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It's OK to mimic, as long as you do it this well.

Usually when I review a game I'm more apt to give credit to developers that come up with new systems, new ideas, and new ways of improving upon existing genres. That said, Darksiders is pretty much unabashedly taking sections and mechanics of already existing triple A titles and making them work within its own world. There's not much I'd call original within the game, and if you've ever played a Zelda, God of War, Halo, or Panzer Dragoon title before, you're going to see some noticeable resemblances. However, where Darksiders manages to set itself apart from most "clone" games, is that it's actually fun to play. So what it lacks in imagination it manages to make it up with polished ideas that work and it makes use of some of the best aspects of the games that it's trying so hard to imitate.

The storyline follows the player character of War, one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse from the traditional Bible. War inadvertently sets off the Apocalypse a little early, causing Heaven and Hell to battle it out on Earth, and in the process wipes out all of humanity. War believes that he was summoned, and that the seals were broken, meaning he didn't screw anything up. However, the powers that be let him know otherwise, and he's going to be punished unless he can try and set things straight, or at least get some old fashioned vengeance in.

Take the first dungeon you come to, which is the one that felt most like a run of the mill Zelda dungeon to me. You enter into this large building area, with multiple, large rooms with different doors, places that are noticeably out of reach, bomb plants that you use to destroy obstacles, switches and blocks to pull and push around, specially locked doors that require a key (which you'll obtain from a chest), a map to find that lays out the entire area for you, multiple floors to explore, a mid level boss and an end boss that requires you to use the special weapon you find here (a cross blade that operates just like the boomerang), and you've got yourself a set-up that's entirely torn from a Zelda game. The subsequent dungeons aren't quite as noticeable, in fact, for the second dungeon I didn't even realize I was inside the dungeon until I picked up the item. They're at least not as pronounced as Twilight Cathedral is; you get more open world surroundings than the enclosed area of that initial dungeon. That said they still follow a particular formula of finding maps, finding your new tool, and fighting an end boss with that tool. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that formula if it works, and in Darksiders it works pretty damn well. The tools that you do get are easy to use, the game explains them well, and the visual cues throughout the game always let you know what tool will work on a particular obstacle and what won't. The puzzles in the game do have a little head scratching reaction from time to time, but I never got so frustrated with the game that I wanted to quit.

The rest of the game, which is almost entirely combat oriented, is pretty well done too. A lot of people want to compare it to God of War, which is probably accurate, but there are so many games that use this hack and slash formula now that you can't really directly compare it to any one title. As it stands, you get one basic attack with your main weapon, a sword called Chaoseater, and then a secondary, powerful attack with two different weapons, a gauntlet and a scythe. You can string together a number of combo's with both weapons, and there's a storefront you can access in the game that'll let you buy additional moves with varying degrees of strength. Along with that, the more you use your weapons the more experience you'll gain for them, allowing them to level up four times. Finally, there's a magic system in place, consisting of four abilities, a mix of offensive and defensive spells. These are tied into a meter that rests below your health bar on the HUD, consisting of individual blocks that get eaten up with each use of a power. There's an additional ability that allows War to transform into a big demon form, and this meter builds up with each successful attack. The time limit on this transformation is really short though, so you won't see much use out of it unless you're getting overwhelmed in a standard fight. It won't serve much use during boss fights at least.

The boss fights themselves are pretty solid, if nothing else the scale of the bosses is always impressive, and they come off as a threat visually. However, the mechanics don't always come together, as evidenced in the very first boss fight at Twilight Cathedral. Like I mentioned before, each of these fights will require you to make use of the tool you just gained within that dungeon, but sometimes that'll lead to some frustration. Really, the first boss fight is the worst of the four, and probably the most challenging because of it. Mostly because you're forced to target your enemy using the auto lock button for a large majority of the time in order to be accurate, whereas the other boss fights allow for a little more freedom of both your movement and the camera, making it less frustrating to dodge attacks and improvise your strategies a bit.

One thing worth noting about the combat, before I forget, is that it does attempt to break up the monotony of slashing away at enemies over and over again. There are two or three segments in the game, one that makes use of a flying mount and provides that Panzer Dragoon like moment I mentioned at the beginning, and a few others that equip you with a large cannon to shoot at enemies (with a little variety within that). The flying section is fun, but dragged on a little too long in my opinion, whereas the cannon shooting segments run the gamut from being too frustrating (Black Hammer section), to being too easy. Neither of these additions feels as polished as the rest of the standard combat, and while I appreciate the decision to try and break up the overall style of the action in the game, I think both ideas could have used a little more tweaking. Neither segment breaks the game or ruins it in anyway, but if you took those moments by themselves and used them as an introduction to the game for a new player, I don't think anyone would come away from it as a big fan of what they played.

Despite its flaws, Darksiders remains a really solid entry into the beginning of the year for Xbox 360 and PS3 owners. Its especially exceptional considering it's the first release from the developers at Vigil, and shows a certain level of polish that a lot of new IP's released last year was definitely lacking. You could make the argument that it relies too heavily on mechanics from other titles, and lacks a distinct personality, but at the same time everything that it borrows from is handled pretty well, and combines into a game that's actually fun to play. I'm not sure that I'd care to run through it again and again, despite not collecting 100 percent of the secrets within the game, but I'm certainly happy I had the chance to check it out. It's at least unique for the systems it was released on, and I'm all for an edgier take on the standard Zelda formula. Definitely worth checking out if you've been on the fence, and something I wouldn't have any qualms spending a bit of money to pick up.