Darksiders 2!

[Q-BZ]

For anyone on Nvidia hardware that's having issues with stutter - a fix has been posted on the Steam forums.
You just need to force vsync in the Nvidia control panel and use the frame limiter in MSI Afterburner. It's not in the Afterburner-proper program, but in the On-Screen Display Server applet that comes with it. FYI - Afterburner works with any hardware, not just MSI...

Darksiders is one of those few oddball programs that has a default maximum FPS that's an oddball number, and it doesn't jive with some hardware. Some other people have reported that running it in a window and D3DOverrider can also work.

This doesn't suddenly make the game look any better, but it's at least playable now.

Have people successfully forced options in Nvidia control panel and/or with Inspector? Or AMD equivalents?

I can tell you that the FXAA Injector for Skyrim does a nice job with this thing. Preset 1. Toggle the gamma up one notch and that's all I had to do. Looks great.

 

[Plague_Injected]

If we really want to get anal and overly philisophical: How much out there is "100 percent original" anyways if we really want to get down to it?

Haters gonna hate. Screw 'em.

The game's a blast.

Better question: What % of either Darksiders game is original?

 

[Q-BZ]

Better question: What % of either Darksiders game is original?

Don't know. Don't care. It works. Especially in part two.

 

[Plague_Injected]

Don't know. Don't care. It works. Especially in part two.

This is the problem. Nobody can actually refute what I and plenty of others around the interwebs are saying. All they can do is trivialise and dismiss its relevance.

 

[Domingo]

Have people successfully forced options in Nvidia control panel and/or with Inspector? Or AMD equivalents?

I can tell you that the FXAA Injector for Skyrim does a nice job with this thing. Preset 1. Toggle the gamma up one notch and that's all I had to do. Looks great.

Apparently the Nvidia panel and Inspector work for some people, but not everyone. Plus, not all of the functions seem to work, either. Their vsync force seem to work for me, so I guess I'm lucky. D3DOverrider or Afterburner work across the board. I kinda wish Afterburner had a vsync switch built into it so it would full-on replace D3DOverrider.
I haven't messed with FXAA yet as I only just now got the game running okay, but that's probably my next step. Those shadows are distracting. I didn't notice them at first, but now I can't help but cringe when I see them.

 

[tuaarita]

Damnit I want to play this so much but I'm still at the Black Throne Third Guardian in DS1.

 

[Q-BZ]

Apparently the Nvidia panel and Inspector work for some people, but not everyone. Plus, not all of the functions seem to work, either. Their vsync force seem to work for me, so I guess I'm lucky. D3DOverrider or Afterburner work across the board. I kinda wish Afterburner had a vsync switch built into it so it would full-on replace D3DOverrider.

Noted.

I haven't messed with FXAA yet as I only just now got the game running okay, but that's probably my next step. Those shadows are distracting. I didn't notice them at first, but now I can't help but cringe when I see them.

It worked great in part 1 and works great here, too.

For anyone's benefit who has never used it:

Download it, pick preset 1, copy and paste what's in that folder into where the main game .exe file is and it works like a charm. You can leave the FXAA.exe open and alt tab back and forth in game and make adjustments however you see fit. You hit your keyboards Pause button for on/off to see what it looks like vs the default.

It doesn't create miracles but damn if it doesn't do some nice things.

This is the problem. Nobody can actually refute what I and plenty of others around the interwebs are saying. All they can do is trivialise and dismiss its relevance.

Oh for crissakes, lighten up. Refute what? Is this a federal case?

People keep saying all that matters is that it works or that it is fun,

That's typically why people videogames and other forms of recreation and entertainment.

...but that didn't stop a bunch of whinging about the game two days ago when it had next to no graphics options...

So? I was one of those people. We weren't bitching about the game content itself. Vigil lived up to their promises on the content itself as far as I'm concerned.

Where they didn't (at least so far) is PC centric menu options and features.

which had no greater effect on the game's function or enjoyment factor than its copycat tendencies.

Man, you know I like you so don't take this the wrong way ok?

Lighten up!

