Zero Punctuation: Darksiders

[abort_user]

...

Oh yes, one minor point I will make is that I think the comments about the "14 year old ideal of masculinity" sort of misses the target. Rather I'd simply say that the game is presenting typical masculinity, face it... guys are wired that way. The modern meterosexuals are more or less an attempt at self supression.

Or let me put it to you this way, we can either have a macho dude driven by a desire to protect, avenge, conquer, and destroy, who acts like a warrior (which mandates a degree of emotional repression while he's doing his thing), or some dude who wants to sit around and talk about his feelings and confusion over the state of human emotion constantly.

I suppose one of the big problems is that a compromise is VERY hard to do, which is why the tiny handfull of characters that pull it off are noteworthy. In general you've got a choice between a Soldier/Warrior, a sarcastic swashbuckler type, or some fruit who would be the the lead man for a chick flick (or one of those gay-seeming supernatural creatures from paranormal romance books and the movies based on them).

In general, I think the withdrawn attitude is pretty realistic to what people who survive via violence wind up like. Granted, they DO insert too much angst into it though which I do not see as a nessicary conclusion.

I suppose War could have been done as the witty "Swashbuckler" of the Nathan Drake mould, which is what you'd get the the "check it out, I'm a monster truck with legs" vibe. However I imagine Yahtzee would have hated that more...

thats mostly horse shit. its socialization. guys arent one way or another. society trains them to behave a certain way regardless of whether its instinctual and the same also applies to women. men are often taught at a young age not to show emotion. its a sign of weakness. whereas woman are taught the opposite. some people believe this is one reason mental illness is far more frequent in males.

just because you think men should be stereotypically masculine doesnt mean youre describing masculinity. even if you think men should be "metrosexual" (btw i hate that word since it has nothing to do with a males sexual preference or anything else inherently related to sex) i would say the same thing. men have a cock, naturally more hair, naturally lower percentage of body hair, etc. most behavioral differences between males and females are almost all provably a result of socialization just by examining a wide variety of cultures.

but i also took Yahtzees comment about 14 year old boys to mean something entirely different. the guy with the big sword is a sexually charged image. a 14 year is around the age of puberty so its appeal to this demographic should be obvious. personally i think its childish to a watch "macho" man battle with giant phallus. also i find the idea to be rather homoerotic which is not my idea of masculine but it very may be yours.

 

[Danzaivar]

The real question in my mind, is does it all work together to make a fun game? Or is it one of those games that tries too hard to be too much and just falls flat on it's arse making a damp puddle of mediocrity?

I usually take Yahtzee's omission of a mechanic to be praise, but he sounded offended by this game's very existence.

 

[Booze Zombie]

War doesn't look that bad, also, I thought he was supposed to be more "I got reprimanded and killed today" than "moody".

 

[qbanknight]

venting out alot of frustrations over this game eh? understandable since it rips off so many games. heh heh, wait till you play bayonetta which i still don't understand why reviewers praised it so much for "originality" while calling darksiders derivative

What does Bayonetta rip off?

well god of war...who in turn ripped off devil may cry, which the original hasn't aged well as it should. to be honest all games end up ripping off each other in a certain way. true "innovation" comes in the form of a unique gameplay mechanic: the z-targeting system, cover systems, regenerative health, etc. The reason these games (Ocarina of time, gears of war/killswitch and halo) are remembered for these mechanics is because they supplanted this feature with tried-and-true gameplay that has been used by everybody else and fashioning unique stories.

though to be honest, in retrospect, it's incredibly difficult for a game to be "original"

 

[ucciolord1]

This was perfect. Is it even possible for you to dissapoint?

 

[paralost]

man i have this game and love it. first i don't know what Yahtzee is talking about if you buy your weapon moves then attacking becomes a lot more fun as you integrate more button combos, although its true in the beginning it's like "hmm do i want to push x one time or three?" and to all the people who are now like "after this review i am not going to get it" you are dumb. sure it may take some elements from other games but it uses them really well if you don't want to buy it it's at least worth a rent because this is bullshit now any game that has a mythological setting is automatically ripping off GoW and if there's a light puzzle it's ripping of LoZ, fuck you haters resident evil had light puzzles, prince of persia had light puzzles. the only thing that was a little ridiculous was the portal gun aka voidwalker. everytime i used it i couldn't help but think "now we are having fun with portals" =)

 

[CriticalGriffin]

That was simply hilarious. Enjoyed it alot more than the previous one.

 

[Venatio]

... I like Warhammer 40k

 

[Notere]

So, what I gathered here is that Yahtzee hates stupid one-liners from overly masculine characters unless they're -not- making them, and he's going to absolutely hate Bayonetta if his comments on art direction are any indication. Well, that just kills the suspense.

 

[Cyrax023]

one of his best reviews

 

[aPod]

This is one of my favorite reviews...

Now im just going to grab my microphone and telegraph my pat on the back attack.

 

[hippo24]

Please elaborate on your opinion of people who like Warhammer 40K.

My thoughts exactly.

Im a gelatinous creature too?

Does that mean I'm like a nurgling or something?
I can deal with that.

 

[lozfoe444]

What constitutes a God of War rip-off?

 

[WaffleGod]

Awesome review! I've played Darksiders and it's not a bad game, but as always. You can't deny anything Yahtzee says in his reviews >.

 

[Snotnarok]

Fantastic game and review, neato.

 

[Shankity Stick]

To all of the people who keep saying "Gowersh! Yahtzee shur sownds angry." all I can say is no shit. He's angry for good reason. Rip offs are horible in more ways then one. They tend not to be as good as the original and they sap the market of more creative titles because it's mor profitable to steal other peoples ideas. So there!

 

[zeratul123]

hes right there all god of war rip offfs

 

[dudeman0001]

Outstanding.
This review was incredibly fun, since he had so much to work with, much like with WET.

 

[iamthehorde]

although the vid was one of the more funnier ones recently, i can´t help the feeling that darksiders is neglected by some with a strange kind of bias. the kotaku review was also heavily based on the authors dislike for darksiders derivative style and gameplay.

what should be mentioned is that darksiders´gameplay is actually really good. and while some see it as a rip off, one could also see it as a homage to all the games it steals from. fact is, darksiders is the exact game that comes out when you put all it´s influences in a blender and it doesn´t even hide the fact.

i don´t know what difficulty yahtzee took for his playthrough, but kudos to him if he really only needed to button mash x to get through the whole game on anything other than easy difficulty. that´s the only thing that i remember from the review that was about the actual gameplay. the reviewer from kotaku seemed like he had to downplay the game. it seemed like he somehow had to admit the qualities of the game while he simultaneously hated the art design and thought of it as a shameless clone that tries to cash in on old formulas.

although the game is getting high praise by others, it strucks me that yahtzee and the kotaku guy both sounded so bitter over this game as if it was some illegitimate bastard child or as if it was something personal. the game is by no means as good as the highest reviews try to tell you, but judging a game almost entirely by the fact that a certain comic artist(who sucks) designed the characters and that it is basically zelda64 with god of war-combat(what other game does that mix?) is not that fair.

however, when i have finished the game i´m gonna sell it so i still get at least 20 bucks out of it...

 

[MagnumJoe]

LOL!

It's been quite a while since i laughed that much on ZP episode.

Nicely done! I just love that dry sarcasm.