Darksiders

[Furyo]

I'm surprised no one even started a thread for this game... Did anyone else play it? I borrowed a copy from a friend and while the game initially wasn't anything special it started to grow on me after a few hours.

And that's the bulk of the problems I have with it too. The introduction to the game is boring and uninspired, from the level design to the game design, but progressively it starts getting better until you reach a proper Zelda-ish dungeon (twilight cathedral) that finally makes the game shine.

The controls overall, and the cameras that go with them, generally lack the subtlety of God of War's and that made me switch from Normal difficulty to Easy as I was becoming too frustrated with them. I should stay, I replayed from the start as you can't switch difficulties. For a game that borrows so much from God of War (all of the combat minus the interactive cutscenes), you would think they would have got that part down to a t, but I can't say it rivals its older brother.

[Erratic]

I got somewhere half way through and stopped. I gave up after sorta realizing how little exploration there is. I don't even think the combat is trying to mimic God of War, so it might be unfair to compare them, but it's certainly leaned on enough to attract those comparisons.

Actually, I don't even think the Zelda comparisons make a lot of sense. It's far too linear for even those.

[Taylor]

I brought Dittosiders on release day but I also traded it in afterwards. I played it through on apocalyptic from of the off, it is frustrating to begin with but the difficulty curve is completely back to front. For example: The first boss will kill you in a good 3 hits, requires a strategy with ricocheting shots onto the boss and then has a rather intense melee fight. And the final boss

will have to hit you a good thirty times, you have 8 instant-heal potions in your bag, leech all your life back on hit, can enter (invincibility) chaos mode within gaps of about 30 seconds, and you just have to run forwards mashing attack to dizzy the boss in one hit... Okay this isn't the true final boss, but the guy after you've thought twice already (only he had boobs those times and was harder)

.

Though, I find it interesting you use God of War as your example for a game it borrows a lot from, because I don't see it. God of War has fixed cameras that wouldn’t really fit the game, and its combat system is about attack branches and a ton of evade cancel points that Darksiders doesn’t have. But the other inspirations are clear: War is Arthas in his undead and Lich King forms thanks to his armour upgrade, the merchant is Ner’Zhul, Samael is Archimonde, that guy in your hand is a Protoss, and you even you even plummet to the ground in giant balls of fire like Infernals. The mission structure is, of course, Zelda the whole way through – as are most of the items, bomb plants, horse, etc. There’s the Portal gun, the Panzer Dragoon section... I could probably go on but I'd have to think. But there’s no denying it’s very competently done, and it’s probably a smart move for a new company. I hope the next game contains a bit more originality because the talent is certainly there.

It’s also a shame they renamed the horseman to generic names so they can play like War. Pestilence could’ve been really unique.

[Furyo]

The whole economy is 100% God of War, from the orbs you collect to how you purchase upgrades for yourself and the weapons, as well as how you use combo, throw enemies in the air to unleash the blades on him (this time you only have that one blade). If you start using the scythe it becomes even more apparent thanks to the same combo used in both games.

The Zelda comparison starts with the Twilight Cathedral, the other levels before then are simply too linear to be compared to anything other than an uninspired platformer. It even tried to copy from Prince of Persia's platforming ingredients, and managed that quite ok. Some of the items are very Nintendo-ish too, but they're not limited to Zelda, though the bombs scream of that.

[Taylor]

Though none of those things are unique to God of War, and were probably initally inspired by Devil May Cry or something even older. And I think the Zelda comparisons go deeper than you think, even the status screen is the same.

[Furyo]

True for God of War of course, but that's the obvious one that comes to mind as GoW III is set to invade everyone's living room soon and this makes it look like a shameless attempt to be able to play "GoW" on a 360.

[Grinwhrl]

True for God of War of course, but that's the obvious one that comes to mind as GoW III is set to invade everyone's living room soon and this makes it look like a shameless attempt to be able to play "GoW" on a 360.

Everyone but me, God of war is a rental

[Taylor]

True for God of War of course, but that's the obvious one that comes to mind as GoW III is set to invade everyone's living room soon and this makes it look like a shameless attempt to be able to play "GoW" on a 360.

You should play Dante's Inferno.

[Furyo]

Lol yeah Dante's Inferno is the direct rip off I see what you're saying about Zelda now even better, with the ashlands section where you slow down time...

[Gloglebag]

I never considered GoW original enough to rip off tbh.

[Izuno]

Ok speaking of Dante's Inferno (sorry to derail a little) for those of you outside the US and who may not realize, EA bought a SuperBowl add for DI. And they bought TV time during the NBA All Star game...and they bought a bunch more TV time. So the early offhand estimate for US only TV media spending is potentially $10million or more. I don't know if EA bought TV time in other territories for it, but they have spent a lot of money on marketing.

But the initial reaction, at least on Xbox 360, is that it is getting crushed by Bioshock 2 and still Mass Effect 2. My guess right now is that it will have similar initial sales to Bayonetta or Darksiders which weren't the worst but to make up for the potentially huge marketing budget, DI will need sales more like Mass Effect or at least Bioshock2.

In general I found DI to be quite a misfire for EA: if you are going to essentially copy the exact gameplay of another game, at least expand on it and bring something new and fun and at least have really good art design. DI, imo, fails to do both. Not to mention the uninspired level design.

As for Darksiders, while not the greatest either I felt DS > DI. Further GoW > (DS+DI). :roll:

[Furyo]

Going by these NPD figures, 100K copies in the first month for Darksiders is a very respectable performance. I hope they actually are a small company and haven't paid a lot in licensing fees for the engine and they might even make money with it.

On the other hand, seeing DI, Bayonetta and Army of Two perform this bad is telling. EA has now frozen all recruitments even in Montreal which was the last studio that was still hiring apparently, and are in the process of firing the Army of Two team. Along with the 1K plus that are going to be let go after the end of fiscal year.

[Izuno]

On topic Darksiders:

Just to be clear Bayonetta was a Sega game. Darksiders actually did 300k units on 360+PS3 in first NPD month (US only, obviously) while Bay did about 165k (360+PS3)...and the both released on the same day. Bay had meta/GR scores in the upper 80s while DS was in the lower 80s. So it's not like Bayonetta was a turd of a game but clearly it did not resonate the way DI did (kudos to THQ on that).

Slightly offtopic on Dante's Inferno and EA:

AoT40thD seemed to underperform in its launch month while, coming no where close to what the original game did in its launch month despite supposedly improving a lot of things. Hmm..

DI looks to be headed in the same direction. I still think releasing on the same day as Bioshock 2, even though that is a shooter game, hurt DI.

While no publisher gets everything right, EA is becoming a real mixed bag recently with excellent products like Mass Effect 2 and FIFA 10 contrasted against AoT40 and DI. Next test is Bad Company 2 due out in early March...though this seems to be clearly going after the MW2 crowd so it better bring something special to the party.

Oh yeah we were talking about Darksiders...

[Taylor]

There's an interview on Gamasutra where they say boiled it down to Dante killing shit monsters (literal) with a chain scythe, because that's what gamers want. “Gamers” is a bit too broad for my liking, but certainly their target audience is unlikely to have interest in the original. But the game being a poor mans God of War is almost beside the point as it was going to sell well regardless. The advertising was extremely aggressive featuring everything from humorous review bribes, to fake religious protests, to leaked baby killing achievements, to expansive TV coverage.

Bayonetta certainly wasn't a turd, it is up there with DMC3 (though slightly behind). But the creative direction was much less likely to resonate with a US audience and there was little advertising by comparison - I believe it's sold pretty well across Europe and in Japan, but I don't have any numbers to give you.

Edit: Toned it down.