Previews// Darksiders II

Coolio may have rapped about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, but at a recent THQ event I was walking through shadowy valleys as Death. And although I risked sounding like Alan Partridge just now, I assure you it was very fun indeed. Death, in this case, happens to be the second Horsemen of the Apocalypse that stars in the Darksiders action series.

These four horsemen - War, Death, Fury and Strife - serve the Charred Council, a mediator group that acts as a go-between for the conflicts between Heaven and Hell. It is foretold that the final apocalyptic battle between the two forces will be largely determined by Mankind.

All was going well, until the events of the original Darksiders game in 2010 when the beefcake War ended up being painted as a traitor to the Council. The star of the last game has also been accused of kick-starting the apocalypse before its time, so things are really beginning to heat up between the two realms.

We begin our journey with Death as the skull-faced Horseman makes a daring attempt to free War from his shackles and prove his innocence. From the word go, Death is seen rising his steed, Despair - I’m told that players will get to see a lot more of the horse this time around compared to Darksiders, when War only managed to get Ruin at the campaign’s midway point.

If Darksiders could be summed up using colourful terms as ‘brown’, ‘red’ and ‘orange’, then Darksiders II is undoubtedly the antithesis. Just as War’s adventure visualises his fiery hot temper, Death’s cold and lifeless journey is illustrated beautifully with blues, whites and blacks. After riding through a snowy peak and battling some foes, Death approaches a dilapidated old structure, much like a castle.

Because of its disrepair, there is ample opportunity to use Death’s agile movements to cross large gaps and clamber over beams like an apocalyptic Nathan Drake. This being the opening level, understandably some of the obstacles are quite simple at first. Jumping at a wall and pressing the jump button again allows you to wall-run, giving you some extra distance towards far-away platforms.

Later, you’ll need to climb up cliff sides using wooden ledges for hand grips, hang onto ceiling vines to safely cover chasms and use more advanced wall-running techniques to reach the top of this tall tower. Along the way, a series of ice skeletons with big meaty swords will break out of frozen captivity and try to butcher you to bits.

Combat is much more fluid in Darksiders II than it is in the original, and again that comes down to Death being a much more nimble bugger than War was. The standard control scheme remains - triggers can lock on to a particular enemy, while the right thumbstick selects a target - but without much armour to protect him, Death is going to have to use that dodge move a lot more efficiently.

It all boils down to watching how your enemy moves, dodging at the right time and smashing the X button to let Death run rampant on his foe with his two badass swords. From a distance, these can be chucked like a deadly boomerang.

The combat reaches a rather surprising climax when Death comes face-to-face with a mid-level boss - funnily enough this seemed less satisfying than nobbling the grunts, with tactics simply boiling down to attack-dodge-attack. There didn’t seem to be any particular weak spots or clever tricks that were present in Darksiders’ bosses.

But, it’s early days in the game’s story, so things will probably pick up. While there are no surprises to see in the gameplay mechanics, Darksiders II does seem to be a much more refined experience - and the stage I played was pretty fun to adventure through.

The Joe Madureira-style approach to environmental and character design is a welcome one too, and makes you feel like a comic book anti-hero on a quest for vengeance. So for comic book buffs and action gamers, Darksiders II looks like it will be a pretty satisfying romp.