The Darksiders 2® Catch-All

More fluid combat, a nice soundtrack and a nod to ARPG looting have me liking this game a lot. Early on I got a bit stubborn and tried to beat the Thane NPC in a duel. One hit and it's a full reset. Kind of annoying. Must have wasted 20 minutes trying to beat him.

Has anyone bothered to defeat him and is the reward worth it?

I made it to level 5! I get to use all my preorder goodies!
I can't decide which possessed 2 hander to swing, and which to sacrifice to the soul of the weapon to level it up!

Everything about this game makes me want to use lots of exclamation points!

Maclintok wrote:

More fluid combat, a nice soundtrack and a nod to ARPG looting have me liking this game a lot. Early on I got a bit stubborn and tried to beat the Thane NPC in a duel. One hit and it's a full reset. Kind of annoying. Must have wasted 20 minutes trying to beat him.

Has anyone bothered to defeat him and is the reward worth it?

Winning gives you a sidequest in which you have to kill 4 creatures spread around the world. Once you learn his moves, they're easy to dodge.

Blind_Evil wrote:

MTV's Multiplayer blog says that Death will appear in a two minute Metalocalypse promotion on Cartoon Network this Friday, during a Metalocalypse marathon.

It's like the f*cking reinvention of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

(Metalocalypse is a cartoon which lovingly parodies heavy metal, and serves as the source of my avatar, for the uninitiated).

They did something similar with the Roadie from Brutal Legend, voiced by Jack Black there too. I'd look it up on YouTube if I weren't at work.

Have they done any other similar cross-promotions?

Hyetal wrote:
Maclintok wrote:

More fluid combat, a nice soundtrack and a nod to ARPG looting have me liking this game a lot. Early on I got a bit stubborn and tried to beat the Thane NPC in a duel. One hit and it's a full reset. Kind of annoying. Must have wasted 20 minutes trying to beat him.

Has anyone bothered to defeat him and is the reward worth it?

Winning gives you a sidequest in which you have to kill 4 creatures spread around the world. Once you learn his moves, they're easy to dodge.

Huh, and here I held off, expecting to need to be way higher in level.

On the loot, I'll confess, it's not as satisfying to open a treasure chest and find a slightly better set of greaves than to find a piece of heart shard. I'll have to get used to it. For some reason I never quite got into the loot-craze, but I do love exploring areas to find upgrades to things like missile packs, health, and useful tools.

Haven't gotten my pre-order yet (thanks, THQ Shop), but I'm a bit worried over what I've been reading about the camera controls.

Buzz online says that there's no way to disable the auto-centering camera and this is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. I hate feeling like I have to fight the camera when it insists on re-centering behind your character. It’s like the game is taking control away from me.

It's double-bizarre because there was definitely a toggle on the original Darksiders that let you disable auto-center.

Can anyone comment on the feel of the camera in light of this?

Camera feels pretty sh*t. Especially using a mouse, I'd say, but even with my 360 controller, the camera pans and swerves completely independent of what my right thumb wants.

Edit: I've stopped playing the game, because after an encounter with the infamous leave-inventory-freeze, I lost two levels and a relatively significant amount of exploration. Hopefully there's a patch coming for the PC version.

Hmmm. Looks like I'll have to adjust.

I don't mind when camera control is taken away when you enter a new zone (i.e. sweeps through a new area or something), but I can't stand it during minute to minute gameplay).

Sigh.

It's not quite as bad as I make it sound (though it is for the mouse), I was just a little annoyed with the freezing. There should definitely be an option to turn off the "smart"-camera.

It's a little finicky but nothing you can't adjust around.

ccesarano wrote:

On the loot, I'll confess, it's not as satisfying to open a treasure chest and find a slightly better set of greaves than to find a piece of heart shard. I'll have to get used to it. For some reason I never quite got into the loot-craze, but I do love exploring areas to find upgrades to things like missile packs, health, and useful tools.

The loot talk has me significantly less interested in the game, to be honest. It's not a gameplay structure that I particularly enjoy, and I'm disappointed to see it applied to the template Darksiders is working from.

(Your comment about being disappointed by a treasure chest reminded me of Skyward Sword. I was similarly disappointed in that game when I'd open a chest and get a rare crafting material instead of a heart piece. Get your RPG mechanics out of my Zelda(ish) games, people!)

Aaron D. wrote:

Haven't gotten my pre-order yet (thanks, THQ Shop)

Me either. They have sent me my code for the season pass thing like three time though as if that is some sort of consolation. Tempted to go buy the game and then return the pre-order copy unopened when it gets here.

