Darksiders 2

[regemond]

Wait, I stand corrected. It's just turned into...

 

Spoiler

every third person shooter ever.

 

[ThreeFour]

Shooter? Don't remember that ?

[regemond]

So when you go to Earth you get a couple of waves of speedy zombies and some of those annoying enemies that explode when they get close to you.

 

You CAN do what you've been doing the whole game and keep killing stuff, but the floor is littered with angel guns that make it way quicker and easier to deal with them.

 

I wouldn't mind but it doesn't have the big open areas Earth had in the first one - it's corridor, corridor, room, corridor, corridor. And obviously you get a wave of enemies around every corner.

 

Skip to about 11 minutes on this video...

 

Spoiler

 

 

[ThreeFour]

Ha, genuinely don't remember that bit. Wonder if I even used the gun ?

[regemond]

Oh my god will this game ever finish??

 

I'm at the point where I can literally only take 30 minutes or so at a time because I just don't care anymore. Just let me finish. It's so repetitive.

 

Go here, get new power you'll play around with for 10 minutes, maybe use on the boss, head to hub and continue story. Repeat ad nauseum.

 

It's like someone sucked the soul out of Zelda (the old ones, obviously) left the basics there and went for a pint.

 

Look, I can see where there was a bit of effort put in. I can see what the devs were going for. I actually really like that it's a continuation of the story but with gameplay that's both very different from the first and still very familiar. But at a certain point there's just padding for padding's sakes.

 

I don't even think I've hit 20 hours, but I really don't want to play anymore. I'm having to motivate myself to play it. On the other hand, I can tell the story is drawing to a close (I just had a boss fight against a former ally, that's always a sign things are escalating for the big finish) so I just want to get through it.

 

The annoying thing is, this should be something I fucking adore. All the pieces are there for a quality piece of cheesy entertainment. It's just not doing it for me.

 

I do love my minions though. Summoning three rabid little bastards to attack anything that moves? Yep, sign me up for that in every game ever. They've made everything from rooms full of skeleton warriors to tough to hit bosses much easier.

[Nag]

It's been a fair while since I played either of these games but that sentiment is one I can get on-board with... they definitely pad the game in unnecessary ways (collect a part, oh no...it's broken into three pieces) Its one of the reasons I'm not overly excited by the third game. 

[regemond]

Ok, just taken on the last boss, and even with my last couple of negative posts, I really, really enjoyed beating him.

 

He was a timeless classic of an end boss. Two attacks, both doing decent damage, easy enough to avoid. Beat him down and piss him off enough to start phase 2, which adds another attack. Kick his ass some more to really annoy him and deal with more, faster attacks and more damage.

 

Honestly, so satisfying beating him. Especially since my minions did fuck all damage, so it was all down to my skill set.

 

The only negative I've got is that he wasn't a constant threat throughout the game. In fact, there's not really any visible antagonist (unless I haven't paid attention). You just kind of stumble through this quest because of the events of the first game. There's nobody popping up to let you know that's who you'll be killing at the end or anything like that, it's just 'here, you've got all the arbitrary bits and pieces, go kill this guy. We know you've never seen him before, but fuck it, you've got a couple of scythes, go use them'.

 

Anyway, without that last third before the final two bosses I think I'd have loved this game. But the padding went beyond ridiculous. For example, when you earn the last power, you use it for about 5 then it gets upgraded an hour later to have a second use. And that hour is spent making your way to the upgrade. And the second use doesn't stop or alter the first. Why not just combine the two?

 

It's like the devs were forced to make it longer for the sake of a bullet point on the box.

 

The DLC isn't getting touched though. My whole experience was soured by the last few hours before the end, so I just haven't got the energy to put into it.