Darksiders 3 – Official Review

When you’re last gen but you’re fun.

Game development studios go out of business all the time. It’s the unfortunate part of the industry that keeps every on their toes. What does not happen often, if at all, is a game publisher going out of business. Then there assets and trademarks being purchased at auction. And finally, one of their biggest franchises gets brought back to life by the new owners. However, crazy it sounds, this is the story of Darksiders 3. The release date was on November 27th 2018 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. It picks up where the previous games left off and puts you in control of the only horsewoman of the apocalypse. Developed by Gunfire Games and Published by THQ Nordic (remember the story) the third person hack and slash action adventure game hopes to build on the foundation laid before it. Does Fury get an adventure as awesome as War & Death?

GRAPHICS: 1/2

The first thing most gamers will notice is that Darksiders 3 looks a lot like Darksiders 2. For reference, DarkSiders 2 looked a lot like DarkSiders 1. So yeah, the graphics are nothing to really be blown away by. The impressive part of the graphics feeling dated is (with the remasters in existence) the timeline of events feels super coherent and natural. In a weird way, rather than feel like the graphics are outdated it feels like the game is bringing the player to a specific point in time. Whether this was intentional or not it makes it super easy to overlook the minor graphic issues. And the game development team did an excellent job at making sure there were no glaring graphical faults. Not the prettiest tool in the shed but not ugly enough to ruin the experience.

STORY: 1/2

The Darksiders series tells an incredible story when all three games are put together. Individually, each games story is really good but it’s very clear something is missing without the experience with the previous games. Fury is on a mission to take down the seven sins that have taken over earth. That reads interesting but not quite enough. It’s missing the flare of knowing everything that led to this point. Like War being framed for causing the battle that destroyed earth and ruined the balance. Or that Death is on his own unapproved mission to prove his brother War’s innocence. Or perhaps the suspicious story from the Char Council that Strife is off on a mission and he can not be reached. See now the story is much more interesting, however all those pieces come together from playing every game. Great story spread across three good games.

AUDIO: 1/2

Similar to the visuals, the audio in Darksiders 3 sounds very much like it’s predecessors. Again this does an incredible job of creating the feeling that the events of the game are indeed taking place simultaneously with Darksiders 1 and 2. For anyone who’s played the previous games the roars of monster and the destruction of items in sight will sound very familiar. For those new to the series, it’s a hit or miss. Some menu sounds are absolutely annoying with their sharp chimes. However, most of the sounds in game, from sword swinging to landing from a large jump, are pretty action packed. The adrenaline inducing sound effects and music add to the fast paced excitement even if it sounds like a last generation soundtrack.

GAMEPLAY: 2/2

This is where each game in this series really separates. Each development team for the Darksiders series has had the privilege of working with nearly identical environments with a different protagonist. In Darksiders 3 the player takes control of Fury, often recognized as the least predictable of the four horsemen. Fury specializes in using her whip and magic to overcome most battles. This makes her similar to Death in that she more effectively dodges than she does block. Yet, similar to War, she is very up close and personal, using her whip and magic to close the distance more often than end the fight. The introduction of a few new enemy types and the strengthening of others makes the experience unique to Fury. Enemies that could barely hurt the hulking War are a larger threat to Fury. Learning to play to each Horseman’s strength and weaknesses is what has every fan of this series asking, when do we get the 4 player co-op DarkSiders game?

FUN: 2/2

Fast paced hack and slash third person action. That sentence is the literal definition of a fun game. The Darksiders series does a great job of combining puzzle, platform, and adventure game mechanics. Darksiders 3 is no different. It embodies basic RPG elements like growth and skill charts but it’s mostly about reflex reactions. Battles involve accurate timing for both attacks and dodging. Puzzles scale in size from small levers and dials to entire environments that need to traversed with precision. All these great pieces of other fun games make Darksiders 3 the type of game that requires effort to stop playing.

Darksiders 3 does a great job of being exactly what fans of the series want at the small risk of being too much for newcomers to handle. The team at Gunfire Games have done an excellent job of providing a solid hack and slash adventure during the genre’s major drought. Any fans of fast paced action, unique gameplay mechanics, and challenging puzzles needs to get their hands on this. Or any of the games in the series, honestly.

SCORE: 7/10

Posted in Reviews Tagged with: 3rd person, action, dark siders, darksiders, darksiders 1, darksiders 2, darksiders 3, deep silver, hack and slash, nordic, ps4, review, thq, thq nordic, xb1

Lucky Gamer Recap 4/2/18

Welcome back Jesus! Now tell me where the easter eggs are coming from and why these rabbits are so fascinated by them! It doesn’t make any sense at all. And another thing, why has it been such a slow past few weeks for gaming news? Does that mean that its going to be a huge E3 or are we about to be really disappointed? I need answers. In the meantime I’m going to be providing my friends who check out this post an update on why they should feel like lucky gamers.

