Review: Darksiders 2

Following the events off the original Darksiders (or at least some of the events?  I'm still a little confused by this), Darksiders 2 has players take on the role of another horseman of the apocalypse, Death.  Death is on a mission to redeem his brother, War, by trying to resurrect Mankind.  Unfortunately, to fulfill this mission he has to follow a seemingly endless amount of people saying, "You should go here, but first help me!"  Also, my post about a lack of collectible maps and the downsides of random loot drops were caused by this game.

It seems very strange that the first game did a good job with reminding you where collectibles were so you know where to go once you have the right items and this one failed so miserably at it.  Also, the random loot drops made any special items you unlock through skill and hard work (like working through 25 waves of enemies in The Crucible or fighting a super hard optional boss) were really worthless, thus making it feel like a crappy accomplishment.  This was only slightly mitigated by having Possessed weapons (that would randomly drop...) that you can "feed" other weapons to make them stronger.  So you can craft an uber weapon to fit your play style.  Of course, once you do that, you have little reason to care about any further weapon drops because they can't top your weapon.

Yet despite all the incredible gameplay failings this game had, I still want a Darksiders 3 to come out (which will prove difficult since THQ is no more...) because the art, character design, and universe they have built is still phenomenal.  I want to play a third game as Strife (although I hope it doesn't become a console FPS since they've made him use guns as his weapons) and a fourth as whatever they've named the fourth Horseman (the only female of the group).  I just hope that if someone gets the IP and they make another one, that it has more enjoyable gameplay.