Darksiders

snowman6251

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I want to see him analyze more characters now. What does the big ass drill on the Big Daddy's hand symbolize? Male ultraviolence to protect the weak little girls? Also a phallic symbol.

Seriously though I want to see more of that from Yahtzee. Its pretty good.
 

MowDownJoe

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A lot of it reads like a transcript of that scene from Lawnmower Man where Jobe is hearing the thoughts of every shlub in the room and his face contorts with nosey anguish.
Ahh, The Lawnmower Man...
 

Byrn Stuff

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Am I only one that pretended Yahtzee was describing the ensemble choices at a video game fashion show?
 

Parallel Streaks

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ostro-whiskey said:
ahpuch said:
Good Article. For me the look of War was so over the top silly that I wrote the game off as childish crap. Having read the review by John Funk I would consider getting it now if it came out for the PC but that is despite the stupid look of war and not because of it.

ostro-whiskey said:
Lol, I found this pretty amusing. It sounds like an attempt made by Yahtzee to try an justify his comments on design, but the fact that he tries to comment on the PRACTICALITY of a FANTASY character just makes him look stupid.

Fantasy requires a suspension of disbelief, does anyone ask why in Tolkiens Lord of the Rings world that in 3000 years people are still running around with medieval weaponry. The same goes with Warhammer 40k, and I suppose Darksiders.
Ummm, no. Fantasy does not give one a pass on practicality or rationality. That is just lazy.
It obviously cant be something absolutely spurious that makes no sense in any reality, but you are just trying to be a smart ass by saying thats what Im claiming. What Im claiming is you cant claim to know how armor or weaponry functions in a fantasy world with magic and demons and bs.

As such your an imbecile for trying to base your dislike of it on practicality.
Don't use the word imbecile dear, it makes you sound like a cartoon scientist.

While suspension of disbelief can be used to explain away the supposed practicality of the armour, it can't wave away the fact that the armour isn't practical from a design stand-point. It's convoluted, hard to animate and render, indistinguishable from the common enemies when in a huddle, and is not overall aesthetically pleasing. At least, to me anyway.

OT: I agree.
 

norleaf

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Jan 22, 2010
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MasterMayhem117 said:
When describing War the his right and his left etc gets confused.. Not to nitpick Yahtzee for fear of being judged and condemned.. Possibly by Yahtzee dressed as Kratos...
You are absolutely right. He does describe Wars 'right' shoulder twice, but I believe the first time he means leeeft.
 

Shamanic Rhythm

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ostro-whiskey said:
Lol, I found this pretty amusing. It sounds like an attempt made by Yahtzee to try an justify his comments on design, but the fact that he tries to comment on the PRACTICALITY of a FANTASY character just makes him look stupid.

Fantasy requires a suspension of disbelief, does anyone ask why in Tolkiens Lord of the Rings world that in 3000 years people are still running around with medieval weaponry. The same goes with Warhammer 40k, and I suppose Darksiders.

For a man who got a bookdeal Yahtzee doesnt seem to be able to detract from a shallow aesthetic value, maybe he should look into it.
You're missing the point. In fantasy you do rely on suspension of disbelief, but that's created by symbolically linking the concepts of the fantasy world with concepts from our own. In the case of Warhammer 40k, for instance, the Space Marines continue to use swords because they're being associated with historical factions such as the Knights Templar. The point Yahtzee is making here is that the symbolic concepts (assuming they are intentional, and the guy didn't simply draw randomly) behind War's character design are too incoherent and varied to present a clear picture to the audience.
Fantasy isn't simply a license to do whatever you like and be justified in doing so. What you are thinking of is postmodernism ;)
 

limbo89

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Jan 26, 2010
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Mathak said:
Wolfram01 said:
Yahtzee, you seem to forget that War is not a man. He's a huge bear of a ...something (demigod?), and you can see his ultra muscled, dark skinned chest under his hooded cloak (and that claw thing is called a broach and helps hold the cloak on). The armour pieces themselves make total sense, except maybe the massive glove. However, I'm not sure what you would expect from the Horseman of the Apocalypse known as War... I can't imagine a one-man-army without armour... and it's thickness, well, that increases the toughness of the steel, ie: impact resistance. Also, to assume it's "too big" on any assumptions of how it would affect his agility is whack, considering that he's NOT HUMAN. He can pick up cars and thrown them across a football field... I really can't see that armour hindering him, plus it's not restricting joint movements. My only real issue is the massive left hand thing, as Yahtzee said, makes him have a mutant/huge left hand. Maybe that was the intention - he doesn't HAVE to be symmetrical - but it does seem wierd.

