Let's Talk... Blackguards

Let's Talk... 3089: A Futuristic ARPG

Let's Talk... Darksiders 2

The original Darksiders, although a great game, bordered the dangerous line between being a respectable homage to the Legend of Zelda series and just being a straight up knock-off. Vigil Games could have easily crossed that line with Darksiders 2, but with a solid formula already established and a potentially vast world to dig into, Vigil Games has kept much of the original game’s original concepts and expanded on them in a way that feels both smart and natural.

In Darksiders 2, you play as Death, one of the others horsemen of the apocalypse, as he attempts to get his mighty unpopular brother, War (the protagonist of the first game and another horseman of the apocalypse), out of a whole heap of trouble. Although knowledge of the events of the first game would make it a little easier to follow the story of this game, you wouldn't be at a major loss if you have no idea who the four horsemen are or who belongs to which faction etc. Also, instead of taking place on a ruined Earth like the first, the game is instead set in an entirely different world and is constantly switching between the land of the living and the land of the dead. The change of scenery adds some much needed variety to the environments and allows for some much more interesting and far more fantastical set pieces.  

Death looks and plays very different to his brother, War

Unlike the heavy and powerful War, Death is a significantly quicker and more agile character straight from the get-go with a trusty pair of dual-wielded scythes being the main tools of your arsenal. Of course, scythes aren’t the only weapons at your disposal. The game’s new and engaging loot system offers plenty of opportunity to frequently upgrade and replace your current equipment with armour and weapons. As with any loot-driven game, weapons are totally defined by their attack speed (there’s essentially one type for slow, medium and fast) and the various attributing stats they may wield (which include things like critical strike chance, life on hit, life on crit etc.). Naturally, the addition of loot makes Darksiders 2 as much an RPG as an action game.

The same can be said for the addition of the very standard quest system that allows you to track the main quest and side quests. The side quests are fairly standard for the most part and you’d do well to get through them all without getting bored of their repetitive fetch-y nature. These quests are usually simple tasks like searching a dungeon for a particular item, or killing X for Y, but some more interesting side content begins to open up later, such as the round-based survival arena that will offer you loot for an exit every five rounds. For some, changes like adding loot and quests, although pretty smart changes, may move the feel of the game too far away from what made the first Darksiders feel so different and it almost feels like Darksiders 2 has lost some of its identity by doing so.

The world is enormous compared to the first game, but it's easy to forget that with all the immediate fast travelling the game offers

 One of the core features of the original game that has not been canned, however, is the steady progression of Metroidvania-style items required for traversing the world and solving puzzles. The grappling hook and portal gun rip-off make a return in slightly different forms, as well as the ability to split yourself into two beings for the purpose of holding down pressure plates for opening doors and raising bridges etc. For the most part, these items open up some fun but rather rudimentary puzzles until you unlock the self-duplicating ability. The game builds some interesting and rather challenging puzzles out of this relatively simple mechanic in a pretty novel way. Also, later in the game the portal gun rip-off is upgraded to have reality-switching properties that make the last portion of the game rather tricky at times.

The combat isn’t exactly difficult but sure is satisfying when done right. The different weapon types and the variety of stats available from armour and weapons allow you to build your character in rather dynamic ways. For example, my preference was to equip the fastest weapon type, a pair of claws, and attempt to max out my critical strike chance and life on kill as much as possible, which paved the way for me to just tear through some areas. On top of the gear is a two-sided talent tree that basically has one side for ranged attacks and summoning minions, and the other for melee-focused obliteration.

Floating combat numbers aren't the only thing that make the game feel more like a standard RPG, but its a nice addition nonetheless

Overall, Darksiders 2 does a great job of expanding on the story and gameplay of its predecessor whilst still adding enough to keep it fresh and iterative enough. The change of protagonist and change of setting are both smart and natural changes that do the game a great service. However, although the addition of loot and a standard quest system are positive changes, they take away a significant part the series’ identity. Either way, with two solid games under their belt and still another two horsemen of the apocalypse to explore, Vigil Games have plenty of room for another sequel.

