Darksiders II

Darksiders II was part of the Wii U's launch lineup, and it's a game that unapologetically borrows from several genres at once. The player takes control of Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who is trying to clear his brother War's name from the first game and, in doing so, travels between the worlds of the living, the dead, and the angels. The foundation of the gameplay is fast action with scythes, heavy weapons, and magical abilities, but built around it is a surprisingly extensive RPG with levels, two skill trees, and an endless stream of randomly generated gear that changes both the character's appearance and stats.

The second pillar of the game is exploring sprawling temples whose structure and logic clearly draw from the classic dungeons of The Legend of Zelda series. The player searches for keys, moves mechanisms, uses a hook to cross chasms, switches between the world of the living and the dead, and solves spatial puzzles that rank among the game's best parts. Death is also far more mobile than the first game's hero, running along walls, sliding down poles, and rappelling, so simply moving through the world is a pleasure. There are four worlds, each with its own character, from green plains to industrial ruin.

The Wii U version added most of the later add-ons, including extra quests and gear, and moved the map, inventory, and skill tree to the GamePad screen, which helped a great deal in a game with this much loot. Visually, Darksiders II leans on a bold, comic-book style with exaggerated proportions and strong outlines that hasn't aged much at all. The music is calmer than one might expect from a game about the apocalypse, and several of its themes are among the most memorable. Contemporary reception was good, with reservations about the length and how often the same tasks repeat in the second half. Today it's still a generous and surprisingly varied action game offering dozens of hours of content for a price a game this size would struggle to match today. A sad footnote is the fate of the studio, which folded shortly after release, forcing the series to wait years for a sequel.