Make no mistake, it's still satisfying just to do that exploration and find something at the end of the path. What has me curious is if the option to go the loot path was a result of people complaining about how much the first one "ripped off" Zelda. I recall a lot of people viewing that as a negative thing, and to me it was fantastic. Why WOULDN'T you want more games working off of a successful formula?

Hell, Darksiders 2 only further proves why I'd like to see other devs to stuff like this with the whole Prince of Persia environment exploration. Dungeons are interesting to interact with now! Imagine if Link could do all this sh*t! It would be bad ass!

This is the best sort of imitation: instead of trying to BE someone else's game, just mix and mash everything you love into a single game. Who gives a damn if you can look at something and say "I know who did that first".

...dammit, I so much want to be playing Darksiders 2 right now instead of sitting at work.

ccesarano wrote:

...dammit, I so much want to be playing Darksiders 2 right now instead of sitting at work.

I would just like to +1 this.

+1.

Hurray!

ccesarano wrote:

What has me curious is if the option to go the loot path was a result of people complaining about how much the first one "ripped off" Zelda.

I suspect it has something more to do with the bazillions of copies of Diablo sold on the back of a loot drop mechanic.

ccesarano wrote:

Make no mistake, it's still satisfying just to do that exploration and find something at the end of the path. What has me curious is if the option to go the loot path was a result of people complaining about how much the first one "ripped off" Zelda. I recall a lot of people viewing that as a negative thing, and to me it was fantastic. Why WOULDN'T you want more games working off of a successful formula?

Yea as someone who hasn't owned a Nintendo system since the N64 I think what I loved most about the first game how it was sort of just a giant homage to Ocarina of Time only with good combat.

ccesarano wrote:

What has me curious is if the option to go the loot path was a result of people complaining about how much the first one "ripped off" Zelda. I recall a lot of people viewing that as a negative thing, and to me it was fantastic.

1. I don't know who you mean, but most of the critics and people here were pretty positive on Darksiders borrowing from the Zelda format.

2. I don't think adding gear was a reaction to that, but rather a desire to have more individuality for each character. Japanese people (and fans of Japanese games) are more comfortable with static mechanical character development than Western gamers, who prefer more agency. I can take it either way, myself.

I've gotten really lucky with "possessed" weapons. Either that or Gerstmann was terribly unlucky. I'm level 10, 6 hours in, and I've found four: three scythes (levels 6, 8 and 10), and one fist secondary weapon (level 5).

I also finally got my pre-order bonus gear, which included some armor that was nice enough that I'm still wearing it and a scythe that was instantly way worse than my possessed scythe (which has increased critical chance and health restore on critical), but had health regeneration on it. It's very slow, but I still equip it between fights and it usually gets me back up to full by the time I face anything tough enough to require my full fury.

Something I noticed about possessed weapons: when you're feeding them, you can tell what options you're going to have at the next level up by the color of the property text on the sacrificed item. If it's white, that property will be available for inheritance. If it's green, it'll boost an improvement to an existing property. If it's gray, it won't have any impact.

I've taken to jumping in every pool of water I see. Nine times out of ten, there'll either be an item hidden down there, or a path to a chest, or both, or the path forward through the dungeon. If it's that last one, it will invariably be "lit."

ClockworkHouse wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

What has me curious is if the option to go the loot path was a result of people complaining about how much the first one "ripped off" Zelda.

I suspect it has something more to do with the bazillions of copies of Diablo sold on the back of a loot drop mechanic.

While there was a lot of hype for Diablo 3, considering when development of this game started I honestly don't think that would have been it. Then again, I wasn't on the development team so I can't really say what inspired the choice.

Blind_Evil wrote:

1. I don't know who you mean, but most of the critics and people here were pretty positive on Darksiders borrowing from the Zelda format.

I don't remember what sites and blogs I was reading at the time I played Darksiders, but when I looked back to see the reception it got there was a lot of Female Doggoing and whining about how Zelda it was and the use of the Portal gun, neither of which really bothered me.

Speaking of things bothering me, I wrote a brief tweet last night that was something along the lines of "Dammit video games, exposition is not interesting!" For some reason when watching the opening of Darksiders 2, not really absorbing much of what they were telling me, and yawning wondering why video games keep starting this way, I suddenly thought of the beginning of Xenoblade: Chronicles.

Sure, there was exposition there, but I thought about how the game drops you into a conflict that takes place years before the events of the rest of the game. You aren't directly told what the Monado does or anything, but you get to see it in action. You get to see the war. And you basically get enough context clues to guess at later events when it goes to years later.

Basically, Xenoblade's only exposition was "Two giant monsters fought each other. Now people live on them, and they're fighting each other two. Play the battle!"