Let's Talk... DmC: Devil May Cry

As someone who has never been a fan of the Devil May Cry series in any capacity, DmC: Devil May Cry was a pretty great surprise. This flashy reboot moves away from the series’ traditional roots of extreme difficulty and replaces it with a considerably less challenging and more accessible experience. The game’s extremely stylish art style and excellent level design easily outweighs the satisfying yet simplified combat system, and it certainly seems to be more the focus of the game.

A satisfying and rewarding combat system is great fun, but it certainly isn't as difficult as previous DMC games

 A younger and controversially reinvented Dante takes center stage of the reboot. The story explores Dante’s past, as is the standard for reboots, and sees him team up with his long-lost brother, Vergil, to stop the demons taking over the world with a mind-numbing soda drink. It’s pretty ridiculous, and as soon as a flying pizza covers up Dante’s crotch as he flies into his clothes you know it isn’t going to take itself particularly serious. For as dumb as it is on paper, its execution actually isn’t half-bad. It manages to tell its own stupid story, somewhat build Dante as a character and makes enough room for potential sequels, whilst attempting to explore some harrowing topics like sexual assault and domestic violence (granted it’s only for a brief moment and touches on it in the lightest possible way).

When compared to the previous games, the combat certainly appears considerably “dumbed down” at face value. But as new weapon unlocks and a whole host of purchasable combos add layer upon layer, it eventually becomes pretty complex. Some enemies appear in ethereal forms that will only become solidified when using the right weapon. Some enemies require you to pull off particular combos to leave them vulnerable. And, of course, the Devil May Cry trademark of knocking up enemies and juggling them in the air with your guns is well intact. The combat is certainly no cakewalk, especially at the higher difficulties (which actually get quite creative in how they alter the challenge of the game, for example, all enemies die in one hit but so do you) and involves a lot of switching between different weapons and doing your best to look as stylish as possible.

A gorgeous art style and some great art direction elevate every inch of this game's appeal

Fortunately, the game’s reasonably deep scoring system incentivizes you to do just that, and plays its way into almost every aspect of the game. At the end of each level you’ll be given an overall score based on how fast you beat the level, your combat rating and how many collectibles you found. The score is an arbitrary completionist figure aside from the upgrade points you obtain from higher ratings, but the drive to get those S ranks is a great way to encourage you to experiment with the game’s angel and demon weaponry, which act as light and heavy attacks respectively. Although the combat is relatively easy on the default difficulty, the way that the game’s scoring system is constantly rewarding and punishing you during combat can actually make it rather brutal. An excellently executed combo can get your score right up there but your letter grade score drops a couple of levels whenever you’re hit.

The fact that all of the gameplay takes place in the demonic limbo/fake reality allows the designers to truly go crazy here. Mundane environments like warehouses or just typical streets are mutilated, twisted and transformed into the most ridiculous and just unrecognisable landscapes of such incredible creativity. As well as bringing some extraordinary environments, the game also throws some truly memorable boss sequences your way, too, which, whilst not exceptionally difficult, won’t be forgotten for a good long time. It’s difficult to explain some of the crazy environments and do them the justice they deserve; they’re certainly something to be experienced first-hand. The way that the things form and explode all around, the way that titles and information appears and overlays on screen, and wonderful usage of a varied colour palette makes for some visually stunning and truly unforgettable set pieces.

Screenshots alone don't do the crazy level design justice

Overall, DmC is a super stylish and hugely enjoyable experience with a couple of truly outstanding moments, but having the Devil May Cry name stamped all over it may in fact be its downfall. Fans of the older games will probably hate that this game even exists, whilst anyone who hasn’t played a Devil May Cry game will probably just be put off by the notorious difficulty of the earlier games. Nonetheless, DmC is an incredibly stylish reboot with some decent promise for another great sequel, and although the action is solid it’s the game’s amazing level design and awesome art direction that elevates this well-made and accessible character-action reboot into crazy levels of stylishness.

Let's Talk... Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

Action-RPGs in the vein of Diablo or Torchlight are some of the few games that I can infinitely enjoy, even if it brings nothing new to the table. Perhaps it’s the lust for an endless loot grind, or maybe it’s simply my fondness for stats and basic number-crunching. Van Helsing is definitely one of those games for me. It may offer very little in the way of original ideas and may suffer from some uneven design, but the core loot-driven experience is still well intact here and the $15 price tag can easily make up for a lot of the game’s rougher edges.