You make it sound like life and death issues are on the line that just by God have to be argued about and complained about for pages and pages.


Everyone knows this game is not very original (how much out there really is?) , is missing PC centric menu options, and yet it comes together and is fun as hell to play. I haven't seen anyone deny these points. Overall, the game has a heck of a lot going for it. It really does.

What's there to argue about or refute? That's all there is to it.


Hell, if I can't get a real Kain sequel I'll happily settle for this. Lumps and all. It is what it is. I don't know what else to say.

 

[Pyrocles]

Have any of you guys tried Darksiders 2 in 3D? The first one was epic using 3D Vision on my DLP projector, and I hope the second installment is just as good. I love how I got the game to look like I was controlling a War action figure running through a huge plastic playset.

 

[Plague_Injected]

The argument that "no modern games are 100% original, therefore Darksiders is okay," is so fucking ridiculous. Good games bring some kind of new take to the genre, or new gameplay mechanics, or expand/improve on existing conventions, or bring their own identities. Darksiders does not do even one of these things. It is past the point of tolerance when the new game's protagonist is "inspired" so much by the protagonist of another game of the same type.

PC gamers lament the lack of innovation in gaming today as well as consolitis, then give double-offenders like this a free pass. Mind = blown.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

What's the consensus on this one? Seems fairly positive?

I skipped the first because, to me, it looked like absolutely irredeemable bullshit garbage. There's a bit more buzz about this second installment, however.

 

[quadnad]

What's the consensus on this one? Seems fairly positive?

I skipped the first because, to me, it looked like absolutely irredeemable bullshit garbage. There's a bit more buzz about this second installment, however.

lol..."irredeemable bullshit garbage" sounds harsh! I really enjoyed the first game, particularly as I had zero expectations. If you're referring to the gfx, you won't be any happier with this installment.

If you enjoy the idea of god-of-war-remixed-with-zelda gameplay though, you'll really like it. This isn't a genre we see often on the PC, and although the disappointingly sparse options menu is a bummer I think it's a great game. As a disclaimer, I haven't experienced any of the technical issues others have mentioned.

 

[Domingo]

What's the consensus on this one? Seems fairly positive?

I skipped the first because, to me, it looked like absolutely irredeemable bullshit garbage. There's a bit more buzz about this second installment, however.

I'm not sure why this one has more buzz around it. Maybe just better timing? The previous one came out something like 6 months late on the PC, so maybe that has something to do with it.
Either way, it's more of the same from the first game. It's like God of War mixed with a bit of Zelda. Familiar gameplay and controls, but it's a large game with huge dungeons, a more open world, and a fair amount of puzzle solving. It isn't quite Amalur-big or open, but definitely more than God of War, Castlevania, or other similar games.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

The argument that "no modern games are 100% original, therefore Darksiders is okay," is so fucking ridiculous. Good games bring some kind of new take to the genre, or new gameplay mechanics, or expand/improve on existing conventions, or bring their own identities. Darksiders does not do even one of these things. It is past the point of tolerance when the new game's protagonist is "inspired" so much by the protagonist of another game of the same type.

PC gamers lament the lack of innovation in gaming today as well as consolitis, then give double-offenders like this a free pass. Mind = blown.

I don't know a ton about this one, but isn't it a pretty casual friendly game? If that's the case, I don't see much of an issue. It doesn't seem like a series where artistic integrity or originality are taken very seriously to begin with. I don't really think every game needs to attempt to push the boundaries of creativity or artistry. Especially actiony games.

Basically, it seems like the devs are just boiling down what makes this type of game fun rather than create something culturally significant.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

lol..."irredeemable bullshit garbage" sounds harsh! I really enjoyed the first game, particularly as I had zero expectations. If you're referring to the gfx, you won't be any happier with this installment.

If you enjoy the idea of god-of-war-remixed-with-zelda gameplay though, you'll really like it. This isn't a genre we see often on the PC, and although the disappointingly sparse options menu is a bummer I think it's a great game. As a disclaimer, I haven't experienced any of the technical issues others have mentioned.

