War? Huh. What is it good for?

Darksiders: Wrath of War begins as the world ends. You play as "War" - the beefy Horseman of the Apocalypse - and we got our grubby little hands on Vigil Games’ action platformer. All isn’t death and destruction for our Horseman, however. After a brief go at a fully powered War, things grind to a halt. He’s implicated in some sort of false Apocalypse plot, and War gets sent back to find the truth - or else. Minus his powers, of course.

Although the game is still in its early build stages, Vigil emphasized character control and movement first. Whilst War is a big hulking brute of an er ... "corporeal entity of the apocalypse", he has great agility, can double jump, pull off cool looking dodges, perform light/heavy attack combinations, perform air attacks, and grapple. Vigil Games called War the ultimate hybrid of a barbarian and ninja.

 

We caught the demo partway into a corrupted cathedral. By this time, War already possesses something called a Tempest Cloak, which lets our bulky equestrian doom-bringer sprout wings and glide for short periods. We all know what that’s for: to let you access levels you previously couldn’t get to. Which is handy because in the demo, two giant flying creatures never got the memo about the cancelled apocalypse and are still slugging it out. Which not only open up a suspiciously wide chasm you need to get over, but also reveal some demonic flying demons.

We got our first taste of combat in Darksiders, and it was good. Performing combinations with War is similar to the tried and true hack ‘em up styles. There are light and heavy attacks that the player can perform with War’s gigantic sword or imposing gauntlets. It felt oddly gratifying to lock on (using the shoulder button) and throw an enemy to the ground. From there, it’s a simple matter of mashing him into cupcake batter. Weaken an enemy enough and you get a cue that you can perform a finishing move on the foe. You also get magic attacks - supernatural manifestations of your aspect as a Horseman of the Apocalypse. At this stage of the demo, sharp blades dished out some punishment and the developers say that even more destructive goodness is on the cards.

 

War's weapons have upgrade slots that further ups their destructive ante. War’s hyperbolically large blade also has a few more tricks up its sleeve - perform enough continuous attacks with it and it starts growing in size. You can choose to either keep whacking away with all the extra power or release it in a special attack. Sure, we’ve all seen these things done before, but what’s different here is that even the de-powered War starts out with a large arsenal of moves and by the end of the game, his move list dwarfs even the size of his sword.

But being War isn’t just good for a spot of pugilism; obstacles must be overcome as well. After dispatching the first batch of demons, a quick double jump past the chasm reveals other platforming elements. There are platforms with triggers that must be attacked and pesky locks that need a spot of blowing up; there are rail hangs, rope traversals, and jumps that even in this early build felt smooth enough to make Ryu proud. Puzzles are incorporated with the platforming elements, influenced by the likes of the Zelda and Prince of Persia games - only with more ass kicking.

One of the weapons you come across to add to War’s arsenal is the Cross Blade. It’s a boomerang-style weapon that you can use to fillet your foes from afar or hit faraway switches. Hitting an enemy with the cross blade also effectively freezes an enemy as they are busy thrashing around from a giant spinning blade dicing up their organs, and this lets you keep some enemies away while you dispatch the rest up close and personal.

 

If you’re feeling particularly mean, you can even attack foes that are being diced up by the cross blade. A free-aiming mode allows War to lock on to multiple enemies - other ranged weapons become available later on.

Through the magic of developer cheat codes, we teleported to another open area. This one, a ruined city filled with shambling zombies. We tried picking up a lamp-post and bashing them around some, but the real fun came when we picked up wrecked cars and threw them into a shuffling mass of zombies. War is shaping up to be quite a badass, really. Vigil also showed us how to catch cars thrown at us by the level’s mini boss.

If the smooth puzzles and great fighting are the cake, War’s trusty steed, Ruin, would be the icing. What’s a Horseman without a big fiery horse? We had great fun running around a barren wasteland, part of a large open area that will be in the final game to explore, and we discovered that running full tilt in one direction and then suddenly reversing or swinging the stick drastically to the side will result in your horse rearing up and then changing direction. Horse mounted controls felt responsive, yet different from being on foot. Summoning Ruin results in your horse appearing amid a cloud of fire and brimstone. You can even air summon your mount, which came in handy when a boss encounter left us flying through the air. Instead of an ignominious faceplant, we landed on the horse, Zorro style.

 

Did we mention that you kill the boss by riding around, guiding Ruin with one gauntleted hand while firing a chain gun with the other?

Although there are many familiar elements here to fans of both platforming and hack and slash genres, the great character designs, the brooding atmosphere, Ruin, and fun combat make for a game to watch out for when it releases early 2009.

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Want more? Check out the trailer at GP Downloads (118MB).