Back in 2010, we reviewed the original Darksiders for Playstation 3. You can read our review here, but the basic gist was that it was a decent game worth your time and money. This being 2016, the year of the remaster, we naturally have Darksiders: Warmastered, because of course we do. This review is going to be covering the PS4 version specifically.
I’m not going to cover the story of Darksiders again, because we did that in our original review. So you can consider this review the remastered version, if you like. Everyone else is remastering things, so I figure it’s only fair that we reviewers get to do the same.
Naturally, the best way to convey the changes is with a video, but we don’t have access to a video capture device for PS3, so you’re going to have to watch someone else’s comparison vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liSrtPTR4OQ
If you’re not in the mood to watch that, here’s a basic idea of what’s changed. There’s no new content to the game, but it’s received a massive facelift. The game now runs in full 60fps, and it is alleged that the PS4 Pro version will run in glorious, glitzy, glamorous 4K. The smoother camera makes for a more enjoyable, less jerky experience.
All of the Darksiders: Warmastered textures have been improved and updated, and the game now includes several post-processing options (that you can happily disable if you’re not fond of them). Despite the updated visuals, it still looks very much like a PS3 game. I don’t mind the look, personally: I like the colourful nature of the game.
One part that I noticed was broken–not game-breakingly broken, but very distracting and not much fun–was the voice sync, especially during cutscenes. We’re not even talking milliseconds, we’re dealing with multiple seconds’ worth of delay between the audio and video. It’s weird to be a few seconds into a camera focus switch during a cutscene but the previous character was still yakking away.
The controls, while not broken, could have used updating. Combat was otherwise tight, and I found myself getting slowly back into the groove of the older control system.
If you’re lucky enough to own Darksiders on PC, then Darksiders: Warmastered is a free update. As it is, the game is fairly cheap on PS4, so it makes for a good purchase, especially if you haven’t played it before. If you did play it before and feel nostalgic for the apocalypse, you’ll enjoy the updated visuals, even if the gameplay and controls feel a little dated.