From the outset, the gameplay appears extremely familiar and standard, but there plenty of interesting concepts and quirks.

Aside from the ability to freely activate one-time “PowerUps” which give your next attack an added effect, such as increased damage or an area of effect bonus, the game features nothing that makes it really stand out from any other standard action-RPG/Diablo clone. Something that should probably be noted right away, since Van Helsing is by no means a game-changer and is very much a just competent and very standard ARPG. The core gameplay is essentially a combination of everything that makes an ARPG of this type work well. And if you’ve played any sort of hack ‘n’ slash-type game you’ll know what to expect from Van Helsing’s hordes of monsters and array of disproportionate Area-of-effect spells and abilities.

Van Helsing does make some attempt to venture outside the norms of a well-worn genre, however, by not featuring any of the standard classes you’d expect to see. Instead of being given a choice between some obscure extension of a warrior or a mage, the game simply has a default jack-of-all-trades template for you to specialise into a number of different playstyles. The game’s “PowerUps” allow you to effectively combine keeping enemies far away with slows and snares, and bunching them up and simply clobbering them all together. It’s this freedom that allows Van Helsing to play as dynamically as its rivals and competitors without following the standardised Mage, Warrior, Rogue trope.

Loot. So much damn loot.

The game also attempts, somewhat successfully, to have a fairly distinctive art style and direction. The Flintlock weaponry, the spinning cogs and rising pistons that fill the HUD and countless industrial environments indicate a clear Steampunk-inspired visual style right. And yet this is quite heavily contrasted with the Fantasy world of magic and mythical creatures. A blend of Steampunk and Fantasy is an interesting (and potentially really cool) combination and, although not entirely original, it would certainly help the game stand out amongst others. It’s just a shame that it feels out of place more often than it fits, but when it does work the combination of Steampunk and fantasy can actually be quite compelling (see enormous industrial drill/giant worm boss fight, for example). In most cases, it’s the enemy design that’s fun and imaginative whereas the environmental design often lacks that same creativity.

The game has a great visual style with some excellent art direction and feels somewhat like a blend of the semi-realistic-looking art direction of Diablo 3, and the Steampunk-vibe, creative monster design and fun weapon design of Torchlight 2. The game has some pretty good sound design with a decent soundtrack and voice acting of varying quality (Van Helsing and his spectral companion sound pretty great, but the supporting cast sound a little rough). And although some of the environments can leave a lot to be desired in terms of design and originality, they do look quite excellent.

Dynamic skill trees and interchangeable weaponry allow for multiple play styles

If you’re a fan of the genre, or just looking for a fun and relatively quick co-op game, then Van Helsing is just the thing for you, but if you’re looking for something fresh and more original then you might want to look elsewhere. Van Helsing is neither really good nor really bad; for the most part it’s just a serviceable and somewhat forgettable experience in places. And the price of $15 is well worth the length and replayability the game has to offer. 

Let's Talk... Darksiders

 Darksiders is a game that is very much walking a fine line between being a corny and cringe-worthy experience well-worth dismissing and actually being something totally awesome. The game’s Angels vs. Demons setup and notably hammed up character models wielding impossibly large shoulder plates and gauntlets set off immediate warning signals. Along with the corny-looking aesthetic, the game threatens to present a tired and completely unoriginal gameplay formula with plenty of direct inspiration (bordering imitation) from many of gaming’s classic, such as The Legend of Zelda and Portal. However, it becomes quickly apparent that Darksiders’ well-realised world and unique interpretation of borrowed mechanics make it an exciting and well-crafted homage to The Legend of Zelda and all 3^rd Person action games.

Combat has a nice weight to it, and is not too dissimilar to God of War or Devil May Cry

Although Darksiders may borrow many of its mechanics from The Legend of Zelda, it by no means borrows the bright and colourful tone of fairies and elves. Darksiders instead opts for a darker and very bloody approach by putting you into the shoes of War (yes, really), one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse as he gets caught up in a raging war between Heaven and Hell, a war in which humanity was all but decimated. War aims to figure out how and why these two armies were called to fight one another whilst also clearing his own name of any misplaced blames in the process. It may be a little slow to get going but the game eventually tells a pretty good story of revenge and redemption, if not an entirely unique one, that concludes in a satisfying manner that aptly sets up for a sequel.

