In Darksiders, you play as one of the four horsemen, and at this point you should be able to guess which one. Famine and Pestilence are clearly pussies, so they're out of the picture, and while Death is an interesting choice, that would makes things too easy. All he would have to do is show up and everybody dies. He like the Superman of horsemen, and upon further thought I guess that makes Pestilence Aquaman. So obviously you play as Batman...I mean War. Apparently, War accidentally started the apocalypse and released the demons and angel unto Earth for the final round of Friday night fights. Stripped of his powers by whoever the fuck is in charge, War is sent back to either correct the mistake he made or die trying. Or course, being the almighty and powerful fuck up that you are, they don't entirely trust you, so they sent some ghostly figure to watch your ass constantly.In my Bayonetta review, I said that Darksiders had little in common with God of War, and while I'm somewhat correct, this game sure as hell tricks you into thinking it will be. You start off cutting everything in your path, but then you reach your first dungeon or temple and realize "Hold up; this is a lot like Zelda." That's because it is Zelda, only it has the God of War coat of paint. You have your hookshot, you have your version of the boomerang, you have a horse (well he is a horseman so you can't really call that copying), you have to find maps and keys and bla bla bla. And to top it all off, you get a Portal gun, making it 3 games Darksiders blatantly stole from. I guess what you have to ask yourself is that do you like Zelda, or in this case a bloody, 8-10 hour long Zelda. If the answer is yes, then you will love this game despite the fact it has absolutely no identity of its own. I found it to be entertaining. The levels are well thought out, the puzzles are clever, and the story is....nevermind. Combat though is the one thing I don't like. There are no real combos except press X a lot. If you want to be fancy, you can press Y a lot once you get a second weapon. Your basically mashing X the whole time. The block is a fuckin joke. It only blocks a few of the attacks, and if you move the left stick and block at the same time, he'll do a dashing dodge move instead. Sometimes when you mean to block, you'll dash instead, and that can really fuck things up. Speaking of fucking thing up, the camera sucks.....that's all I have to say. If you die a lot, that's probably why. All in all, Darksiders is a good game and something I recommend renting on a Friday night unless you're busy picking up hookers.
The Saboteur is one of those games that start off with the phrase "like Grand Theft Auto but...", and in this case Saboteur is like Grand Theft Auto but boring. Your missions basically comes down to either saving someone, killing someone, or blowing something up, and that would have been fine, if the missions were presented better. In most missions, you have the option of either using stealth or run n' gun - or as I like to call it 'go Rambo'. More often than not, going Rambo is probably the stupidest fuckin idea in the world as the whole compound will collapse on your stupid Irish ass. You could use the stealth option, and even go as far as disguise yourself, but guards gets suspicious extremely fuckin quickly leaving no choice but to go Rambo. I like a game that demands that you think before you act, but it seems like everything I try gets me killed, and that pisses me the fuck off. Ultimately, that's the problem with Saboteur; it's boring when you're succeeding and frustrating when you fail. Even if it does have tits, I see no reason to get this, especially since GTA: Episodes from Liberty City came out shortly before that.I just realized that I didn't even explain what the game is about, which would explain why some of you were confused when I called your ass Irish. You play an Irishman who start a revolution against the Nazi in Paris France of all places. Why an Irish hero in France? Hell if I know. Maybe the now defunct studio that made the game really like the Irish (they did provide us a holiday specifically designed for drinking...awesome). Maybe they believed a French hero would be a oxymoron. Who knows. Who cares? All I know is that the voice actors suck. These are some of the worst accents I have ever heard in my life. They can't even sound like they're faking an accent. Shit, Assassin's Creed 2 did it; why couldn't Saboteur? This games sucks.
In a surprising change of direction, Need for Speed went the driving sim route this time around, and I have to say, I like it better than the stupid ass street racing titles they been putting out. It's also one of the easiest driving sims you'll ever play. It's kinda like a My First Driving Sim kind of game with an emphasis on keeping it simple for the unwatched masses by providing assist to help with steering and whatnot. Take off the assist however, and you will find that this one hard mother fucking game. It's almost like the game is punishing you for not taking its help, and wants to make you pay by making you spin out as much as possible, which leads me to my first problem: controls. To me, driving sims CANNOT be played with a traditional controller. You can't really turn as smooth as you want to because the analog isn't made to. I found myself tapping the left stick over and over in order to make some of the turns without turning sharply, and that's annoying. If you have the cash, I say find a good wheel before playing any driving sim or else you will be fuckin annoyed. Shift has a system that determines your driving style. If you makes your turns cleanly, don't hit anybody when passing, or staying on the racing line, you're precision driving. If you hit people, spin your back out on turns, and draft, you're driving aggressively. Online, it's good to see what kind of drivers you're dealing with, but ultimately the system is fuckin useless. Even if you're a precision driver, you're gonna drive aggressively if you feel you're gonna lose, and if you're in the lead, how are you gonna drive aggressively? Besides, hitting people is usually a bad fuckin idea in a driving sim unless you want to see how flips your car can do before the ambulance shows up.Shift feels like a game that wasn't finished. It only has 72 cars, which is pathetic compared to other sims. The career mode is extremely short and easy to finish. The customization is lacking compared to other Need for Speed titles (although I guess that should be expected), and there's no split screen mutliplayer. I know online gaming is some very revolutionary shit, but how can you leave split screen out? I'm tired of games doing that. I guess the lack of cars and shortness of the career mode is okay since this is made for those who don't normally play racing sims. Forza is the better choice, but Shift is still good.
Rating for Darksiders: Sweet
Rating for The Saboteur: Ass
Rating for Need for Speed Shift: Sweet
Rating for GTA: Episodes from Liberty City: Fuckin Awesome
NOTE: Only a good ninja could have snuck that GTA rating in there.
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