Darksiders Review (Stami George)
The game is hack and slash, using combos to inflict more danger. As you progress the story, you get new tools so combat is constantly evolving (you need those tools to defeat the boss of the level) and never gets boring.
While the game is open world, the story must progress linearly, and some areas are inaccessible. Once you've cleared a level you can come back, one you get more tools, to access zones previously unavailable, but otherwise it's a fairly linear game.
Also, the game is filled with puzzles to solve. Very often you enter a room and have to figure out what switches activate, what portals, etc., to progress to the next room. It adds to the variety and I really enjoyed most of them, but you can get stuck pretty easy. The game plays a small music when you made a discovery or progress, so there's a feedback to let you know you're doing it right.
The story is good but nothing spectacular. Overall, I enjoyed it, except for one or two clichés here and there. It is one of betrayal, honor and revenge, and the ending literally leaves you wanting more. The bosses you fight are varied and usually demand you to use the weapon/tool you learned during the battle. They are very predictable, and you'll learn their moves pretty quick. As for your character, there's very little room for customization, as both weapons, powers and armour are fixed. This is not a bad thing unless your expecting an RPG-like game.
The sound and graphics are decent enough, but the performance is a bit lacking (I played on an Xbox One S). At some points during a dungeon, a "loading" screen would appear and I had to wait a bit. Nothing too serious though, fortunately it never happened during boss fights. The controllers felt a bit clunky though, some times pressing the jump button would not make my character jump, and fall to its death. The camera has a few issues as well, nothing too serious but there are places when it would move too fast you can't see what's going on.
It took me about 20 hours to finish the game. I enjoyed most of it, When done with it go for Darksiders II.