Darksiders

Did I talk about Darksiders yet?

The word is spectacle. Spectacle, spectacle, spectacle. I think the main point of the game is just to look really cool.

There's this beefy dude with ridiculous armor, and he bashes demons with his enormously oversized sword. It's moderately hack-and-slashy, but the combat's not particularly great. It's just flashy and over-the-top.

Here's the story. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to come riding down when it's time for the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, War gets duped into riding down too early. Gasp! Now there's all these angels and demons having this big ol' apocalyptic war and all the humans are dead, and everyone is mad at War because they think it's totally his fault. War's superpowers get confiscated and he has to trudge around Earth until he can find the real culprit and clear his name. There's ten gazillion plotholes in this premise, but it's mostly just an excuse for the hacking and slashing and the spectacle.

I heard good things about this game before I started playing it, so I had high hopes. I'm disappointed to say that it didn't meet my expectations. It's not that it's a bad game, per se; it's certainly passable, and it definitely provides lots of spectacle. Being pretty to look at is fine, but Darksiders fails to impress me on gameplay, and it comes down to the combat. The combat just kind of...sucks.

There's a combo meter, for example, but it's not actually clear how it works—from what I can tell, it drops the combo count for no reason. I'm still attacking, I'm still hitting enemies, I'm not taking damage. What more does it want? Am I timing my attacks wrong? Am I pressing a wrong button? I don't know, because there isn't any sort of feedback system to tell me. Does the combo count even mean anything? I have no idea.

War also has very limited ability to dodge or block attacks, so in most fights, there's not much tactics beyond mashing the attack button. Coming to Darksiders from games like Bastion and Batman: Arkham City, it's a woefully inferior combat system—a flaw that's difficult to forgive for a game that consists almost entirely of combat. Maybe this changes later on, but I'm two hours into the game already; it wouldn't be much of an excuse if it did.

From what I've seen so far, I'm unimpressed with Darksiders. My rating: Meh/10.

The thing with my current computer is that it just flat can't run a bunch of my games. That means there are a lot of games on my to-play list that I want to play, but can't. But very soon, I'll be running a brand-new laptop with vastly superior specs. This is exciting; it means I can dust off all the titles that I'd left on the bench for technical reasons.

