Even Death doesn’t know when to call it a day
Well, if the Mayans were right and doomsday is incoming this Christmas, at least it’ll be somewhat punctual. 2010’s sleeper hit Darksiders taught us that everyone beyond the realms of our own existence can be just as clumsy as any human could, with the end of the world unwittingly being signalled in a tad too early by a lone horseman of the apocalypse. It’s bittersweet, but comforting to know that everyone makes mistakes, and sweet that even brothers as grim as Death himself will stick beside family no matter what. Darksiders 2 isn’t the feel good game of 2012 though. It’s an unexpectedly epic quest filled with temple scouring, weapon hoarding and many a dismembered limb. War’s massive clerical error that…y’know…doomed the whole of mankind in the last game didn’t exactly go down too well with the forces of heaven and hell either. As War stays trapped between worlds for 100 years with no legal representative daring to fight his corner, his brother Death decides that he is the one who must vouch for War’s premature onslaught, and prove that he is not the one to blame for Earth’s eradication. Diving head first into the war of the worlds’ however, he soon realise that there is far more at stake than the fate of humanity. 
Whereas the first game acted as a blatant greatest hits collective of some of gaming’s biggest franchises (to the verge of honourable rip-off), Darksiders 2 strays somewhat from theZelda homages and Portal lawsuits to deliver a bigger adventure…much bigger. On the surface, we have simple yet addictive hack-‘n’-slash fare, with Death alternating between rapid slicing scythes and various secondary weapons. Rather than lose limbs and splurt guts all over the place however, demons bleed numbers…piles upon piles of numbers. At first it’s frightening; stats hitting you left right and centre. Then it dawns that Death is a more mathematical man than his brother War, and is determined to steer his game into RPG territory. Each weapon comes with its own multitudes of attributes, be they elemental, health draining or, purely epic brutality. Should you decide to ‘settle down’ with a scythe, you can even sacrifice lesser weapons in a bid to add even more statistical atrocities to a blade. A ridiculous arsenal of weapons is up for grabs, and the random assortment of oddities on offer never seems to cease, always offering new gifts for your efforts. Darksiders 2 takes the most expansive elements of RPG titles and condenses them without ever patronising the player, and makes a big game even bigger.
Has enough stocked up in its reserves to keep you blissfully murdering throughout the lengthy campaign
The originals’ best elements are here too. Combat coats itself in bloody glory with some epic tools of the trade, and the game juggles both platforming and puzzle elements suitably well. Things kick off in reasonably simple fashion, with no noggin based tomfoolery defiantly halting your progress. However, as the game progresses and more and more pieces of equipment are added to your inventory, you’re required to flex those lobes even more than your biceps. As more and more pieces of equipment are added to your inventory, temples seem to extend into massive brain teasers. It feels like an over bearing father is sniping your achievements with even bigger tasks to deal with, and yet each mind-melding challenge is welcome. Each land you arrive in separates itself from the last in ginormous leaps and bounds. Earth is only a brief stopover gap this time around, and is a homely battleground compared to the hauntingly grim Kingdom of the Dead…and a grisly wasteland compared to the sunny plains of the Forge Lands. Worlds fiercely juxtapose each other, a fact that preoccupies your brain and distracts it from the fact that pretty much each dungeon is an un-noteworthy mass of corridors and rubble, with little to distinguish it from the last. 
This foible becomes a trend, with each positive hastily trying to cover a con, but all add up to latch onto the leg of Darksiders 2 and pull it down on its leap to greatness. Each open world embodies itself in an individual flair, but the enemies that occupy each feel rather generic in comparison, and I’ve seen enough skeletons to put me off going into the basement ever again. Massive bosses intimidate at first, but soon get demoted to standard grunts, and the repetition really begins to grind after a while. Combat flows well, but when things get hectic, it certainly feels like it was built for tangoing rather than massacring when the camera and lock-on system refuse to get along. It can be exceptionally annoying as mosh pits gather around you against your knowledge, and even more annoying when you can’t prepare for their incoming attacks. In worse instances, the game can completely freeze or rooms can completely vanish, mistakes that would be downright criminal if the game didn’t auto-save as much as it did. In some cases, it just feels like the team behind everything bit off more than they can chew, creating a massive title that sometimes doesn’t have enough to fatten it up and can completely crumble when the heat gets too much. These flaws are very noticeable, but through it all, Darksiders 2 still proves strangely addictive. In a bid to knock my volunteer professionalism down a few pegs…I can’t put my finger on why. Maybe it’s the GATRILLIONS of collectables that infect every corner of the world. Maybe it’s because I simply can’t get enough of homicidally dicing everyone into sushi platters with my scythes. Maybe I’m just a trophy whore. Either way, although the game doesn’t strictly offer anything new, it has its quirks that keep you focused. Get subconsciously hooked, and you’ll find yourself indebted into a quest that lasts almost 30 hours. 
Darksiders 2’s efforts to get rid of the franchises’ stabilisers and set out making a mark on the gaming world has gone exceedingly well. If it didn’t have its older brethren to rely on, it would have simply looked like a rather stale and generic hack-‘n’-slash title on the surface. With Vigil’s previous instalment in mind, however , it improves on the original in every single way possible and has enough stocked up in its reserves to keep you blissfully murdering throughout the lengthy campaign. The series just about feels likes its taking its own strides amongst others, so let’s just hope that the inevitable next instalment rekindles some sibling rivalry by outdoing this one any way it possibly can. We’ll be in for a treat if it does.
The Bad: Generic enemies that constantly repeat themselves, Combat system seems unfair on harder difficulties, Occasional glitches and awaiting patches
Silver Y Award