From ancient times there are legends telling of nephilims, strange and powerful

creatures, born from the passion of an angel and a daemon. And the legends also
tell that the most powerful nephilims are the Four Riders of the Apocalypse, car
riers of death and despair, the ones that will come at the end of the world. But
today we won't be talking about the four of them and instead we'll only focus o
n Death and War, the main characters in Darksiders II.
The struggle for a story...a nephilim's story
If in the first Darksiders, the main character was War, now we get to see more o
f his brother, the mighty Death, the second Rider of the Apocalypse. And because
there has to be a story in order to start the game, so does it that War has bee
n found guilty of exterminating humanity and he's facing a terrible punishment f
rom the Council. So in order to save War, Death has to clear his brother's name
and to restore humanity to Earth. But as you might know, the mighty Death is mor
e than well prepared for collecting souls, so bringing them back to their former
living & breathing status might just be a problem.

Now might be a good moment to tell you a couple of things about this game's main
character: The Death. This guy is really nasty with big muscles, a long rocker'
s hair and a bone mask that hides everything but his shiny eyes. They guys over
at Vigil really succeeded in creating the perfect monster, ugly enough to believ
e his role but not ugly enough not to like controling his character.
Also, Death never loses its Desperation, his loyal horse of shadows, another str
ange creature that appears every time our hero summons it. Its a fast specter t
hat manages to shorten those long trips along the map while searching for variou
s objects or missions and trust me, these maps are huge.
Darksiders II and the challenges of the gameplay
To be completely honest, Vigil's game isn't a model of what a game should be in
terms of story and motivation. In fact, the script seems similar to some teared
apart pages that you find spread on the ground. There's no logic for some of the
facts and others don't seem to match properly. Let's say that this give a big,
black ball to Darksiders II but there are other facts that counter the balance.
First of all we have the battles. Men that's one subject you shouldn't miss on.
Death is quite a fighter and his twin huge sickles are just right. Moreover thes
e are only the primary weapons as he also has a secondary set of "deadly" instru
ments (You've got it right? Death - deadly, it's like a trademark, lol). Anyway,
the thing is that our hero doesn't have only power. He's also great in speeding
across the battlefield, applying powerful hits and then retreating to safer gro
unds while the enemy is trying to react. His speed and precision are enough to m
ake even the boss creatures look pathetically slow.
Now one more thing I'd like to underline here is something that concerns Death's
climbing abilities. He's an acrobat with moves that would really ashamed even t
he Prince of Persia and his Sands of Time. He runs on wall, climbing easily from
one level to the other and jumping across long distances with an unbelievable e
asiness.

Actually I suspect that this is what made Darksiders II such a good game: its ea
syness. There's no heavy duty boss, no mystery strange enough to get your mind b
usy for a week and no...solid story. It's an easy to play game but it is also a
very gratifying experience that gives you satisfaction.
Why Darksiders II is better
I recently read somewhere that Darksiders II si better than his predecessor. And
to be honest, it really is because the producers learned what to keep and what
to...well, not keep actually. They got feedback from the gamers and decided on w
hat's going to be the ideal shape of the new game. There are even some elements
reminding of the modern MMOs.
The weapons are plenty enough and as I told you before, Death has two sets of li
fe ending instruments. His first option, the sickles can perform a big damage on
the enemy and they are even appropriate for some nice and deadly combos. And wh
ile the original set will be enough on the first levels, later across the maps y
ou will find more such sicles with higher damage oriented on ice, fire and so on
.
The armor is also an important part of the problem and in Darksiders II there ar
e lots of armors, most of them being specialized on protection from certain elem
ents. Even so, the producers made 3 different categories: body, arms and feet ar
mor.

And what game would this be without potions. So here we have two very different
categories: life and wrath. As expected the destination of the first is quite ev
ident: to keep Death alive. The wrath potions on the other hand might just be ca
lled "Death on steroids" as they allow our beloved life taking creature to perfo
rm special combos that require a lot of mana.
And while I'm here, I could as well tell you some things abot the game's skill t
ree. And this one is all about leveling, allowing the player to invest his hard
earned points in one of two directions: Harbinger or Necromancer. The first one
is a line that develops Death's physical strengths while the later is oriented o
n developing stronger magic acts, used to destroy the nephilim's adversaries.
Squeaky wheels
There are some moments in my life when I look at a game and I just wonder what w
as in the minds of the producers when they decided to port a game from the conso
les directly to PC. Is there a huge economy of money, of time, of what!?! There
might be a kind of...lack of interest here? Don't know but Darksiders II suffers
from this porting germ. No there aren't any major experience killers but you kn
ow...the devil is in the details and Vigil's work has lots of small annoying det
ails sticking out. And probably one of the worst is the menu, a thing that you w
ill see for yourself.

While I've seen such things in many games, Darksiders II could of easily been an
exception to the rule because the game is quite ok in most of its other parts a
nd the gameplay was more than balanced compared to similar productions.
To draw a line
I've told you enough about Darksiders II in order for you to make an opinion. Th
e truth is that a good game can only be "felt" properly from behind your own key
board and mouse so try it. The Vigil studios made a good job in learning from th
e past's mistakes and they succeeded in creating a beautiful in game world accom
panied by an excellent soundtrack signed by the famous Jesper Kid.
Darksiders II is worthy of your time and money even if its not that "I want to k
eep forever" kind of game. So I for one I'll stuck it at 8,5 out of 10.