Darksiders: The Art of War.

[Strickland]

If you haven't heard about this PS3 game coming out, check out all the information you'll need here. (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/875/875437p1.html)

What do you people think? I like the premise of playing one of the Four Horsemen; who doesn't want to play some harbringer of death and destruction? But personally, the story seems a little dry and cliche'. False apocalypse starts, War is blamed, sent to Earth (with all his epic abilities stripped away, of course) to set the balance back up and rectify things, yada yada yada. While there's not much leeway you can do when dealing with stuff in the Bible, I thought the plotline would be a bit more in depth and surprising. Still, you can't go wrong with the Four Horsemen (although it would be even cooler if you could select which Horseman you played).
Speaking of which, onto the action portion. At first glance from the screenshots, it looks, for lack of a better word, epic. However, as I watched the video and watched the gameplay, as with the storyline the action felt dry. Yeah, you get to run up story-high enemies with a giant-ass sword and rip them open. Yeah, you get to ride on a horse made of flames and darkness (Balrog-steed, woot) while shooting at enemies with a chaingun. But when you think about it, when have you not done cooler things before in games such as Devil May Cry (all of them), God of War (again, all of them), and even Dead Rising? That, and the action in those games seems much more-fast paced than anything the gameplay videos in Darksiders revealed. The lack of a real variety in enemies also troubled me, and I'm afraid the game will turn out to suffer from what I call GSS; Giant-Spider Syndrome. There are only so many of one enemy you can kill before you throw down your controller and say, in the words of Cartman, "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home."
But, this is just a preview of what's to come, and it may turn out that Darksiders could be the "dark horse" of 2009. Seeing as I don't own a PS3, I can't say for certain, but I don't think this will be one of those games you should go out and buy one for just for the sake of playing the game. Sure, it may look fun, but for those like me who don't own a PS3, if you really want to play it convince one of your friends who does have one to buy the game so you can have fun ripping giant worms open.
Overall, I rate the game a 6.5 out of 10; it would have been a 6, but since you're playing freakin' War I gave it an extra point five.
What do you guys think?

[Letho]

I have a question first. Why even bother making a thread about a game that you only partially like when there are probably like dozen of games coming out this year that already look more appealing?

The story of Darksiders seems decent, better than some of the games of the genre (DMC2 anyone?), and the concept of playing one of the Horsemen certainly seems interesting. But let's face it, it's not the story that keeps you going with these kinds of games, but the gameplay. Right now, that particular part doesn't look overly impressive. It doesn't suck, but I didn't see anything revolutionary about it either, just a whole lot of sword-swinging and some horse riding and some pretty jumpy graphics. I wonder what kind of weapons would you be able to use and would they be upgradeable. It'll probably turn out to be a decent action game, but definitely not the type of game that makes you go out and buy the console just so you can play it.

[Strickland]

I have a question first. Why even bother making a thread about a game that you only partially like when there are probably like dozen of games coming out this year that already look more appealing?

The story of Darksiders seems decent, better than some of the games of the genre (DMC2 anyone?), and the concept of playing one of the Horsemen certainly seems interesting. But let's face it, it's not the story that keeps you going with these kinds of games, but the gameplay. Right now, that particular part doesn't look overly impressive. It doesn't suck, but I didn't see anything revolutionary about it either, just a whole lot of sword-swinging and some horse riding and some pretty jumpy graphics. I wonder what kind of weapons would you be able to use and would they be upgradeable. It'll probably turn out to be a decent action game, but definitely not the type of game that makes you go out and buy the console just so you can play it.
Oh, it looks very appealing just for the plotline. Personally I'm hoping they expand more upon it rather than turn the game into another slash n' hack; you may play them for the gameplay, but it's the story that attracts me. At least, that's what it was for me and God of War. I'm saying that yeah, it may not be much now, but look at the potential.
Back when I first heard about this, about a year and half ago, it actually looked better than it does now. It was more RPG-elemented rather than looking like another DMC game, and you could get different armor and everything while exploring the terrain. It still featured the same characters, and War pretty much looked the same, but in addition to being able to tear apart your enemies with your bare hands like a juggernaut you had an equipment system very much like a D&D based game; equip certain armor here, a weapon there, yada yada.
As for weapons, so far it looks like you have your giant sword and at least one chaingun, although rumors circulate about being able to take Death's scythe and some of the other Horsemen's weaponry as well.

[Letho]

Personally, if I want a good story, I rather play an RPG or a half-decent adventure game (preferably point-and-click). But to each their own. I do agree that there is definite potential there, don't get me wrong. But the way the gaming industry is today, it's more likely that they'll spend their time on polishing the "uber cool" graphics than a good story.

I hope that Darksiders won't end up like Jason and the Argonauts. They promised RPG elements and non-linear story in that one as well, but it wound up being a very dull, repetitive, straight forward hack n' slash. It seems that when they mention "RPG elements" these days, they mean some very basic system like the one in DMC/GoW. Which isn't much of an RPG element at all.

EDIT: Correction, The Rise of the Argonauts is the name of the game.