Why couldn't Darksiders educate me on

Spoiler:

the Nephilim by dropping me down into a battle from back in the day, perhaps the one where War, Death, Fury and Strife decided they wanted to be batting for the other team(s)? Instead of having pages of exposition force fed to me, throw me into some action? Show me, don't tell me? Or perhaps treat it as a flashback at some point and open the game with Death riding through the snow.

I'm just sick of the game telling me all the "important" information before I even give a damn what's going on. It's a shortcut in film, television and video games all and I get really bored of it.

ccesarano wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

What has me curious is if the option to go the loot path was a result of people complaining about how much the first one "ripped off" Zelda.

I suspect it has something more to do with the bazillions of copies of Diablo sold on the back of a loot drop mechanic.

While there was a lot of hype for Diablo 3, considering when development of this game started I honestly don't think that would have been it. Then again, I wasn't on the development team so I can't really say what inspired the choice.

I didn't say Diablo 3. I meant the franchise as a whole.

But really, you could just as easily point to Torchlight or World of WarCraft or any other loot-heavy game. Loot drops are an incredibly popular mechanic and are a critical aspect of most MMOs and many RPGs. Lots of people really like it when enemies randomly cough up a Level 5 Sword to replace their current Level 2 Axe.

Spoiler:

I'm just not one of them.

I'm not either. I like finding a piece of heart because it feels like you are incrementally becoming more powerful. But finding a level 5 pair of gauntlets just means there's a level 6+ out there with better stats. Sure, you have something nice now, but eventually something better will come along.

Versus, again, finding a piece of heart or shard or whatever and incrementing your power permanently. Something that has a more long-term benefit, and is thus more rewarding.

My game arrived!

woot

ccesarano wrote:

I'm not either. I like finding a piece of heart because it feels like you are incrementally becoming more powerful. But finding a level 5 pair of gauntlets just means there's a level 6+ out there with better stats. Sure, you have something nice now, but eventually something better will come along.

Versus, again, finding a piece of heart or shard or whatever and incrementing your power permanently. Something that has a more long-term benefit, and is thus more rewarding.

Couldn't you feed the gauntlets to a possessed item, thus becoming incrementally more powerful?

Chaz wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I'm not either. I like finding a piece of heart because it feels like you are incrementally becoming more powerful. But finding a level 5 pair of gauntlets just means there's a level 6+ out there with better stats. Sure, you have something nice now, but eventually something better will come along.

Versus, again, finding a piece of heart or shard or whatever and incrementing your power permanently. Something that has a more long-term benefit, and is thus more rewarding.

Couldn't you feed the gauntlets to a possessed item, thus becoming incrementally more powerful?

But there are no possessed gauntlets. Your gauntlets will forever be inferior.

I have no idea about possessed items yet. I haven't even tackled the first real dungeon yet.

Even so, it's just not the same was when you have collected four pieces of heart, or an E-Tank, or a missile pack, etc.

LobsterMobster wrote:
Chaz wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

I'm not either. I like finding a piece of heart because it feels like you are incrementally becoming more powerful. But finding a level 5 pair of gauntlets just means there's a level 6+ out there with better stats. Sure, you have something nice now, but eventually something better will come along.

Versus, again, finding a piece of heart or shard or whatever and incrementing your power permanently. Something that has a more long-term benefit, and is thus more rewarding.

Couldn't you feed the gauntlets to a possessed item, thus becoming incrementally more powerful?

But there are no possessed gauntlets. Your gauntlets will forever be inferior.

Inferior gauntlets make excellent possessed weapon food. nomnomnom Unless you can't feed gauntlets to weapons, I can't remember.

Possessed weapons gain experience by eating other items that you feed to them. When they level up, they get better stats, and you get to assign them an additional affix/attribute.

You can indeed feed gauntlets to possessed weapons.

Aaron D. wrote:

My game arrived!

woot

Me too!!!!!!!!!!!!

But jesus do I have a bunch of codes to enter. This game just stole the top spot for most number of codes I have ever had to enter with 6 (2 codes for bonus weapons that had to be entered at the Darksiders web site before getting codes to enter at xbox.com plus the season pass and argus tomb codes). Forgot what it was but last fall I had something that had like 5 codes all for Xbox and that sucked because all 5 were printed codes. I got to copy and paste two of these at least.

Anyway time to game.

I think Argul's Tomb is included in the Season Pass, so I'm holding onto my Tomb pass for someone here who buys used or rents it.

That's weird.

I just got the Crucible pass code and the Argul's Tomb code out of the box. And then the Season Pass code that was emailed to me.

Didn't get any extra weapon codes though.

The only codes I got other than the Season Pass, Crucible, and Argul's were the two facebook codes, one for the axe and one for an avatar t-shirt.