Leveling Down

Darksiders borrows from many different games, but does it have enough to stand on its own?

In the last couple of weeks, I have spent my little available gaming time making my way through Darksiders, one of the big new games of 2010. The initial impressions I heard about the game was that it borrows heavily from other big games such as God of War and The Legend of Zelda. Those are some good games to borrow from, but does it take what those franchises offer and turn up something awesome on its own? Hit the jump to see how it fares!

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Today is the portable awards day! As an owner of both the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP, I am going to share with you the top portable games released this year, as well as what cmfl3x and I felt were the winners of each respective category.

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Welcome to Leveling Down’s 3rd Annual Gaming Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide! For those of you that are first time readers of our awards/holiday shopping guide, cmfl3x and I have basically compiled a list of various games released this year into different categories. We choose a “winner” of each category, but at the same time, all games mentioned as nominees in each category are worth considering – hence, the shopping guide aspect of it. If you can only pick one game from the category, go with the winner. If you enjoy that category a lot, consider checking out all of the nominees on that list!

As cmfl3x and I discussed the various categories and selected winners for each one, some categories we did not always agree on the same winner. This year, instead of forcing one another to see agree on the same game, we have instead allowed for ties – so there is a potential of two winners for each category. Our gaming tastes are not exactly the same and I didn’t think any of you would gain much from us forcing only one winner.

Our 2010 Gaming/Awards/Holiday Shopping Guide will span across all gaming platforms, and will run over the next two weeks on our normal Monday, Wednesday, and Friday posting schedule. Next Friday’s entry will conclude this year’s feature with our 2010 Game of the Year.

Without further ado, hit the jump for today’s categories: Best Action/Adventure Game and Best Role Playing Game.

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Kratos goes on a gruesome God-killing spree in God of War III.

After clearing through the first two God of War games earlier, I decided to make my way through God of War III to complete the trilogy. Keep in mind that I’m someone that has not ever really loved the gameplay of the God of War games, but surprisingly, God of War III has enough going for it that even I was generally impressed with it. Hit the jump for my review.
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Kratos and his mighty blades cross over to the PS3 in HD thanks to this PS3 remake.

Between all of my random gaming sessions on my PC, 360, and PS3 since I bought my PS3, I’ve been devoting time every once in a while to making my way through God of War: Collection, the PS3 HD remakes of the PS2 original God of War and its PS2 sequel, God of War II. I’ve finally completed them both and starting God of War III now. In any case, before I get too far into God of War III and it starts skewing my thoughts on the first two, let’s get to the review.

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Dante’s Inferno sounded good on paper, but ultimately ended up a waste of time.

Dead Space is one of my favorite new IPs in the last couple of years, courtesy of EA’s own internal studio, Visceral Games (formally named EA Redwood Shores). The combination of action, adventure, and horror made the original Dead Space game seem closer to being a sequel to the Resident Evil games than Resident Evil 5 did. Dead Space Extraction on the Wii was also an entertaining (albeit short) horror shooter game, and it worked. I am totally a fan of Dead Space and a supporter of the studio. When I first heard that the studio behind Dead Space would be making an action/adventure game based on Dante’s Inferno, I was instantly interested. Action/adventure + horror in a hellish theme setting from the developer behind Dead Space? Sign me up! Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near what I hoped it would be. Luckily for all of you, I played through this game so you don’t have to. Read on for my review and why this game disappointed me so.
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After another furious round of voting, the Elite 8 is set! There were some pretty interesting Sweet 16 matchups, and a lot of the polls were closer than in the first round. At this point, 75% of the field has been eliminated, and we are 3 rounds away from finding out who is the winner of Leveling Down’s Video Game March Madness 2010! Hit the jump for a full recap, and feel free to express your utter outrage at the results in the comments!

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Voting for Round 2 is now open.

The polls will close on Monday March 29th, 2010 at 6PM EST. cmfl3x will announce the 8 winners moving into Round 3. Hit the jump to cast your votes!

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After 3 days of voting, the first round of Leveling Down’s Video Game March Madness 2010 is over! There were some close matchups, some blowouts, and of course, some surprises. As a reminder for those of you who may feel that some of these games were unfairly seeded, we seeded all the games based on Metacritic scores. It’s all their fault!

Anyway, thanks to everyone for voting! The first 32 have now been cut down to the Sweet 16. After the jump, check out who I voted for, my thoughts on the results, and a preliminary look at the Sweet 16 matchups.

Tiebreaker note: I decided that casting a tiebreaking vote was too arbitrary and I felt uncomfortable with the power! So for tie polls, I tallied up the registered commenters who voted as the tiebreaker. It seemed like the fairest thing to do, so make sure you’re logged in to make your vote count the most!

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Leveling Down’s 2010 Videogame Tourney Has Officially Started! The rounds will take place over the next couple of weeks, and will be heavily decided by you, our Leveling Down readers.

Voting for Round 1, which consists of all 32 games in the tourney, will close on Wednesday March 24, 2010 at 6PM EST. On Thursday, cmfl3x will announce the 16 games that will move onto Round 2 and we will open Round 2 voting Friday morning and end it Monday at 6PM EST.  Hit the jump to read more about our first tourney and to cast your votes!

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