Sigh. Just tried to install Darksiders to hard drive and it's telling me it can't read the disc. The game still boots up to the main menu when I run it from the disc, but it looks like it'll just end up locking on me at some point.
Fucking Blockbuster. May the wrath of War wreak havoc upon you.
A pc version would be nice because man the frame rate nose dives during some sections, rarely but still annoying, and cranking up the AA would be nice.
A pc version would be nice because man the frame rate nose dives during some sections, rarely but still annoying, and cranking up the AA would be nice.
Loved Penny Arcade's Gabe reaction to Kotaku's review:
Luke Plunkett over at Kotaku called Darksiders a "Creative Mess" In his review and laments Joe Madureira's input. This statement alone is enough to make me think that he should probably never write game reviews again. Perhaps he should be relegated to stories about cakes that look like 1up mushrooms or cufflinks shaped like the Triforce.
He doesn't like the designs in Darksiders, which in my book says more about Luke Plunkett than it does about Joe Mad. In reality the designs are fantastic. Joe's work is energetic, iconic and just plain solid. The guy can fucking DRAW for real and Darksiders is overflowing with really inspiring visuals.
I'm not a big fan of Joe Mad's style, even though I think he's a good artist, but his style translates insanely-well to 3D. Loving the visuals of the game and it gets better and better.
Hmm just taking the PA blurb by itself, it sounds like Gabe is overly bitter (and rather fanboyish at the end). The game does come off as a creative mess sometimes, and the art style definitely isn't for everyone.
It doesn't help that some of the nicer environments require some serious dedication to get to. But it does help that when you get to them they come off original and compelling (most of the time).
My problem isn't with blocking, so much as countering. From what I've experienced it doesn't seem to interrupt the enemy at all. I could perform a counter, and the enemy could keep on attacking me anyway while I do the counter, making me take a lot of damage (especially on Apocalyptic).
My problem isn't with blocking, so much as countering. From what I've experienced it doesn't seem to interrupt the enemy at all. I could perform a counter, and the enemy could keep on attacking me anyway while I do the counter, making me take a lot of damage (especially on Apocalyptic).
Well from what I saw when you block or counter an attack it staggers the enemy and stops their chain assuming you can block the attack. So if they keep attacking then you should evade those attacks rather than block them.
A few thoughts that have been swimming around in my head:
- I wish the overworld was a bit more interconnected. As it is, it's basically a central area with a path to a dungeon to the north, east, and west, and a minor area to the south. The fourth dungeon changes this a bit, but for the most part, the different parts of the overworld are just linear paths to the different dungeons. While the designs of the individual rooms are great, I'd like to see them put more thought into the overall layout of the overworld.
- I love how you stay in control of War, even when walking from area to area or through doors in dungeons. It's a little touch, but it's very nice and makes the world feel like one big place instead of a bunch of small places connected by loading times. I also like that dungeons actually seem to exist in the world, instead of the being ten times bigger on the inside.
- Ruin was a bit of a letdown. Only being able to use him in certain areas was disappointing. And one of the major areas you could use him in had like three things of interest total.
- The gun was disappointing. Even when powered up and with the upgrade that increases projectile damage, it barely did anything. And I was playing on normal. I can't imagine how useless it is on hard.
- The puzzle design was really, really excellent. Seeing a chest or artifact or something and thinking, "How the hell do I get that?" then wandering around for a bit until you finally figure it out was extremely satisfying.
- I'm not nearly powered up completely, so it looks like I'm gonna have to grind a bit if I want that achievement. As most enemies in the game are now dead, I wish there was a sort of arena where you could go to just fight enemies for souls to make grinding more fun.
- A simple "X artifacts and Y chests left in this area" thing on the world map screen would have been extremely nice. Having only a couple things left and having to wander the entire world aimlessly to find them is a pain.
- Why can't the map zoom in and out? Seems like a big oversight.
- Blocking and dodging on the same button didn't work that well. I think maybe they should have had you hold to block and tap to dodge.
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The mask should have been mapped to the left stick. Having it take up one of your three inventory slots despite having no offensive capabilities was annoying.
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Same with the portal gun, having to switch it out to take up a slot got annoying. It could have been an upgrade to the gun or the crossblade instead.
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The ending was pretty cool - "Not alone." - but a total tease. We don't even get to see the other three horsemen? Really? Not to mention the unanswered questions in the story. Hopefully the game's successful enough to get the sequel it's clearly setting up for. Maybe let us play as all four horsemen?
I think I'm gonna give the game a rest for now. I'm just missing three artifacts, a handful of health/wrath shards, and whatever goes in the slot underneath the Abyssal Armor and
Armageddon
, so I'll definitely jump back in when a good item checklist appears to finish that off (and it kills me to resort to an item checklist, really, but I can't even find the last few things with the "reveal everything" doohickey equipped). As much as I want to immediately jump into a hard mode run, I think I'll wait a bit to do that so I don't burn myself out on the game.