Well, they could at least have given him a proper colour-scheme. I mean, compare it to these guys:



Ridiculously over-the-top armour, but it coherently conveys that these guys are here to lay down the smack.
And btw..isn't that broach on the wrong side of his chest compared to the draping of his cloak?

(And yeah, WH40K again, because it's the easiest source for these kinds of pics.)
Hey, that marine to the left also has a oversized glove xP
But I belive it's a Power Fist, common use ripping the armor of tanks, so making it big and powerful is probably a good thing ^^

OT, maybe War's armor has some of the function the armor the Marines in WH40k wear, in other words, intimidate the enemy. I mean, he is WAR, puny humans should tremble when a Giant in skull/demon adorn armor appears before them.
 

Scrythe

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I love how we all collectively write off comics as silly and strange, and yet pour hours of brainwork trying to shovel funny things like "logic" and "reason" into a god damned video game. I guess suspension of disbelief is not allowed in fairytale video games.

We've come a long way from imagining two dots and a line to be two people playing tennis to arguing about whether or not a polygon can physically lift another polygon. I mean, Darksiders doesn't promise historical accuracy or "realism" like, say the Call of Duty series or something...
 

atomicmrpelly

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Oh my word, when you made this complaint in your review I thought 'this is a little petty' but when I saw that picture I practically spewed my drink all over my computer!!!
 

A.I. Sigma

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Gah, the War description is tl;dr, and the picture just made me think 'wtf?' Character design should be unique, simplistic, and powerful. He wouldn't stand out from any other minion in a generic fantasy game.

Personally, my favourite character design has to be Altair. All that white, and then the strokes of brown leather, and finally, a splash of blood-red.

Epic. :')

I also looked up ancient tattoo methods. Dear God, my eyes watered reading about it. :/
 

Buffdoggy

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Jan 26, 2010
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War... What can we say.. most of you have hit him right on the head with stolen identities... Here's another one for you... War is basicly taken from two characters in my opinion, From Devil May Cry, I'd like to present NERO!!!! They stole his sword and gun... and its lovely Demonic Opponents. And for the second Part From The most addicting drug in the world... World of Warcraft presents LICH KING AKA ARTHAS. If you don't see it yet.. If Nero and Arthas had a love child... that child would be War...
 

Escapefromwhatever

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One minor complaint: you got some of the directions mixed up when you were describing War. For instance, you said that his massive hand is on his right arm, when it is actually on his left.

Otherwise, great. Sometimes, there's something to be said for subtlety.
 

MrSpider

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Scrythe said:
I love how we all collectively write off comics as silly and strange, and yet pour hours of brainwork trying to shovel funny things like "logic" and "reason" into a god damned video game. I guess suspension of disbelief is not allowed in fairytale video games.

We've come a long way from imagining two dots and a line to be two people playing tennis to arguing about whether or not a polygon can physically lift another polygon. I mean, Darksiders doesn't promise historical accuracy or "realism" like, say the Call of Duty series or something...
You really didn't read the article did you? Yahtzee's not talking about design strictly from a artistic or logic standpoint, he's talking about how "War" is poorly designed for a video game. "War" isn't that recognizable (iconic), difficult to distinguish from other characters or the background in the game and was probably hell to animate.
 

Mr.Squishy

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JediMB said:
Yeah, at least half the "little details" on War could really stand being taken off of him. And I thought WoW's armor sets suffered from overdesign.
Puh-leez, War could make a level 80 priest look amish
 

gamegod25

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1)The style of the whole game is supposed to be over the top and unrealistic

2)I was too busy having fun and looking at the amazing world to really notice anyway.

3)yeah I might have made a few minor changes but overall I think they made a good dipiction of how a horseman of war would look.
 

ark123

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You're all over thinking this, Benny included.
What the character is called doesn't matter. He looks exactly like what a high level human warrior probably should look like in WoW (if WoW had good graphics), and they calle him War so they could have a back story, but in reality he could as easily be called Steeve, the Demonslayer.

There is zero reason why the four horsemen of the apocalypse should be even remotely humanoid, and even if they were, there is zero reason for War to have a bunch of armor (it's not like they're going to die, specially Death).
If War was to have a form, personally I like the smoking hot redhead from Good Omens a lot.