Darksiders II review and opinion roundup

No good on PC at all. The fighting and combos are pretty nice, but the GUI horrendous, especially when you've gotten used to the relatively slick smoothness of Prototype II. Good for a laugh perhaps, but definitely not worth the average scores on that opinion roundup - even Joystiq caved to the hype with a 4/5! Worth maybe a 2 or 3 at most on this scale.
 
No good on PC at all. The fighting and combos are pretty nice, but the GUI horrendous, especially when you've gotten used to the relatively slick smoothness of Prototype II. Good for a laugh perhaps, but definitely not worth the average scores on that opinion roundup - even Joystiq caved to the hype with a 4/5! Worth maybe a 2 or 3 at most on this scale.

This review is based on a final Xbox 360 version of Darksiders 2, provided by THQ. We also tested the PlayStation 3 version, which seems to perform similarly during the game's first 30 minutes.
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10 Chars
 
Going to put it into my PS3 in the next few minutes ...

Will post my impressions a bit later (if I can stop playing it :p).

In the meantime here is a pic of me wearing (more like holding) the mask:

deathmask.jpg
 
No good on PC at all. The fighting and combos are pretty nice, but the GUI horrendous, especially when you've gotten used to the relatively slick smoothness of Prototype II. Good for a laugh perhaps, but definitely not worth the average scores on that opinion roundup - even Joystiq caved to the hype with a 4/5! Worth maybe a 2 or 3 at most on this scale.
Don't worry, just ignore this game and continue playing the next Brown Dirt Simulator 2.0. Also are you talking about the same Prototype 2 that people have called unplayable on PC with mouse and keyboard due to the fact that mouse sensitivity is directly tied to FPS?

This game is gorgeous, far more fluid and stylish than the first. The writing, the quests and the characters are really good. Yes there are a couple of issues although I would argue they are relatively minor compared to just how well this plays. People keep saying this looks bad on PC, so far I'm not seeing it. If you don't like the way it looks then you probably didn't like the first Darksiders either, so it's just down to taste.

7E6DB5F9BEDFEB84AD701CD897A9AB1448BB172D

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Remember kids, good graphics = photorealistic graphics. Everything else sucks.
Yup unfortunately far too many people seem to think that way. Personally I feel 'photorealism' is often just used as an excuse to be lazy with your art direction.

Also one comment, I am using the SMAA injector since DS2 doesn't have ingame AA. I see no performance hit and no jaggies so it's worth using. Any jaggies in the screenshot are there because that gets taken before the SMAA is applied.
 
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I am gonna be lambasted for this...but there is absolutely no excuse for a crappy pc port apart from the developer not bothering to do it properly. Why are their some developers that can do it right but others seem to not give a shit what they release.
Fine you don't make as much profit from pc games, so it gives you the right to just skimp on pc features.

Anyway I so wanted to play this...but I am gonna pass on getting it for pc and just jam it on console.

Edit: Before I get shot...please understand that I have a thing for gorgeous graphics, exactly why I prefer gaming on pc to console...ok now you can shoot.
 
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So I'm almost two hours in now and loving every second of it! I honestly cannot see how people can complain about the visuals, sure it doesn't have the best texture quality or whatever, but this series has one of the most uniquely beautiful art directions I have ever seen in a game. Great use of colour.

Really love everything Vigil have done to make it feel more like an RPG. There is now random loot, skill points and skill trees, dialogue trees and huge areas and dungeons to explore. Death is also a really cool character and great fun to play as. The combat system is more fluid than that of the first game and the different weapons you loot add a bit more variety as well. I can see that I am going to put a lot of time into this game, will probably be playing it until I get my hands on Borderlands 2.

Regarding the issue of the sloppy PC port. Let's not forget that THQ isn't exactly in the best financial situation at the moment; this might just have something to do with the quality of the port.
 
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Regarding the issue of the sloppy PC port. Let's not forget that THQ isn't exactly in the best financial situation at the moment; this might just have something to do with the quality of the port.

Should have gone the console only route.

Visceral didn't make DS2 *erm*

Developer(s) Vigil Games
Publisher(s) THQ

If they had then it would have been a fucking awesome game :p
 
I wish they would sell those art books separately, they are normally really good.

As for people saying they are getting the console version, I don't get it, it still looks better and runs better on your PC than on your 360 or PS3. You are running it at twice the res and probably 3x the fps, so if you are going to play it with a gamepad like I do, then there is no advantage in getting the console version.
 
I'm still torn with this one. Only about 3 hours in now, and currently (IMO), it doesn't surpass its predecessor. I am still deciding whether or not I like the added RPG elements, and the larger areas etc. I also agree with some previous comments in that it doesn't feel like you're playing with "Death"; not to say the the colours aren't nice and everything, but I believe it should've been darker and gloomier, but perhaps I haven't reached those areas yet.

Playing it with my PS3 pad now on the PC seeing that the keyboard/mouse doesn't feel adequate, and the lack of graphics settings just exclaims poor console port.

It's still early stages, so I will continue to play and see what happens. In the end, I'm just killing time until Borderlands 2 arrives. :cool:
 
I'm still torn with this one. Only about 3 hours in now, and currently (IMO), it doesn't surpass its predecessor. I am still deciding whether or not I like the added RPG elements, and the larger areas etc. I also agree with some previous comments in that it doesn't feel like you're playing with "Death"; not to say the the colours aren't nice and everything, but I believe it should've been darker and gloomier, but perhaps I haven't reached those areas yet.
That was one of my thoughts and I already didn't like DS1 too much.

Playing it with my PS3 pad now on the PC seeing that the keyboard/mouse doesn't feel adequate, and the lack of graphics settings just exclaims poor console port.
Camera adaption felt either too fast or just plain stupid, especially if you had to perform jumps from a column to another one.


It's still early stages, so I will continue to play and see what happens. In the end, I'm just killing time until Borderlands 2 arrives. :cool:
I'd use TSW, Bioshock 1 and RDR for that ;)
 
I wish they would sell those art books separately, they are normally really good.

As for people saying they are getting the console version, I don't get it, it still looks better and runs better on your PC than on your 360 or PS3. You are running it at twice the res and probably 3x the fps, so if you are going to play it with a gamepad like I do, then there is no advantage in getting the console version.

Personal Preference.
 
I wish they would sell those art books separately, they are normally really good.

As for people saying they are getting the console version, I don't get it, it still looks better and runs better on your PC than on your 360 or PS3. You are running it at twice the res and probably 3x the fps, so if you are going to play it with a gamepad like I do, then there is no advantage in getting the console version.

You're assuming everybody has a powerful PC. I prefer console for quite a few reasons (including the couch and the 40" HDTV), but I also have a pretty basic PC that won't max games out. I'd imagine it would look the same on my PC as it does on console.

Also, Xbox achievements.
 
I started my review playthrough last night (X360 FYI) and so far I'm enjoying it. Sure, the visuals aren't razor sharp and the slow camera is a bit annoying, but I had a lot of fun nonetheless.

I'll add more impressions as I go.
 
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