It was kinda one of those things like where you see a couple trailers for a movie, read a brief description then completely take it off your radar. You find out years later maybe it was not quite what you thought.

A good example for me would be the newer Battlestar Gallactica show. I never watched it because the clips and advertisements made it look terrible to me. I'm now on Season 3 and find it to be rather good.

 

[quadnad]

It was kinda one of those things like where you see a couple trailers for a movie, read a brief description then completely take it off your radar. You find out years later maybe it was not quite what you thought.

A good example for me would be the newer Battlestar Gallactica show. I never watched it because the clips and advertisements made it look terrible to me. I'm now on Season 3 and find it to be rather good.

Oh I hear you, and specifically on bstar. One of my absolute favorite shows, a total classic.

 

[Q-BZ]

lol..."irredeemable bullshit garbage" sounds harsh! I really enjoyed the first game, particularly as I had zero expectations. If you're referring to the gfx, you won't be any happier with this installment.

Graphics are a little bit better once you leave the opening ice level but certainly no quantum leaps here.

If you enjoy the idea of god-of-war-remixed-with-zelda gameplay though, you'll really like it. This isn't a genre we see often on the PC, and although the disappointingly sparse options menu is a bummer I think it's a great game. As a disclaimer, I haven't experienced any of the technical issues others have mentioned.

I'll co sign this and take my place on the stake to be burned.

No one's making any excuses. The missing PC centric stuff is inexcusable and God knows no one has tried to defend these games as being original or having much originality. Including the devs themselves.

So far *knocks on wood* no technical issues here, either.


They're fun mismash games with very little originality. No one's said or argued otherwise. But somewhere in the laundry list of criteria for what makes a good game, I think "fun" has to be on that list, too.

It goes without saying: If you liked part 1 you'll love 2 because 2 is what part one teased and should have been in the first place.

If you hated part 1 then you'll hate this and that's all she wrote. Pretty simple.

 

[Deads0uls]

I played a few hours and really enjoyed myself. The game was fun when I went crawling through dungeons while on the way to quest objectives. The game is not perfect, but it really is fun which is what matters.

 

[cageymaru]

I'm just letting this title sit until they release their first PC features patch. If they don't I'll enjoy playing it regardless as it is a ton of fun. Right now I just don't see the reason to play it over another good game in my Steam library. It lost it's new car smell as soon as I saw the graphics options.

 

[Blkout]

This is the problem. Nobody can actually refute what I and plenty of others around the interwebs are saying. All they can do is trivialise and dismiss its relevance.

The percentage of people like yourself that cares whether Darksiders is an original concept is very small. I sort of feel bad for you if you can only play games that you feel are original concepts. I think its safe to that about 90% of games today have shared or borrowed ideas from other games over the years. They may choose to expand on them or present them in a different way, but nonetheless VERY FEW games are actually original today. I would never get to enjoy any games if I worried how original it was.

 

[GOD'SlittleSERVANT]

Is this game any good for PC?

 

[fdiaz78]

After spending 5 hours on it I have to admit that its a good game even with its flaws. The combat is agile and intense with tons of ways to hurt enemies.

One thing I do not like is its over reliance on platform jumping. As I get older I realize I no longer have the patience or tolerance for platform jumping puzzles. I have no clue how I put up with this as a kid but I have literally looked at a chest on top of a roof that requires me to become spider man and just kept going and said screw it.

 

[Deluded]

Have people successfully forced options in Nvidia control panel and/or with Inspector? Or AMD equivalents?

I can tell you that the FXAA Injector for Skyrim does a nice job with this thing. Preset 1. Toggle the gamma up one notch and that's all I had to do. Looks great.

Yeah, I had massive tearing issues with 6950 -- Afterburner's FPS counter was counting in the four digits.... lol.

So I got RadeonPro, made a profile for Darksiders 2, enabled Force Aggressive API and Flip Queue Size (Basically, pre-rendered frames) to 0, and forced vsync on.

Bam. Constant 60fps, and my GPU temps didn't go beyond 60C.

I'll try that FXAA injector later when I get home.

