Darksiders II, a cautionary tale as victimized by my PS3

This is the story about how Darksiders II broke my PS3.

I first heard about Darksiders when I was working at an EB games. We had just finished the Christmas rush and this curious title was coming out AFTER Christmas. I thought it was strange, then, when I thought about it for five minutes, I realized the brilliance of it. Lots of people get money or gift certificates for Christmas, Hanukkah, Rahmidan, snow flake day, festivus or whatever, they needed something to spend it on. A triple A and a new franchise, none the less, was a good idea, since alot of the gamers that came into our store were the kind that were always hungry for new games. Most people don't buy new franchises over old, so it was a good move.

My colleagues and I looked through the pre-order art book, the art was pretty awesome. I draw occasionally, and the art reminded me of Matt Holmberg's art form the Late great Magi-Nation card and GBC game but with way more metal. It gave me a strange sense of nostalgia as I looked over the glossy pages. The designs were similar, with over sized gloves and boots, but the art was altogether more grown up. I could just Imagine four epic games, one for each horseman. I resolved to sell the game and make it a success, and to buy it when I could afford a 360 or PS3.


Today's screen is blue. Yay variety.

Thanks, Darksiders II, you broke my PS3.

I don't have money to spend on a new PS3 right now. My seasonal job is about to come to an end and those two games plus whatever I was going to receive for Christmas and my birthday were supposed to hold me though until I get a new job. I was thinking of getting a Vita sometime next year as my big purchase for the year.

This is a problem with the industry these days. They ship games they know are broken. There is absolutely no way they didn't know about this. Sure, they could patch it later but no patch is going to fix my PS3. I went out of my way many times to help this game out, not only as a consumer but as a sales person. THQ and Vigil have shipped a broken game that broke my PS3. Now I can't enjoy, not only Darksider II, that I PAID for, but all the other games I paid for. The game insutry needs to be brought up to the standards of other industries. When there is a manufacture's defect in a product that causes harm to people and/or the property they own the product gets recalled.THQ and Vigil are far from the only ones guilty of this. Bethesda holds responsibility for the acceptance of this mindset as well. The video game industry mentality is now something along the lines of 'we'll fix it later in a patch if we aren't too busy making horse armor'.

It's funny, though, because one generation ago this wasn't the case. Even now there are companies that release games that work when you put them into your system. Out of the box.

I have internet, so I can download a patch but what about those who don't have internet? They are stuck with a broken game that they can't fix forever.

THQ and Vigil probably won't do a thing for me. They know about the problem, I posted it to their facebook page. They most likely will ignore a consumer like me, but I've learned my lesson. If I hear of game crashes, you can count me out.

Final thoughts for those who are about to tell me stuff like "your PS3 is broken, not the game", you should know a few things. I have an old PS3 (backwards compatible), so if the machine was broken it should give me the Yellow Light Of Death. It does not. The other thing is, besides the first Darksiders, my PS3 has crashed a total of one time when I was playing Fallout 3 GOTY. Of course there is the "your PS3 was on it's way out anyways, it just happend to die when you were playing Darksiders II". Well that would be a vailid argument, Mr Strawman, but I was also Playing Persona 4 Arena with absolutely no problems. So empirically the only thing that has changed is this one game.

In summery don't buy Darksiders II. It breaks consoles.

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LOOK WHO CAME:

Cronomax