1. Level-5 Levels up for Switch.

Right out the gate, Level-5 announced it intends to be a big supporter of the Nintendo Switch from this point forward. Level-5 is the well known studio behind popular games on Nintendo 3DS, so this isn’t to surprising. Popular series from the studio include Professor Layton as well as Yo-Kai Watch. They are also the studio behind Ni No Kuni, so who knows what can happen? The first game coming to Switch in Japan however, comes from neither of those properties. The Snack World: Trejarers Gold, which comes our April 12th in Japan, might not be the first experience we were hoping for but it is the experience we are getting. Enjoy!

2. Woah Woah Woah, PSVR got an official price cut!

Now, if i can’t get Chet to get us an official Hard Mode Gamers PSVR at this point, I don’t know what I’ll do. As of March 29th, the official starting price for PSVR is $299. Thats $100 cheaper the launch price of the best selling VR gaming headset. Boom! I said it. Come at me bro. And with Sony estimating over 130 games will be coming to the platform by the end of 2018, this is the best time to get one. You hear that Chet? BEST TIME TO GET ONE. Even if half the games will be shovelware, that’s 64 more games than I’ll finish.

3. A new iPad approaches.

I know, we are still kind of unsure of where we stand with mobile games. I think its important to note that, there are experiences for everyone. This isn’t even about that though. Apple recently announced a new slightly cheaper iPad for education purposes. With that said, it’s still just an iPad. Its the cheapest iPad to have Apple Pencil support and is designed to work flawlessly with the latest versions of pages and spreadsheet. Apple’s own Tim Cook seemed very adamant about bringing iOS into the education field, but has never digressed from being excited to support gaming. So, what this really means for teachers is: A whole lot of detention for playing Fortnite in class.

4. Fortnite continues to outshine PUBG.

Ok, so that title is absolutely intentionally controversial. But hey, remember we are still growing and we need some attention every now and then. The big news here is that Fortnite smashed a big YouTube record. Fortnite is now the current holder of the YouTube record for most uploaded videos of a video game in a single platform. It all set a record for the biggest single live gaming stream with 1.1 million concurrent viewers. I could go on and on about these wild achievements this game has but instead I’ll leave you with one fun fact. Fortnite Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, (the guy who played live with Drake) is reportedly making a handsome career out of streaming. Congratulations to a fellow gamer on his success.

5. Incredible Nostalgia incoming.

As I get older, I look back on things I enjoyed as a child. Things like animated movies, action figures, and dinosaurs. In the past few years we’ve seen an incredible resurgence of some of the IP in many industries that were from my child. I am ecstatic to share with all my friends that not only, as I’m sure you heard, is the Incredible 2 movie officially a real thing but, we are also getting an official game! And not the cheesy kind but instead Lego: The Incredibles will be coming to all major platforms on June 15th. I couldn’t be more excited about this if I tried. Also, Jurassic World Evolution, the theme park simulator, will be bringing some dino-park nostalgia on June 12th. Ah, to feel like a kid again.

6. No Man excused on Xbox.

I’ll admit that was a tough title. Let’s break down what it means quickly before you think I’m crazier than I am. Microsoft announced it can now ban Xbox accounts for “Offensive Language”. This isn’t a policy change, it is just an updated measure of enforcement that will be applied to all of you excessively potty mouthed gamers. Realistically, I think this applies not to the everyday use of F bombs and stuff but more to the players on line who are out of control. And this update comes just as Hello Games announces that No Man’s Sky will be available on Xbox One this summer. The Xbox One version will be released with updates to visuals and include all the major updates from the game.

7. And recently announced we have…

A long awaited announcement but one that we are excited about regardless. Dragon Quest 11 will be released on PS4 and PC on September 4th. There are currently no plans to release it for Nintendo 3DS and the Switch version still has a long way to go according to Square Enix. THQ Nordic also announced Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered will be coming to PS4 and Xbox One in Q2 2018. I applaud the naming convention and never got into this series so I might be down to give it a go. Last but not least we have Deathgarden, a 5-v-1 Shooter from the development team behind Dead By Daylight. Not much was said but they did say to expect to see it at PAX East for sure.

Back in my day I blew off class by playing Tetris on a graphing calculator. -Chet

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Lucky Gamer Recap 2/19/18

PSVR gets a discount, Persona 5 gets an App, & THQ gets, well, everything else.

We are 8 weeks into 2018 and the slow news weeks are starting to happen. That can only mean one thing; E3 approaches! Tickets went live last week and I don’t really know how many have been sold but it’s that time. I couldn’t let you guys down though so I had to dig real deep. And dig deep I did, here are the reasons you should feel like a Lucky Gamer this week:

1. No Hearthstone on Switch.

Straight to the point. Despite numerous ambiguous teases and tweets from Blizzard that may have felt promising, the game’s designer Dean Ayala has provided a firm “no”. It’s weird because Hearthstone is such a perfect fit for Nintendo Switch as a platform. The only speculation I could make at this time is that they don’t feel confident with the online infrastructure of the Nintendo Switch. Even that doesn’t entirely make sense for me because Splatoon 2 plays great. Maybe there are things about video game you can never understand from just playing. What are the odds?

