway to hell
It feels great to just wail on
enemies using either the
Chaoseater or any one of
the other great weapons
purchasable from the in-
game shop; it’s a far cry
from the more technical,
Dark Souls-ification the
series would later succumb
to in 2018’s Darksiders 3.
At the time Darksiders was
widely described as a blend between
Zelda and that other platform’s
series in which an angry Greek man
undergoes several shouting matches
against gods (you know the one). This
may have been a fair comparison at
the time, but now almost a decade
on, the original Darksiders feels like
the last keeper of the flame for both
those inspirations. Zelda’s latest, for
instance, while great, did away withthe typical dungeon format, and God
Of War swapped glorious gory top-
down action for a more pared back
over-the-shoulder perspective.
The classic design ethos of both
these peers is still inherently kept
alive in Darksiders: Warmastered
Edition. And as I finally come face
to face with Tiamat, it feels good to
flitter between light, heavy and ranged
attacks while fighting atop a stormy
tower, knowing that once done I’ll be
rewarded with another nifty gizmo that
I can take on my journey and use to
destroy anyone else standing in my
way. War is hell, but Darksiders at least
proves it can sometimes be the fun
kind if using the correct attitude. Qextra
“It feels good to flitter between light,
heavy and ranged attacks while
fighting atop a stormy tower”
Making a violent mockery of angels and demons
in Darksiders: Warmastered Edition AARON POTTER
PUBLISHER THQ NORDIC / DEVELOPER KAIKO, VIGIL GAMES / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE NOVEMBER 2016WHAT IS IT?
A souped-up, shiner
version of the first
Darksiders game that’s
big on attitude and
even bigger on hellish
badassery.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 099