Darksiders makes no secret that its mechanics and formulaic gameplay are overtly borrowed from other games, mainly The Legend of Zelda. But if you’re a fan of the Zelda games, or any games of a similar vein, then Darksiders’ use of Zelda mechanics in a more mature setting should seem quite appealing. The game follows a very standardised “Metroid-vania” formula in that you must acquire particular items and learn new mechanics to progress. The game sends you across on Overworld-like map through dungeons that require you to use a particular mechanic, or combination of, to proceed through puzzles of increasingly complexity before fighting a great big boss fight. The formula is by no means original, but the subject matter and its presentation are enough to keep it fresh and exciting.

Darksiders loves its bulky, over-sized characters

One of the major ways Darksiders manages to keep the gameplay from getting stale is through its excellent and reasonably complex combat system. Darksiders features a lot of combat throughout and in-between its many dungeons, and the game does a great job of maintaining a steady stream of tweaks and alterations in the form of new that keep it from getting stale. Much like God of War or Devil May Cry, the combat features numerous of knock-ups, air combos and a lot of attack, pause, attack-type combos, as well as some awesome looking execution moves. Your main tool of destruction is your 6-foot-tall-beefy-as-hell monster of a sword, which is customisable with a number of obtainable upgrades and enchantments that change its impact and effect. Along with your main weapon, you are slowly kitted out with a number of different weapons such as a large scythe, power gloves, a very Zelda-esque boomerang, and a fairly useless pistol. Unfortunately, most of the boss fights are underwhelming and feel over-simplified, with each boss adhering to the classic rule of three (somebody on the dev team was clearly major Nintendo fan). Much of the hype built up around certain bosses is let down by a lacklustre spectacle of a boss fight.

The game looks pretty great for 2010, in part thanks to the striking art direction and beefy aesthetic of many of the character models share. A great visual style is accompanied by an excellent soundtrack and some really stellar voice-acting. The writing does a great job of preventing the setup from coming across as very corny and hammed up. War comes across as a tough guy without making you cringe and Mark Hamill puts in an expectedly wicked performance as The Watcher. The game controls refreshingly well on keyboard + mouse for a 3^rd person action game and I actually preferred it over a controller.

There's a nice variation in the types of environments you'll visit along your 15 hour journey

Overall, Darksiders could easily be dismissed as an unoriginal game that relies too heavily on the mechanics and formula of other games whilst. But its dark and bloody tone, bulky and brutal character models, and a unique and well-realised world make it a thoroughly enjoyable and well-designed experience worthy of any fan of the classic Zelda games. However, if you’re looking for something deeply original and innovative then Darksiders most certainly is not that.

Let's Talk... Injustice: Gods Among Us

For anyone who’s played the 2011 Mortal Kombat title, parts of Injustice will feel wholly familiar. NetherRealm Studios makes no attempt to hide the fact that they made the 2011 blockbuster. The excessive super move clone the madness of MK’s fatalities, the graveyard-like challenge mode, and King of the Hill and Survivor online modes make the game feel very similar to MK. But it’s the game’s crazy environmental interaction and hilariously over-the-top super moves that make Injustice also feel like a separate game from MK.

This game may as well be called Batman vs. Superman, because that's pretty much all it is

At first glance the combo system appears to be relatively simplistic, but behind the accessible button combinations and easy-to-activate super moves there lies a reasonably high learning curve. Combos use a three button system that essentially has you mixing light, medium and heavy attacks along with your standard uppercuts and air-based juggling. It’s this simplistic control scheme that allows new players to easily chain powerful combos whilst simultaneously opening the door for more experienced players to do perform some seriously crazy combos. The game also just straight up provides you with a moves list on the pause menu for whichever character you’re playing as. It’s some of the deeper and more complex areas, like the clash system that allows you to wager parts of your EX meter for either health or damage, are what prevent it from feeling too simple and certainly keep it from getting stale.

