As the light turned on and the curtains were drawn back, a copy of Darksiders shoved into my barely functional and still very much unwilling left hand, and a piping hot cup of coffee into the other – I was rudely awakened from my Christmas hibernation to review the latest game I've been given which violently rubs shoulders with the “Hack-n-slash” genre. There was very little to be happy about at this point, bar one thing...

The coffee was good.

Getting straight down and dirty with Darksiders, it's not hugely my fault that the review is a little later than I'd like. I mean, I felt I was making a decent amount of progress with a game that does in fact offer a lot of bang-for-your-buck, but it goes without saying that a game of this ilk likes it's little time sinks and puzzles. Just the sort of game you'd like to wake up to. Ah, but it does counter that with a lot of violence.

You play the gravelly voiced War, one of the horsemen as you may or may not know (the other 3 being Pestilence, Famine and Michael Mcintyre), who has been sent to restore balance between the 3 realms (heaven, hell and us lot) which, is said to happen upon 7 seals been broken, put in place by “The Council”, a bunch of mediators who put themselves in place to stop Heaven and Hell feuding – however, upon arriving War finds that the final seal hasn't been broken. Horribly misinformed he faces the punishment from the council for causing Armageddon a little on the early side... not that you can blame them I guess...

Still, being the diplomatic guru that you are, you manage to persuade The Council to give you the chance to find out who's behind this mess. Thankfully they decide to let you, otherwise the game'd be a tad pointless with 1 level and a death sequence. So, stripping you of your former power and binding Mark Hamill to you (The Watcher) they send you on your merry way.

Darksiders comes from a Zelda standpoint in how it approaches level design. You wonder around from section-to-section, dungeon-to-dungeon, levelling up War to regain your former “kick-ass” status. It does however mean that in the early days you'll be running around mashing the same combo of buttons, killing similar waves of enemies with your trusty over-sized sword until the storyline gets to the point where you can really sink your teeth in. This in itself is going to put off a few people who are perhaps expected full-on carnage and a mad set of quick-time events. However, it's a game that really doesn't show you what it's all about until a good few hours in.

It's not just Zelda that Darksiders takes some ideas from – there's a lot of God of War in the combat and toned-down quick-time events, including some bosses and items later on that give you that 'vibe'. Obtaining a pistol you're suddenly wondering if they're going for the Devil May Cry angle. There's another to boot, but for saving a spoiler I won't go into it other than to say “very cool”. Anyway, with all of these games brought together some might say that was cheating a bit, but the game does it so comfortably that it really starts to converge away to become more than the sum of it's parts. Not in a way that betters any one element than the original, but as a title it's certainly stronger for it's chosen assets.

War has a variety of ways to mash his enemy. Your currency in the game is souls which can be sold at a certain disreputable vendor for moves and power-ups. Thus, War ends up with a lot more ways to cause considerable aggravation to his foes. Ranging from a glove to smash the ground with, sending your enemies flying, to a krull-like glaive to home-in and take out multiple enemies at once. Not that their usefulness stops here as most weapons double up as ways to progress through a level.

Of course, progressing through levels is made that much more interesting when they look worth spending your time in – Darksiders is a good-looking game. It stands amongst most games looking pleased with itself. Even if for the most part you're spending time in environments that look like Hell-on-Earth, which they've spent a great deal of time getting right.

An interesting take on the difficulty spike is to make the enemies hit you hard, but give you loads of health. Darksiders opts for the health bar and point approach. For every point (a skull in this case) you get a full health bar. Collect 4 peieces of a green skull or complete certain sections and you'll get another point. Yes, a touch of Zelda again to rub your comfort zones. Hey, no one complains when games like MW2 had a health regenerating system like the Halo series.

There are certainly a few downsides to the formula that makes up this genre of title. The reliable “you must find these 4 items – now go to a dungeon which has 4 similar things to do to complete it for 1 of those 4 items” rule that applies to a lot of RPG's has been used once again. At times War's camera man is a berk, the navigational map system creator should be throttled and a shameless unabashed collection quest towards the end had me wincing – there must be more enjoyable time sink methods out there.

However regardless of these perhaps petty issues with the game, you still want to bring Darksiders home to meet the parents – just don't mention the War...