• Batman: Arkham City: I really liked the first game, even though it didn't run well on my computer either. I've been waiting for quite some time now to pick up the sequel, and I finally ended up snagging it for free in a giveaway. Arkham Asylum had this great flowing combat system with a Metroidvania-style setting to gradually explore, and it was frosted with delicious Batman flavor. It was fun and polished and a good experience, and it left me wanting more.
• Darksiders: I just got this one in the Humble THQ Bundle (which, by the way, I recommend picking up -- it's very good value) and I've been doing a bit of research on the games in said bundle. From what I can gather, Darksiders has a Zelda-esque adventure element with emphasis on third-person combat action; that sounds like something I'm likely to enjoy, and I'm eager to try it out.
• Magicka: I can't even remember how long ago I bought this game. It was on sale, and I'd seen the trailers and read reviews and had it recommended to me and I was all excited to try it out, so I dropped a couple dollars for it. After I bought it, I tried to run it and it wouldn't start. It didn't crash, it didn't lag -- it simply wouldn't run at all. When I looked at the tech support for the game, it basically said "Don't use a goddamn crappy Intel integrated laptop chipset." Frustrating. So frustrating. I wrote it off for a long time, but now I'm finally going to have a chance to get my money's worth.
• Trapped Dead: Okay, so my first impression of this game was that it was kinda lame, but I tried playing it for a while and I ended up actually sort of getting into it. The problem was that as the levels got more complex, the lag flared up to unplayable levels and I had to stop. Which left me hanging, you know? I want to keep going and see what it's like once there are more party members and game mechanics and so on.
• Revenge of the Titans: This is one from the Humble Bundle 3 that gave me a lot of trouble during last year's Steam Winter Sale event. I kept trying and trying to get the winter achievement, but the game was constantly crashing on me. Eventually I went to the tech support forum and, like Magicka, the solution they gave was "Intel chipsets are garbage and the game will keep crashing until you get a better graphics card." I don't even know if I'd like this game -- it's a combination Tower Defense and Real-Time Strategy thing -- but it looks so cute and interesting that I really want to play it.
• Overlord II: I traded some coal for the Overlord complete pack last winter. I started playing Overlord II, but it was difficult to maintain an acceptable framerate, so I gave it up. I'm still interested in the game, though. I guess the first game is older, so it might run better on my current machine... but I figured the sequel would probably be better, so that's where I started. Anyway, I can pick up where I left off.
• Hard Reset: This is a cyberpunk first-person shooter thing that I got in an Indie Royale. I kept trying to poke at it for the Quest for Value's sake, but even at minimum settings it was unplayably laggy. My guess is it'll be more along the lines of a Serious Sam than a Half-Life, and granted, I do have three Serious Sam games I could play instead. I just liked the trailer for this one.
• Dungeon Defenders: In fairness, I can play this one now. I just can't play any of the bigger maps, because my graphics card can't handle all those enemies in the game at once. As soon as I get to the later waves in the Eternia Shards missions, I inevitably lag out and become useless to my team. This is sort of a barrier to my progression.
• Quantum Conundrum: Like Arkham City, this is a game I was interested in for a while and ended up getting for free in a contest. My interest level was a lot lower than with Batman, granted, but I was curious. Actually, I'll confess, I haven't tried running it on my current machine. I'm a little scared to attempt it. I haven't had good luck with modern games lately. I know that Quantum Conundrum is a first-person puzzle game made by a lot of the same people who made Portal. From what I've heard, it's not as good as Portal, but I'd like to take a shot at it, and I'm holding off for those improved specs so I can be sure it'll work.
• Atom Zombie Smasher: This is another one like Revenge of the Titans where I tried it for the Winter event last year and was sort of intrigued by it, but couldn't possibly try it out for real because of performance issues. In this case, it's less an issue of frames per second than seconds per frame (about 3-4, on the main menu). I'd really like to give it a fair shake for the Quest for Value; it has that sort of glint to it that could be a trick of the light but might be a hidden gem.
• Space Pirates and Zombies: FTL hooked me into the space exploration thing, so I'm curious about this one now. SPAZ isn't, like, unplayable for me now, but performance is not so hot. I want to give it a try, but not so badly that I want to put up with lag, so I'm waiting.
• X-COM: Enemy Unknown: Okay, maybe this is cheating, since this is a game I don't even own. But it looks fascinating and I've heard great things about it; it sounds like the sort of thing I like and I want to at least try the demo. But I can't run the demo, so I don't hold out much hope for the full game. Think of this one as planning ahead -- I've got it on my wishlist, and I'm likely to buy it when the price drops and it goes on sale for cheap. I want to be able to run it when that time comes. And I at least want to be able to run the demo -- come on.

Wow, that list turned out longer than I thought it would. Looks like I've got an agenda. And I'm still working on Illusion of Gaia, too. Mmm, lots of things to do.

The Humble THQ Bundle

This is a surprise. The Humble Indie Bundle, but with big-budget, decidedly non-indie titles? Interesting, interesting.

I really don't know what to expect from these games. The trailers are worthless, since they're purely cinematic. I hate that.



See any gameplay there? I don't see any gameplay there. What's the gameplay like? I don't know, there's no gameplay in the trailer. Hey, game-trailer-making people: put gameplay in your trailers.

But I do know a couple things. First, $1 for all these games is value. Mmm, sweet, delicious value. Second, all these games are popular and/or well-reviewed. The lowest Metascore among them is, I believe, a 75. That's a pretty glowing recommendation. Third, while other indie bundles are fickle, the Humble Bundle has never let me down before. (Well, okay, maybe Catacomb Snatch, but I'm not counting that one.) They've earned a lot of goodwill in my book, and I am very comfortable putting down a dollar for anything they're offering.

So what exactly are these games, anyway? I feel like I've seen some of them on, like, Zero Punctuation or something. I know Darksiders is some kind of action game, like, I dunno, a God of War-type thing, maybe? 'Cept I never played God of War, so I'm just spitballing there. And Company of Heroes is labeled as a Real-Time Strategy, and Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter. There's also Saint's Row 3, which I didn't get because I didn't beat the average because $1 for 4 games is one thing and $4 for 1 game is another.

Hey, beats me. Value. Maybe I'll give these a spin sometime.