Darksiders

Also known as:  Darksiders: Shinpan no Toki (Japan)

Developer: Vigil Games

Darksiders was a game that I remember enjoying back when I played it after it first released…but when I went to add it to this list, I realized that I remembered almost nothing about it. All I remembered was what I had originally described the gameplay as – God of War meets Legend of Zelda. Upon revisiting it for this website, that memory remains accurate. The majority of the game feels like a Legend of Zelda game, but once the combat starts, it feels like the hack n slash, brawling gameplay of God of War. The story itself is okay, but it’s nothing special…The character that you play as, War, doesn’t really have much of a personality to him. He’s just kind of a bland “tough guy” without a whole lot of qualities for players to latch on to or relate to. Thankfully, the environments and story help make up for that a little bit. That minor gripe aside, though, Darksiders is a solid game with solid gameplay that unfortunately lacks enough originality to truly make it more than a game that’s just shy of being great.

Review added: 10/07/2020

Dead Island

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: Techland

When I first saw Dead Island, I was at a friend’s house and he was playing it. While I’ve always liked horror-themed games, it just didn’t look appealing to me. The gameplay looked choppy and clunky, the exploration didn’t look interesting, and it just didn’t really seem like something that I’d enjoy…So, I never played it until I decided to finally cave in and add it to this website. After playing it, my initial observations were correct to a degree…but I still couldn’t help myself from getting a bit smitten with Dead Island by the time I decided to move on to something else. Finding some of the quirky characters is what made me enjoy the game more than anything else. That said, while the gameplay isn’t perfect by any means, once you get the hang of it, it’s not awful. Will Dead Island ever make a list of my top 100 favorite games? Probably not, but I can appreciate it for what it is – a decent, but not great, game where you can hit a giant zombie in the face with a nailed baseball bat while watching the beauty of the tide rolling in. That’s gotta count for something, right?

Review added: 10/07/2020

DuckTales: Remastered

Also known as:  N/A

Developer: WayForward

I adore the original NES DuckTales, so when this remake was first announced, I was running around screaming for joy like some sort of crazed maniac that had one too many Red Bulls. This isn't an exact port of the NES game, but an "enhanced" version, so to speak. There are cut scenes, and due to the story, some aspects of the NES original are ignored and replaced with new stuff in this game. There's also a new level to open the game and a new level at the end of the game that replaces the return to Transylvania. My main complaint is that when they re-designed the levels and added new tasks, they took away what made the original level design great. The Amazon had a branching path and you could take either way to get to the end - in this version, you've got to go through both paths before you can advance on. These additions will be minor to most people, but they bothered me. It's also worth noting that the controls aren't up to par, either...They just don't feel as tight as they should be. But for what it is, it's a quality remake and the length of the game (maybe around 2 1/2 to 3 hours) is much longer than the 20 minutes or so that the NES original takes to beat...So, while the controls aren't quite on par and the re-designed levels take away some of the magic of the original, the enhanced graphics, extra levels, added story, and remixed soundtrack all make this a worthwhile game to play for both fans of the original NES game and folks who have never played the 8-bit classic as well.

Review added: 03/30/2020