 

[Derangel]

After spending 5 hours on it I have to admit that its a good game even with its flaws. The combat is agile and intense with tons of ways to hurt enemies.

One thing I do not like is its over reliance on platform jumping. As I get older I realize I no longer have the patience or tolerance for platform jumping puzzles. I have no clue how I put up with this as a kid but I have literally looked at a chest on top of a roof that requires me to become spider man and just kept going and said screw it.

Not sure how old you are but I'm 28 and I have no problem with the platforming or puzzles. The puzzles aren't remotely complex, the combat requires just as much timing at the platforming. Outside of one puzzle so far they have all been a matter of making sure to actually pay attention to what you're doing and how things are laid out.

 

[Deads0uls]

After spending 5 hours on it I have to admit that its a good game even with its flaws. The combat is agile and intense with tons of ways to hurt enemies.

One thing I do not like is its over reliance on platform jumping. As I get older I realize I no longer have the patience or tolerance for platform jumping puzzles. I have no clue how I put up with this as a kid but I have literally looked at a chest on top of a roof that requires me to become spider man and just kept going and said screw it.

I disagree. I have many favorite moments from playing Prince of Persia:The Sands of Time and Tomb Raider which relied heavily on their platforming puzzles.

Being SpiderMan is fun!

 

[Tudz]

So what do you guys think of the combat in this game compared to the first? I liked the first game's combat system as far as pacing and things were concerned, but thought it was a bit shallow and got boring after a while. Is the combat system here an improvement?

Good games bring some kind of new take to the genre, or new gameplay mechanics, or expand/improve on existing conventions, or bring their own identities.

I disagree, maybe the truly great and memorable games do, but to be a "good" game, as in, one that I'll enjoy and play through and reach the end wanting more, no, I don't think a game needs to expand on existing conventions or be anything new at all.

Often I think "well if you took this component of this game and that component of that game then it'd be fucking awesome". That's what Darksiders is doing and I appreciate that. It's nothing like Zynga who made an iPhone game which was a blatant copy of another competing iPhone game.

Darksiders takes concepts, art styles, gameplay elements from a range of other games and combines them into an enjoyable game. I see nothing wrong with that.

That said, personally I'm one of those people that think creativity in gaming is over rated. I appreciate new and original concepts, but if the core gameplay isn't there I couldn't give a fuck. I've never played a game because it was "original", I play because I like the gameplay and everything else falls in place behind that. Obviously I'll qualify that by saying originality is an important to some extent, you have the extreme of COD who just releases the same fucking game each year with different levels and that gets a bit tiring, and to be honest I'm a bit burnt out on FPS games in general as there's very little new from one to the next. But that's the other extreme where a genre or gameplay type has just been beaten to death over and over again and it becomes boring. Darksiders is no where near that.

 

[Blkout]

So what do you guys think of the combat in this game compared to the first? I liked the first game's combat system as far as pacing and things were concerned, but thought it was a bit shallow and got boring after a while. Is the combat system here an improvement?

Its mostly the same as Darksiders but Death is just a bit more agile than War. That being said, Darksiders 2 isn't as focused on waves and waves of enemies as Darksiders was which could be very tiring to your fingers. I remember having to pause some battles in Darksiders because my fingers were tired, I haven't run across any of those moments yet in Darksiders 2.

 

[Domingo]

Combat's not all that different, although hitting jump in the middle of a combo to start up a juggle sequence is a bit easier than doing it manually. Plus, the dodge function leaves you a bit more nimble than the charge from the first game.
In general, it's more of the same.They seem to have dropped the post-apocalyptic look that was in much of the first game and are going for straight-up fantasy this time.

One thing about it - it doesn't feel as technically polished. There are more graphical glitches and weird issues this time around. Darksiders 1 might not have been an ambitious port, but it was almost bulletproof. This one definitely makes you wonder if it might not lock up or glitch every time you do anything or enter a new area.

 

[Q-BZ]

One thing about it - it doesn't feel as technically polished. There are more graphical glitches and weird issues this time around. Darksiders 1 might not have been an ambitious port, but it was almost bulletproof. This one definitely makes you wonder if it might not lock up or glitch every time you do anything or enter a new area.

