The first 8-10 hours of the game is amazing, where all aspects of the first game are improved upon. Combat is really fun and gaining new loot is exciting. The areas are much more open despite being linear at heart. The story is engaging and entering new dungeons is always a thrill. Unfortunately the 2nd half of the game is really bad, and the tail end of the game feels very rushed. The Kingdom of the Dead is absolutely awful because it turns into a series of fetch quests where all of the dungeons look identical and are 90% puzzle solving. You enter a room and kill 3-4 enemies before being forced to complete a 20-30 minute puzzle which revolves around pulling switches and opening doors to progress. It is awful in terms of pacing because it comes to an absolute stand still during these moments. I very nearly gave up on the game because of that. The late game quests devolve into fast travelling to various parts of the map and feels very inorganic, turning Death into a glorified errand boy. There is a satisfying part where he expresses his frustration at being forced to complete so many fetch quests, which is some well appreciated self-awareness, but it comes a little too late and sure enough you fall back into the same routine. There is a lot of fun to be had and there is a lot of content to go through, but the bad quest design and overabundance of puzzle dungeons prevents this game from being better than the first Darksiders. I'd only recommend this one if you are interested in the story because the writing is quite good and there are some decent twists and turns in the plot.
I don't really like puzzle games too much, especially in older titles since they do not provide enough information and are awfully designed (I'm looking at you Tomb Raider). Eden Project does an amazing job of embedding the puzzles within the environment in a way that is very logical, which provides for a very enjoyable experience. It doesn't expect you to be a 180 IQ genius, nor does it expect you to be a moron. The puzzles can be tricky but not once does a switch/lever open a door that lies on the opposite side of the map and doesn't make any logical or physical sense (I'm looking at you AGAIN Tomb Raider...). The cyberpunk and industrial settings is the cherry on top of an otherwise expertly designed game. If you liked the aesthetics of Blade Runner you'll adore this game. The experience of descending into the depths of a mega-city has yet to be matched so far. I only found out about this game very recently when I was viewing random PS2 trailers, so this is by no means a nostalgic review. The only negative aspects are the AI and combat, but the atmosphere, puzzles and level design more than make up for it.
I really want to love this game as I never got the chance to play it as a kid, however I'm left pretty disappointed after several sessions. The movement and shooting is fantastic and I love the setting and music, however the level design is some of the worst I've ever seen in a video game. I'm a fan of large, open ended levels and I usually don't mind key card hunting, so Turok would seem like a match made in heaven for me. However this is simply too much. Turok's levels suffer immensly from a complete lack of player guidance. It's quite obvious that zero player testing was done in regards to the levels. I wasted hours running around trying to figure out what to do next and which pathway take, only to end up where I started again. Like I said before; the action and movement is really good and delivers a great sense of flow and momentum, but that all seemingly goes to waste when you're running around in circles just trying to progress through the damn game. Turok has great flair but the level design is so frustratingly bad that I cannot recommend it.