Everytime I think the game just can't get any cooler, it hits me with some fucking awesome cutscene or badass event.
Just got the shadow mask
and I'm just gushing over here. Really hope the prequel comic gets put online =/
SketchTheArtist said:
Loved Penny Arcade's Gabe reaction to Kotaku's review:
I'm not a big fan of Joe Mad's style, even though I think he's a good artist, but his style translates insanely-well to 3D. Loving the visuals of the game and it gets better and better.
How do you get the artifact that's on top of the building in the lake on Drowned Pass? I can see the orange grapple hook but it won't let me swing to it, Im definitely in range for it
I'm still missing two though. I hear there's two in the teleporting world or whatever, but I've only found one. And I've gone to all of them with Fury's emblem and looked at the map, so I don't know what's up with that.
dralla said:
How do you get the artifact that's on top of the building in the lake on Drowned Pass? I can see the orange grapple hook but it won't let me swing to it, Im definitely in range for it
I'm still missing two though. I hear there's two in the teleporting world or whatever, but I've only found one. And I've gone to all of them with Fury's emblem and looked at the map, so I don't know what's up with that.
It's in the passage between The Dry Road and The Ashlands, in a room with three ceiling monsters and a wire. There's a grapple point up at the top of the room.
A pc version would be nice because man the frame rate nose dives during some sections, rarely but still annoying, and cranking up the AA would be nice.
It's in the passage between The Dry Road and The Ashlands, in a room with three ceiling monsters and a wire. There's a grapple point up at the top of the room.
Can you remember which serpent holes the wrath shards were in? There was one in the hole to the Dry Road, and there was a health shard in the one to the Twilight Cathedral, but apparently there's another one that I haven't seen.
Can you remember which serpent holes the wrath shards were in? There was one in the hole to the Dry Road, and there was a health shard in the one to the Twilight Cathedral, but apparently there's another one that I haven't seen.
Fun game. If I had to rate it at all, I'd say 7/10, which is pretty good. Ending
leaves a lot of room open for a sequel, and hopefully this game does well enough that they can make a sequel and have more time to polish it up. One big problem I had with the game is how rough and unfinished a lot of it felt.
- I wish the overworld was a bit more interconnected. As it is, it's basically a central area with a path to a dungeon to the north, east, and west, and a minor area to the south. The fourth dungeon changes this a bit, but for the most part, the different parts of the overworld are just linear paths to the different dungeons. While the designs of the individual rooms are great, I'd like to see them put more thought into the overall layout of the overworld.
- Ruin was a bit of a letdown. Only being able to use him in certain areas was disappointing. And one of the major areas you could use him in had like three things of interest total.
Considering how small and focused on platforming the early areas are this isn't at all surprising. The mount being worthwhile goes hand in hand with having a large interesting overworld.
Playing on PS3. Camera seems really jerky when moving it around, really bothers me when Im trying to focus on shit. Im only about 1 hour into it. Decent game but not so sure it deserves this much praise based on the initial run.
Playing on PS3. Camera seems really jerky when moving it around, really bothers me when Im trying to focus on shit. Im only about 1 hour into it. Decent game but not so sure it deserves this much praise based on the initial run.
I wasn't really liking the game too much at the start, but once I got into and through the first dungeon, I was totally hooked. I finished the game tonight and I can't stop thinking about how awesome the experience was. The tearing did get to me, but aside from that, I loved it.
As for GAF hype/praise, I was actually just thinking about how little it has gotten compared to what it deserves. :\
Playing on PS3. Camera seems really jerky when moving it around, really bothers me when Im trying to focus on shit. Im only about 1 hour into it. Decent game but not so sure it deserves this much praise based on the initial run.
You know the first dungeon isn't that far into the game. Which makes me wonder. Do alot of people always judge a 13 - 20 hour game off the first hour or two? I mean damn!
You know the first dungeon isn't that far into the game. Which makes me wonder. Do alot of people always judge a 13 - 20 hour game off the first hour or two? I mean damn!
Stopped right before the boss of the fourth dungeon. I also noticed(or, didn't notice) NEARLY as much tearing, I think it actually seemed to greatly decrease around the ashlands which I guess reconfirms reports that it happened a lot more early on(360).
They also appear a bit in the Gamestop preorder comic.
It's worth noting that they changed Famine and Pestilence to Fury and Strife for some reason. And Death being huge and muscular is a bit odd for a character typically portrayed as a skeleton. Still, I like the designs.
You're right though, it was a tease. An EPIC tease, but a tease nonetheless.
Trying to not flat out beat it tonight simply because I don't know where the shards are that I'm missing. artifacts too :lol One was near some water, thats all I remember...and not being able how to get to it...near Ashlands.
