I think I'll pick this up once a few more positive reviews trickle through (an Edge 8 would be nice).  I read the Gamesmaster review at work today, it does sound pretty good.  I never played the first one, but apparently it works as a standalone story. 

I'm not sure whether to buy it and sell it once I complete it, or take my chances with Lovefilm.  It'll probably take me three months to finish, if Skyward Sword is anything to go by, which will tide me over nicely while I wait for Halo 4.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-14-darksiders-2-review

Reviews are generally rather positive (CVG, IGN, Gamesradar) but I have found they all say different things. For instance, CVG didn't like the combat, saying it was nothing special and too repetative. Whereas Gamesradar loved it. It seems like it is splitting opinion on the details but everyone is saying that it is a great game overall.

I can't wait for next Tuesday.

Just watched the trailers and this looks fantastic, but, then, something occurred to me.
I thought back to the first game, and then realised I had heard the voice of War again since then. The guy who voiced War also did the voice of Caius Ballad in FFXIII-2, he's also credited in the recent Spider-man game and Spec Ops the Line

FUCK YEAH!

Barely started, but it's fucking amazing so far.

The pre game signing up and unlock codes and faffing about with THQ shite can get tae, but the gameplay is leaving all forgiven.

Gonna see if installing improves some of the load times.

Just did my first proper dungeon and ride around. I can't tell you how good pretty much everything about this game is. It's balls to the wall fun. Has paid attention to Souls in its own way. Without being as tough.

Have a possessed weapon now. They have their own level up system and you can choose different perks as you go! It's amaze.

I just got given a gun. Snap.

If they don't fuck up the end of this game then we have gold on our hands.

Edit: you can send friends items in game!!!

Can confirm that installing is WELL worth it. Still the odd load, but much less intrusive.

Second dungeon is awesome. The gun works a treat, and - fuck me - everything just works how you want it to. You can lock on, you can switch enemies, the camera is pretty well behaved, the jumping around is rudimentary, but certainly not broken.

What's particularly awesome is the horseback combat. It just fucking works. You're much safer, you can do swipe bys on tough enemies. you can use your gun. And on it goes.

Difficulty is just right, I've not died in battle yet, but the tougher enemies could certainly get me if I was being a nupty.

As curtis says, the music is stand out. I can't believe how good it looks though. Those beautiful strong colours and entrances to areas are turned up to 11 in this.

They have also got picking up loot and sifting through it on the fly pretty well right.

@Facewon and Curtis: You are making the wait for Tuesday even more agonizing than it was!!!

I watched the Machinima review (protip - don't if you want this game to be a surprise), it was spoiler central, showing off many locations, story aspects and abilities.

There's something about the art I really don't like, it just seems kind of kids tv cartoon to me. Also, they said it's very similar to the first which i gave up on after the first dungeon, so till this is 20 quid I'll wait, unless i get some time to refamiliarise myself with the first this weekend and end up really enjoying it. Finished he first big dungeon as I recall.

I hate the stupid Image Comics "look Mom, i can draw big arms and boots" character design, but the world itself is lush!

I'm assuming the 360 version looks pretty snazzy, cause the PC port has very little in the way of upgrade options.

revelthedog wrote:

  I guess it gets better after the first couple of levels then?

The first needs a little context. It's the little-ish game that could. (Well, THQ threw money at, but still, new IP.)

It's derivative, I guess, but in the best way. ie. Took a bunch of ideas, but implemented them well. The combat is hardly bayonetta, and it's certainly no Souls. it's probably a touch mashy. But gee the big action and characters cover a lot, and it never felt super cheap. It probably shouldn't work, in that it's a little design by committee and really really tries hard not to piss the player off. (DS 2 is following suit. Map tells you where chests are, death just resets you at the start of a room, you can't lose anything.)

The first one for the first 2 thirds, as has been mentioned, is awesome. It loses it's way, but again, it tries not to piss you off too much, so it gets a bit boring, but it's not teeth nashing difficulty that's in the way. I trudged through to the end to see the story out, and for the sake of following on with DS2, I think it's entirely worth it.

This is Zelda and Diablo combined, no doubt, but done with such polish that you don't care. Camera's been getting a little funky in big fights, especially as I've gone down the route of having lots of minions, but nothing in the game is doing enough damage to make that a major issue. There's no one hit kill beasties.

As far as the loot and weapons go, they look like they've got the system set up pretty well. You get access to merchants and whatnot pretty early. When you first meet them you'll only have a few k in gold. But by the time you finish the first dungeon after that, you can come back and sell stuff and you'll be flush to buy some pretty cool stuff straight away. (Like diablo, I wouldn't be going nuts buying weapons, as you find a lot of pretty cool items.)

Possessed weapons seem like they work pretty much as you'd want them too. They're not instantly uber, but you can really tweak them. All the weapons have a level attached to them. 1, 2, 3 etc. Which is aligned with your level, and also dictates what sort of base damage they'll do. The possessed weapons have the same levels, but you can feed them other weapons to level them up. And the coolest thing about that is that not only will that lift it's basic stats (so if it's doing 60 damage, it'll go up to 70 or whatever) you also get to chose other perks to upgrade. So you can pump points into crit chance, or crit damage or add fire or whatever. And you can rename the possessed weapons! Awesome. Early on, I got some level 3 possessed claws. Fed 'em a few weapons, but Vigil seem to have balanced it well. To make an uber possessed weapon, you need to feed it good weapons, which obviously takes away from the gold you could earn selling them to merchants. My gut feeling, having played through the start, is that you're better off holding out until you get a level 7-8 possessed weapon and building that. (I'm not sure if feeding p weapons weapons with ice damage or fire damage etc effects what perks you can add to the possessed weapon. Might be handy if it does though. You could save a bunch of ice weapons, for instance, and level it with only them.)

Also, the game has instant access to fast travel via the world map. yay.

Voice acting is really good too. In a VERY VERY cheesy way. Although the Scots around here might wince a bit.

About 10 hours in now. Have a shitload of little nooks and chests and collectables I'm hanging to get back to in early areas, but the story is cracking along too. So far, it doesn't seem as sprawling as a KoA or Skyrim, as far as side quests go, which, IMO, is a good thing. There's a few on going collection quests, and maybe 1-2 secondary quests at any one time. Just right.

God I hope they don't fuck up the end of this one.

Doing the second dungeon on DS1, and by fuck is it getting awsome son.

He did a a hitman a while back, yeah?

Anyways, as curtis mentioned, it's top notch. A touch cheesy, a touch ott, but totally in keeping and really lovely. The sound in general is great.

wtf sunglasses.

lols. With 3 minions, fire damage, shock damage and crits in BIG NUMBERS, plus about a bazillion explosions on screen at any given time, it's pretty hard to see the combat sometimes. When the dust settles, I'm usually standing there.

It's a game that knows the power of lots of numbers on screen.