Darksiders

[Traumaward313]

I suppose they sort of wanted to... oh i dont know, avoid every single barbarianesque character in existence? Remembering he is WAR. Can anyone imagine WAR wearing a skirt and sandles with an average sized sword? It doesn't exactly scream harbinger of the apocalypse does it? Anyone who ever thought of what WAR, of the four horsemen should look like, thought of a warhammer style big black armoured chaos knight and you goddamn know it. I suppose if they made a game about PLAGUE we would rather see him as some sort of leprecy ridden peasant in a loin cloth rather than the death like robed figure with green smoke pouring out of his skull head that we all imagine. People and their bandwagons, seriously. I find myself split between most of Yahtzee's opinions and I often wonder if he writes his articles and does his reviews to stir the pot. Although you can appreciate that he always has his reasons but this doesn't make him completely infallible. I'd be interested to know what he really thinks about anything. I'm beginning to think that if Yahtzee said "Everyone should go back to SNES! Games were AWESOME in those days!" they would.

It's worse than everyone pretending avatar was fantastic *sigh*

 

[menamebephil]

I actually think of all the late-stage Final Fantasy character designs, Auron actually looks pretty damn normal. Body armour. A big red coat. Big clodhopping boots. Sunglasses.

Actually it sounds retarded now I come to type it out, but then again he's going up against "dress made of belts. Fur coat and corset. Inhumanly low cleavage"

And also "Wakka". So yeah, he gets off easy.

Actually Balthier from Final Fantasy 12 is sensible enough- he looks like a Gay Pirate Han Solo. Which is exactly what he is.

 

[menamebephil]

Also yeah War looks like someone rolled a Katamari through a pile of discarded Warhammer bits.

 

[DazWolf]

All in all, it's a comic book game. The story is straight forward, the characters are over the top into the cheese, and the art design is all over the place. Maybe that's what they wanted though, or I'm sure it would have been scrapped. Someone had to agree with Mad, or it wouldn't have gone to the final product.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I tend to like intricately detailed designs (like some of H. R. Giger or Yoshitaka Amano's art)

You Sir have hit on something there that hasn't been brought up. HR Gigers work is based around themes, which dictate the over all mood and feel of the picture, his complex designs don't fail in presenting a notion to the viewer. From what I see on Yoshitakas work (and thankyou for bringing him to my attention, his shit is brilliant), his work is about creating areas of focus, which guide your eyes around the image by making some parts stand out over others, also his complex use of cloth design helps create a flow in the images which is really nice and easy to look at.

WAR on the other hand, was various ideas that may have looked awesome elsewhere, all thrown together with no rhyme or reason creating what one would call, a pile a' crap. Their is no theme or structure to his design... unless garbled mess is a theme and stacking every idea one on top of the other is structure. This design is bad even compared to standard over the top comic book characters.

Have to agree, TF2's design and implementation of character and personality is stellar work. They deserve the praise they get.

 

[shadow skill]

One thing I would like to touch on is the idea that war is chaos. War is actually one of the most orderly mass activities that human beings engage in. Wars are not just exceptionally large riots. Just because it is a messy activity does not mean it is not orderly.

 

[Skooterz]

It wouldn't have been so bad a design if they didn't make the armor bigger than War was. About 30 percent of the mass in that picture is body, the rest is metal armor. Does he really need armor that makes him look like a football player's wet dream?

 

[Skooterz]

[snip]

First off, War isn?t human. He?s War. The hood hides his face and makes his glowing eyes stand out. The overly elaborate designs on some of his armor and sword are part of that as well- they don?t look like something you?d see on a human because War is not human. The long white air also gives a sense of age, helping to cast War as something ancient. Oh, and his huge left gauntlet is a weapon. That?s pretty obvious to anybody who isn?t being willfully stupid.

The character?s torn cloak makes him look like he just came from a battle. Again, appropriate for War.

The character?s color scheme uses a classic three color design: two main colors (red and grey) with goldish highlights. The grey fits because of the armor. Red has had a long association with war and bloodshed. The gold contrasts the two, but is a neutral enough color not to clash.

The character?s broad design also fits the general concept of War. He?s not a precision instrument; he?s a large, powerful bruiser. Not only that, but he contrasts with the other characters in the game. When you have a bunch of angles and demons fighting, War can walk in and look distinctive. If he looked like every other character in the game, it would be a less impressive effect.

All in all, Yahtzee fails to raise any valid points about his design. In fact, I don?t think Yahtzee really understand aesthetic design at all. He doesn?t argue from any established or explained principles, he just tries to justify his argument with snark. The best example of this: One of the most accepted principles of character design is that the character should be distinctive by silhouette alone. So what does Yahtzee do? Complain about everything that makes his silhouette distinctive, of course.