2. No Hearthstone but at least you get De Blob.

One of the most amazing 3D platfomers of the last consoles generation is getting remastered for Nintendo Switch. De Blob, originally released back in 2008, will be coming to the Switch at some point in 2018 as tweeted by THQ Nordic. Last year we saw the release of the remaster on PS4 & Xbox one with the sequel coming sometimes this year. De Blob is one of those fun games that can serve as a cool party experiences to introduce new people to gaming. Given Nintendo’s recent track of cool additions to games, it will be really exciting to see what kind of bonus features De Blob will get. Maybe we’ll be able to dress up De Blob as Pikachu or link.

3. It’s the return of the purple dragon!

If someone would have told me that Skylander’s was not going to be the end of Spyro the Dragon, I would have laughed in their face. In fact I think I actually might have. So to anyone who’s face I laughed in, well I apologize. Much like I did when Crash Bandicoot made his remastered trilogy return. It turns out that was enough to push Activision and/or Sony to stop playing with our emotions and give us back our playstation mascots! That realization led us here: Spyro the Dragon Trilogy remaster is in the works and potentially coming to PS4 in Q3 of 2018. To put that in basic terms: Spyro is coming for Christmas, people! The trilogy is rumored to have the first three Spyro games remastered with brand new everything. Textures, assets, and all the other boring stuff. The real exciting news, which may come as a surprise to most, Crash and Spyro are potentially timed exclusive deals which means they may come to other platforms afterwards! This is going to be huge for two of the most iconic characters in video game history. Looks like the Gamers win again.

4. US government is against loot boxes, maybe.

It turns out it’s time for the government to get involved in video games again. It’s been a long while since the US government felt the need to step in and take stand in the video games industry. Fear not however fellow gamers, this time it appears they are on our side. At least thats what it looks like. US Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire has issued a letter to our friends over at the ESRB establishing a strong outline of concerns regarding micro transactions. More specifically regarding Loot Boxes and Loot Box Systems. Her concern is primarily surrounding “in game purchases for surprise winnings” because they may be highly addicting. This comes hot on the heals of the World Health Organization update which adds “gaming disorder” as a diagnosable mental disorder. All of this follows Hawaii’s recent proposal of bills which specifically target Loot Boxes as a form of “illegal gambling”. Now that we have reached the end of this topic, I am no longer sure who’s side these people are actually on.

5. The Devil May Cry for free occasionally.

February 27th marks the day of the beast. Actually, I’m not sure if that is true at all. Something that is completely true is that starting on February 27th Devil May Cry HD will be available for free to all PC players with a Twitch Prime Membership. With Capcom running this promotion for an undisclosed length of time, rumors floating around of a Devil May Cry 5 on the horizon are staring to feel real true. Couple the free give away with the upcoming release of Devil May Cry HD releasing on March 13th for PS4, Xbox One, and PC makes for a powerful argument. I personally had nothing against the rebooted Dante for the most recent game, but I can’t wait to go back to hanging out with cool Dante. I also really hope the rumor of a new Devil May Cry is true regardless which Dante we get. Speaking of devils and demons, did I mention that Persona 5 is getting an official Mementos App? Well, in Japan at least.

6. Missing? Who’s missing?

There is only one name in the video game industry that evokes more confusion than the question “is a hot dog a sandwich?”. That name is Hidetaka Suehiro. Actually, no it’s not.  That’s the man that evokes confusion, however the name is Swery. And there you go, your hold world just flipped thinking bout what this guy has done now. Now let’s be very clear: Swery has provided absolutely no information about this game beside the fact he’s working with Arc System Works, and it’s called “The Missing”. Also, the game will “blow your mind” when it releases late this year. On the topic of Arc System Works and missing things, the first two DLC characters for Dragon Ball FighterZ have leaked and I can’t wait to (spoiler alert) play as Broly & Bardock.

7. THQ fills their shopping cart and PSVR hopes to fill yours.

THQ Nordic heard about the Lucky Gamer Recap and said “We are going to do something to get us on that damn list twice in one day!”. You read about De Blob remastered but that’s not all. It looks like THQ Nordic might have gotten their tax returns back early because they just made a very big purchase. In a roughly 150 million dollar deal, THQ Nordic just purchased Koch Media. What does that mean? Well let me give you an idea. Koch Media is the holding company of Deep Silver (Dead Island, Metro), Volition (Saints Row), and Dambuster Studios (Homefront). Ultimately this deal really just means that the THQ we remember watching fold in 2012 is getting right back up. With no plans for restructuring any of the current business plans, it seems some great things may already be in the works. On the flip side because its tax season, and in honor of big purchases, I have to share that PSVR will be $100 off from today (technically yesterday) until March 3rd. Looks like its time to jump on one of those bad boys, hey Chet!

Let me get this straight, THQ goes Bankrupt > Gets bought by THQ > Become THQ Nordic > Deep Silver buys Saints Row > THQ Nordic buys Koch Media > Koch Media is parent company of Deep Silver > THQ now owns Saints Row again. What kind of timeline is this?

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