DARKSIDERS GENESIS
Meet a better duo than Adam and Eve – and let there be fight!
“STRIFE’S CHEESY, SASSY ONE-LINERS SHINE NEXT TO WAR’S DEADPAN IRRITATION AT EVERYTHING.”
There’s a reason this game is called Genesis. This dungeon crawler isn’t just the earliest in the Darksiders timeline (someone tell THQ how time works), it is so by a massive margin. Set shortly after the Four Horsemen take up the task of upholding the balance of the universe on behalf of The Council, it takes place when the damage caused by Eden’s fall is still fresh, and war rages between Heaven and Hell.
With paradise burning, humanity has been relocated to start anew. But The Council believes Lucifer still plots against the humans (who are integral to The Council’s machinations). With Death and Fury elsewhere, it’s up to War and Strife to team up, buddy-cop-style, and put a stop to the demons’ plans. Starting out by taking the fight to Samael, whose fortress is under siege, they temporarily join forces to track down and destroy the mysterious superweapon that Lucifer is having constructed.
Genesis has the tone of an edgy ’90s comic, but is able to wink at its own darkness. It never takes itself as seriously as something like Spawn. As it’s a prequel, there’s plenty here that builds on Darksiders lore for fans to latch onto, but the story is also light enough to ensure anyone less in the loop can still have fun. War and Strife are a classic comedy double act – Strife’s cheesy, sassy one-liners shine next to War’s deadpan irritation at everything happening (though they do share some closer moments on their journey).
CREATURE COMFORTS
While in a lot of respects Genesis plays a bit like Diablo (and also has the whole angels and demons thing going on), a large injection of Darksiders’ essence keeps it unique. You’re not farming for loot, though there are plenty of collectables hidden around the isometrically
presented levels. You can trade in souls and Boatman coins for upgrades to the horsemen’s gear and movesets, discover new tools, and find Trickster keys that allow you to access to optional areas (often filled with their own loot).
Everything is plentiful, so you’ll rarely have to grind. The most beneficial collectibles are the creature cores dropped by defeated enemies, which you can equip to give both horsemen passive buffs. All the enemies, even the bosses, can be finished off when their health is low enough by tapping e, which feels great to do. And the more cores you collect from a certain type of enemy, the more War or Strife’s core will level up. Where you place them in the creature core grid can lead to additional buffs, and only some slots can house higher-level cores, so you have to put in a fair bit of thought if you really want to maximise certain horseman abilities.
RIDE TOGETHER
You can play the entire game in two-player co-op or by yourself. Little tweaks to some puzzles ensure it’s completable either way. Alone or with a pal, it’s important to make the best use of War and Strife’s differing abilities. While their basic controls are the same, their specialisations are very different. War mostly handles in the way you might remember from the first Darksiders game, though thanks to the more dungeon-crawling nature of this outing he feels different. He’s all about getting up close, mixing up light and heavy attacks, and performing long combos. Strife, the new horseman, is more of a longrange specialist, able to pump enemies with bullets from his dual-wielded pistols – and he can have two types of ammo equipped at once on u and i.
Later on, the brothers get differing tools to help out with traversal. For instance, War can use a Vorpal Blade boomerang to activate switches from a distance, while Strife can use Void Bombs to create portals between two places to help to solve puzzles. Genesis might have a zoomed-out perspective, but it still feels very Darksiders.
HELL OF A VIEW
But these levels are far from a succession of combat arenas. Excellent level design means not only do the areas you travel through all look visually distinct, from the fires of a forge to ice-capped mountains, and even Eden itself, they all feel differently designed too. Some are relatively open-ended, throwing you into a fairly large area and tasking you with activating three or so switches. Others are more linear, such as ones where you weave up forested mountainside ruins. Every one is a visual treat, especially when you reach a high point and can look down on the intricate level below you.
The camera is usually aware of the best parts of the level to show off, zooming in or out a bit as appropriate. You
“YOU CAN PLAY THE ENTIRE GAME IN TWO-PLAYER CO-OP OR BY YOURSELF.”
might be teleporting between completely different areas for each mission, but it feels like a richly cohesive world, and you always want to see what’s next.
There are plenty of puzzles to figure out along the way. Some are more devious than others, and require you to make smart use of all sorts of switches and timer bombs in conjunction with the traversal tools your horsemen have available. You’ll need to travel back to some missions after upgrading if you want to collect everything, which is a nice way to encourage replayability.
There’s also a surprisingly large amount of platforming as you move through the areas. The isometric camera angle is something you have to get used to, but you will grasp it quite quickly, and only a few sections are frustrating and require extra precision. A lot of the platforming involves scaling ledges on walls or jumping between beams.
Some of the secrets are quite cleverly hidden, forcing you to look for little alcoves you might be able to jump to. The platforming really gives the environments depth as it adds verticality and areas of danger. This even translates into some really cool set-pieces, where you have to run from a foundry’s molten lava or leg it across a crumbling bridge.
Genesis is not without its technical flaws. Go through areas too quickly and it’ll hang while it loads. Sometimes you get stuck in a wall, or (worse) the camera does. But the issues didn’t impact our time with the game much, and we still found ourselves wanting to replay missions repeatedly.
VERDICT
It’s a terrifically fun game to throw on, whether you’re playing alone or with a mate, and it proves that Darksiders still has plenty of stories to tell. Oscar Taylor-Kent