Of course, it wouldn?t be a Yahtzee article without massive doses of hypocrisy, so I?ll just go easy and point out that the Heavy in TF2 has just as distorted bodily proportions as War does. In fact, he?s worse.

Well for one I'm just going to point out that TF2 is far more inclined towards the cartoony side of things, and thus the Heavy's proportions are fairly accurate for what he's supposed to be- a cartoonish parody of a stereotypical Russian soldier. I'm not going to say that you're wrong about War's design being good, though I personally disagree, that's an issue of personal taste. I honestly understand where they were trying to go with War's design, but the took it a tad too far, in my opinion. They should have made the MAN match up with the armor, not be about a third of its size. Look at his head! Tell me that he'd be that physically impressive with that tiny head. Most of his bulk is just armor, which makes no sense, as he'd be trapped by his own armor from making full use of his strength. Armor is supposed to protect you, yes, but its not a tank. It doesn't move by itself. Maybe its some magic armor thats actually feather light, I don't know, I haven't played the game. But it just seems like an illogical design choice to me.

 

[Ericb]

Its pointless to talk about how practical the kit is as its fantasy. It depends on how far you can suspend disbelief.

With a design like that, my belief would require a bulldozer to be suspended.

No amount of fantasy will convince me that there's anything remotely cool about that armored apartment that the man seems to be living in.

But, as war is an ugly and stupid business, that suit might be fulfilling a ultimately symbolic purpose after all.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

I don't get the point of Twitter either.

Seems like a waste of time.

Anyhoo, great article. Still picking this game up though.

Hmm, me either. You are braver than I am wading into the waters of Twitter. I am not big on short comments, even though I think I will be leaving one here.

 

[Blanq]

For the most part, i agree with the idea of overdeveloping the character design thing to the point where the designer's boss should more often just turn to him and go "uh... no, guess again." I got a little confused though with the Final Fantasy reference to over designing characters. If someone could shed some light on that for me, because I really cant think of any examples besides that retarded cousin FFX-2 which I couldn't force myself to play through and perhaps a character and an NPC or two in FF12 just for too much wardrobe.

 

[SALADIN_5]

ABOUT: "At the end of the blade is a little cut widening into a circular gap about eleven inches up", its for the "penis look".Seriously the swords in Dark.. are not just phallic symbols they are penis replicas I mean look at the last sword it has penises drawn on it. I mean look at them. They are not random they are not luck they are intensio-something my English are not good I blame the retard behind me in English class
-HOPE TO REACH OUT.

 

[rustedge]

Looking through the pages of comments, it's sad that many don't see where you're driving at. It's sad to see how few people appreciate good game design nowadays...

In games, character design has to fulfill accommodate for several things:


[1] The Silhouette.

With games like DMC and Bayonetta, I'd agree that the characters' tastes are misguided. But game design-wise, they are good. Simply by their shape, color, or the way they move, at a glance you know which enemy to dodge, which to harass, even with literally twenty enemies on-screen.

With a role-based multiplayer, TF2 did great on that aspect. At any distance, you can recognize the player's class. That equates to got better situational awareness, and you being able to adjust your strategy accordingly. (BTW, take on the Sniper.) Same with a well-designed RTS game. You should be able to recognize the units without having to memorize a FAQ sheet for two weeks straight.


[2] The Lore.

For those who kept on arguing on fantasy and suspension of disbelief, you've got good points. But also keep in mind, with well-written fantasy, they give you enough information about the WORLD. What's the scope of technology? What kind of magic exists? Is there a Santa Claus? If the game has enough time to give you a background story about the character's wardrobe malfunction, well and good. If you have to piece together these as you play, it's a bit more difficult to do so.


[3] The Function.

The character design is not for the character itself, but for the PLAYER. In single-player games, your avatar reflects your expectations of what it can do. If you have a skinny guy in a jumpsuit you'd expect him to be able to outrun a kid on a bicycle, and probably take off on a parachute with no prior warning. If you have a hero with a patchwork armor fetish you'd expect him to collect random trinkets off enemies, and possibly raid a castle's battlements for metal polish.

For MMOs, it's less of functionality per se and more about status. A more elaborate piece of armor means you're e-penis is bigger than anyone else's. Simple as that.



Yahtzee, I'm proud of what you're doing. I just hope more people can see you as a proper game designer/ game critic and not a senile old man rambling on how bad games have become.

 

[Baeken]

The best character design I've seen is in Final Fantasy IX. It's fairly different from most jrpgs. Each character is very distinctive, almost as though drawn by a different artist. The only character who suffers from the typical fetish shop crash style is the villain, and he's an eccentric aristocrat.