I haven’t done a game impressions for a long time, and was sort of moving the blog away from gaming related posts (with a few exceptions) but I felt compelled to tell people my absolute love of the game Darksiders 2 by Vigil Games.  The follow-up to the critically acclaimed fantasy adventure game, this follows the story of Death, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who during the same time his brother War has destroyed mankind and struggles to right his own wrong (in Darksiders #1), Death is out to destroy Absalom from corrupting and destroying an alternate dimension.  Ok, I probably didn’t have a clue what the story was, too side tracked by exploring beautiful dungeons and solving puzzles, collecting loot and upgrading my character with new outfits, weapons and abilities.  The world presented to the player here is absolutely vast, made up of various realms, all of them huge and full of secrets and stacks of enemies.  The balance however compared to similar games is just right … plenty of exploration, with bits of fighting thrown in, usually leading up to an encounter with a huge boss.

This kind of stuff is gaming gold for me, a gamer who prefers to explore, have time to think and not just brainlessly button bash his way through hoards of enemies until the credits roll.  The world, with endless imagination is a wonder to behold, like a graphic-novel brought to life and hats off to the art team at Vigil for creating something truly awe-inspiring.  Truly one of the best looking games on XBOX 360 (or PS3 for that matter).

I finished this just a few minutes ago, having clocked in a whopping 34 hours, and although I defeated the final boss, I can still go back and explore to my heart’s content, finish any left over side-quests or just download extra levels and pad out my time in the game even more.  For now I think I’ll give it a little break, with several other games on my to-play list, but for now may I recommend Darksiders 2 to any gamer who is a fan of dungeon exploring, huge worlds, RPG elements and a few nods to the likes of God Of War and The Legend Of Zelda.  This is quite simply one of the finest games I’ve played in a long time.