Along with the combo system, each character has their own character power button which will activate whatever their character-specific power happens to be. For example, Deathstroke’s button will increase the effectiveness of his abilities by giving him longer bursts of gunfire for a few seconds, and Wonder Woman’s will swap her Lasso with a sword and shield. Whilst some have a very basic effect, such as Superman’s, will simply increase damage done.

There's a decent amount of playable characters, of whom I have heard of none.

The game also has a fondness for environmental chaos in the form of environmental interactions, such as kicking dudes into a helicopter that’s just hanging out in the background, that give the game a great 2.5D feel. There are also ways of knocking your opponent straight through the environment into entirely different arenas, some which are pretty incredible. The one for Arkham Asylum, for example, has you throw the opponent through a wall into the Scarecrow’s cell, to then have him inject him/her with his special stuff and then proceed to crush him as an 80 foot tall nightmare. The same craziness goes for the game’s amazing super moves which really are one of the best parts of the game.

The story mode uses a formula almost identical to the later Mortal Kombat games. The narrative has you play as a series of different characters fighting 3 or 4 opponents before moving onto the next dude. Naturally, the story throws you into fight after fight with every character imaginable, and the seamless transition between cutscenes and fights is truly impressive. The story itself is a little crazy and it can be extremely hard to keep track of all the different factions, the different versions of different characters, which is the good Batman, and just generally what an earth is going on, especially if your DC knowledge is as profoundly limited as mine.

The game's hilariously over the top super moves are one of the best things this game has going

If you can follow it, however, the story generally creates enough of a setup to have Batman fight Superman, which is really all you need for a fighting game. It essentially has Evil Superman become a tyrannical dictator and wrecking the Earth, because he’s evil and that’s what evil does. Naturally, every single character in the DC Universe is drawn into the fight and you’re left with two, interchangeable it would appear, factions of good and bad doing lots of fighting. It’s a good length for a fighting game story mode, and balance between cutscenes and actual is pretty nicely split.

In terms of multiplayer, Injustice has a lot of the traditional MK online game modes and features to offer. A King of the Hill game mode allows a room of up to 8 players battle it out to see who the best player is. Whoever beats the king cashes in the exp reward, and spectators can bet on fighters for additional exp. Exp is, of course, used to level up and earn more character skins and profile customisation. There’s also an online practice mode that allows players to demonstrate moves and combos to each other, which is a neat addition. Alongside all that there’s an online Survivor mode, which is effectively the same as King of the Hill except players do not regenerate health after each round.

The game's online King of the Hill mode, where players can bet against who will beat the King

There’s also a challenge mode not too dissimilar to the graveyard mode from MK. There are dozens of challenges that include every character in the game, with each character having around 10 challenges each, which have you doing all kinds of crazy things. Like winning a match without jumping whilst fire bursts out of the ground in random spots, or more obscure ones like slice a bunch of debris flying towards you without being hit 5 times. It makes a nice break from standard fights and the challenges actually tell their own smaller stories, although a lot of them are extremely rudimentary scenarios like “the bad guys escaped from Arkham Asylum! Beat ‘em up!”.

The game’s character models look pretty great (although in cutscenes they loom a little muddy) and the various crazy environments look sharp. The game’s has some satisfying sound design, with some nice physicality to the impacts, and some of the story’s voice acting is pretty hit or miss: some of voices are a pretty great (Kevin Conroy retains his role as Batman) and some could certainly be better. As for the game’s control scheme, its simplistic nature gives the game a refreshing accessibility for a fighting game, but some of the movement feels a little sluggish and a little slow for my liking.

There's a nice variety to the arenas, each of which features two different starting areas and can be freely transitioned between during a fight 

Overall, Injustice manages to excellently balance accessibility with depth to create an experience that is both manageable for newcomers and complex and intense for more seasoned veterans. Its unique combo system makes it stand out from the crowd, and the ridiculous nature of both the excessive environmental interactivity and the incredibly ludicrous super moves make the game appealing on their own. The wealth of online modes and features and the reasonably lengthy story mode maintains the game’s appeal for a good long while.