Darksiders

I’m sure all of you out there have them.  Those games that you WANT to play but for some reason never have.  Time, money, other games, we all have our reasons.  So as I found myself in the market for something to play, Xbox live reminded me:  Darksiders!  Now, Darksiders is not an XBLA game.  It was a full retail game that now is now available as a download for $19.99.  Taking a shot with it has convinced me of two things.  First is that I am ready for the digital download age.  Not only did I not have to go out to a store and buy something, or want it NOW but have to wait for an order to reach my house, but also the game is just there right on my hard drive.  The super lazy part of me even enjoys that I don’t have to get up and change the discs in my Xbox (Do I want to play Rock Band or Need for Speed….well Rock Band is already in there, let’s play that!).  The second thing is that Darksiders is a game I should have taken a look at earlier, because as it turns out, this is a solid action/adventure game.  It’s not game of the year material by any means, but especially for $20, it’s well worth playing.

The stakes of remakes

What is it about remakes that we love so much?  Why can’t we just let something die?  It’s been an unexplained phenomenon for at least the past century, where it seems our culture wants nothing more than to take one of our beloved cultural icons and beat it with a stick, until it looks nothing like the original.

I always thought it went down like this:  somewhere there’s a large, open conference room stuffed full of old men in suits.  The old men have enormous white beards and eyebrows that look ready to rip a man’s face off.  They’re all wearing top hats and have monocles, and have been frantically discussing how to work the intercom without having someone walk outside to actually ask the secretary.  They are all over a hundred and fifteen years old.

Defeated, the men turn to their real job as presidents of entertainment, looking toward their, old gnarled CEO for guidance.  He clasps a cigar between his parchment thin lips and asks the question.