Returning to Darksiders II [official site] nearly five years after I first reviewed it, for a worrying time I wondered what on Earth I’d been on about. I remember absolutely loving the game, and writing a rave review back in 2012, so why was I struggling to even want to carry on in the first hour? It turns out, it just has a really dull first hour, because ten hours in I’m so utterly engrossed, and want to rave about it all over again. … [visit site to read more]

Opinion is divided over the Darksiders games. There are those who wrongly don’t like them, while far better looking people recognise what a tip-top third-person action-adventure biff-me-do they truly are. And right now they’re 90% off on Steam. I’m not usually one to make a post because a single game is having a sale, but bloody hell, 4.50 for both of them?!

… [visit site to read more]

Can even the Four Horsemen survive an apocalyptic event? Nordic Games hope so. When THQ went down in flames, Nordic bought up Darksiders – but not its creators, Vigil Games – and (naturally) declared that the hack ‘n’ slash action-RPG was not dead. While some assumed this would mean a Darksiders III, Nordic were a little vague, and the first we saw of DS again was the revamped Deathinitive Edition of Darksiders II – which hit PC last week. Worry not, they do indeed want to make a third game, and hope this re-release will help them with that.

… [visit site to read more]

The ‘Deathinitive Edition’ of Darksiders II [official site] will ride onto PC tomorrow, publishers Nordic Games have announced at awfully short notice. It took them ages to even quietly confirm a PC version of the open-world hacking-and-slashing action-RPG’s revamp and now boom, here, it’s out tomorrow. (John really dug its original release in 2012.) Expect improved graphics, a rebalancing, and a fair bit of confusion over whether current DS2 owners will receive it as an update or not.

… [visit site to read more]

You probably like action games. But which ones should you like best?! We’ve narrowed it down to 25, and then put them in the unimpeachably correct order. Read on for details of the best action biff-zap-collect-me-do gaming you can stuff down your trousers.

… [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Ooh, I like me some Darksiders II [official site]. Yet another tragic victim of the collapse of THQ, the prospects of a third game in the series seem ever-far away, with current owners Nordic Games still saying such a thing is yet to start. But with a remake of the game coming up later this year, now couldn’t possibly be a worse time to recommend it to you.

… [visit site to read more]

A couple of weeks ago, a roguelike which uses the Banner Saga engine to create a rather attractive post-apocalyptic cocktail of FTL, The Oregon Trail and XCOM popped up on Kickstarter. Bedlam’s around $90k into its $130k goal, with just eight days left on the clock. I’ve had a chat with the devs, who include veterans of Darksiders studio Vigil, about what they’re aiming for with the game, what the Banner Saga engine enables them to do, what they’ve changed about it, and the 80s/90s comics visual influences for this game of desert bandits and desert death-buses. Also – what about that other> game called Bedlam? … [visit site to read more]

Update: Confirmation/statement from Nordic Games below. The short version? “We can and will not settle for second-best solutions in the case of Darksiders.”

Original: Things were not looking so great for, er, Death for a little bit there. THQ had a run-in with its own sort of reaper, and the Darksiders license sat in limbo seemingly unwanted for ages. That is, until Nordic Games scooped it up along with roughly one trillion other pieces of THQ’s flaming wreckage. But it’s not like the Painkiller: Hell & Damnation publisher can just churn out sequels to everything from Red Faction to Supreme Commander. You’d figure, then, that Darksiders is probably stuck on the sidelines – not pushing up daisies, but not pushing blocks or scything occult beasties either. Former series creative director Joe Madureira, however, claims we might not have to wait long to see something new after all.

… [visit site to read more]

Update: Helpfully, reader and probable Prince of Handsomeness The JG Man dug up the court form outlining details (including amounts, back-up bidders, etc) of each sale. You can peruse that here.

Original: Well, I suppose it was inevitable. After THQ’s attempt at averting a Humpty Dumpty sales situation failed miserably, the writing was pretty much on the wall. So now the grim reaper’s scythe has hacked the once-gargantuan publisher into itsy-bitsy pieces and scattered any remaining ashes to the winds. On the upside, pretty much every major THQ franchise and developer (minus Darksiders dev Vigil, sadly) landed safely in less-likely-to-kerplode homes. Also, Relic and Creative Assembly live under the same roof now. Can Company of Shoguns: Total Homeworld or some other dream team RTS be far off? Probably. It’s still kind of a silver lining, though, and anyway SHUT UP I’M SAD.

(more…)

THQ, if you didn’t know (hint: you did), is in some rather deep water. Not only has it opted to delay a whole mess of games in the wake of Darksiders II’s not-quite-megaton splash, it’s also in a teensy bit of debt. By which I of course mean $50 million - using “teensy bit” as a term relative to all the money ever printed in the whole of human history. But things may not be quite as dire as they seem. Sure, another high-level exec – this time CFO Paul Pucino – has decided to skedaddle, but apparently someone with a fair deal of monetary sway might very well have THQ’s rapidly breaking back.

(more…)