Weird. As usual with these games some people have these issues and some don't. So far I've been on the fortunate side. Have you had lock ups and such?

 

[Blkout]

Weird. As usual with these games some people have these issues and some don't. So far I've been on the fortunate side. Have you had lock ups and such?

I haven't had a single technical issue regarding the game. In-game V-sync setting doesn't work as stated by others and myself earlier in this thread, otherwise it plays fine. D3Doverrider will enable V-sync in any game though.

 

[KaOTiK]

They seem to have dropped the post-apocalyptic look that was in much of the first game and are going for straight-up fantasy this time.

You'll visit many lands while playing and go back to them as you acquire new items and quests. But also remember, that this game is taking place at the same time Darksiders 1 is around when War is being dealt with by the council at the start of Darksiders 1.

 

[KaOTiK]

Besides 2 crashes and 2 times the music stop playing but sound effects could be heard, I've only had one issue that truly has bothered me. It has only at least become noticeable the last 2 (or maybe first 2? I have no clue what I might of missed) cut scenes it would skip dialog. Like Death would be asking about one thing then you'll see it jump to the person he is talking to and they replied back with something that made no sense at all.

 

[Q-BZ]

Played for about 4 hours in total yesterday throughout the day and still ne'er a glitch to be seen. So far.

Like others had said before: My wrist is spraining for all the fighting like it did in part one. The overall approach seems more balanced in this game. Sure you still have a lot of fighting to do but it's better spread out with puzzle solving and exploring that's encouraged.

I just can't get over how awesome Jesper Kyd's music is in this thing.

 

[|Tch0rT|]

I've had a few items fall though the floor or scoot off and disappear. Weirdness.

 

[Domingo]

I've definitely had a few lock ups, although I'm thinking the patch that came out on Thursday might've fixed that. Early on, whenever I'd go to the options menu, exiting with the "B" button on my gamepad would make the game freeze. You'd see a weird silhouette of the sky and the music would keep playing, but you couldn't do anything.

 

[cageymaru]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl3r9CKmA-4

Fighting styles to try video.

 

[QES]

Well just finished my first playthrough, must say that I'm disappointed in the ending.. Bah. The last few areas go by quick and the last bosses were a lot easier than I expected to be.

 

[dremic]

started playing this yesterday, didn't get to spend enough time on it to get a good enough impression but I will play more tonight. wish I had a controller to use for this though, its obviously needed -_-

 

[Domingo]

Had plenty of time to play over the weekend (and a little today) and it seems pretty bulletproof now. My guess is that the one that launched on Tuesday got fixed with the patch on Thursday. No lock-ups or issues, and the MSI OSD 60fps trick seems pretty bulletproof for making sure the game run well.

So far it's more of the same, but that's a good thing. Darksiders had some of the best dungeon designs in recent memory, and this one continues that theme. Plus there are just enough nooks and crannies you can't reach early in the game to make you keep revisiting old spots.

The item system is interesting as it seems to be a little Diablo-like. Items are given randomly in most cases, and while I'm not 100% sure about this - it seems like whenever you gain a level, enemies keep giving you loot until you get the (more or less) best stuff you can for that level, and then they just start giving you more money.

Grinding for EXP doesn't seem to be worthwhile at all, although it does seem like you can get money easy enough that way.

Good game so far after about 7 hours or so!

 

[Plague_Injected]

Developers admit to talking out their ass about PC-specific features that didn't turn up, and want to include them in a patch.

“Unfortunately, especially at the end of the development cycle, sometimes things change at the last minute, and this was one of them. This puts us in an uncomfortable spot as we were acting on the best information we had at the time, and it has turned out not to be in the final game (at this point). Since it was always the intention to implement these features, as I type this, the development team is checking to see what items can get added into the game. While I can’t promise what can be done, I can promise we are working with the proper teams and have expressed the importance of including them in a patch.”

 

[Domingo]

Not too shocking of a revelation there. I don't necessarily mind a port - just be up-front about it.