Darksiders was first explained to me as “Zelda meets God of War” and after mulling over the idea of such a combination, I decided that perhaps – much like chocolate and peanut butter, the combo could work.

Well, so far, Darksiders is the best game I’ve played all year, but it’s the only game I’ve played all year. Vigil and THQ have some pretty heavy talent working on the game – including members of the God of War team, but did it turn out to be as good as it sounds?

Darksiders takes place after the biblical Apocalypse – you play as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the aforementioned Apocalypse, an unemotional fellow with a big sword and the personality of a bowl of pudding. War is framed for prematurely beginning the end of the world, and so both Heaven and Hell are really pissed at him, and so War sets out to clear his name the only way he knows how – by kicking ass.

Now, before I go any further, I should get the inevitable Zelda and God of War comparisons out of the way. Darksiders feels a lot like Zelda and plays a lot like God of War. There. Need more? In the first hour of the game, War gets a fairy demonic partner named “The Watcher”, a boomerang spike thing, and wears a red tunic (like Link could!) There are puzzles akin to Zelda, and enemies that War gets to rip in half like God of War. And some quick time events. If you don’t like Zelda games and you don’t like the God of War games, chances are you probably won’t enjoy Darksiders.

The strongest part of Darksiders has to be the characters – every character in the game aside from War are unique and detailed. War, on the other hand, speaks like a cross between a slightly retarded Kratos and a Metal Gear Solid’s Snake. He’s bland and hard to identify with. The Watcher, who accompanies War throughout most of the game, is voiced by Mark Hamil, who brings a lot more to the voice acting table than the rest of the characters. I won’t spoil any more of the good characters for those who haven’t played it – but The Black Hammer is easily one of the most memorable characters from any game I’ve played.

Combat is about what you’d expect from a button masher like this – lots of fast paced action, lots of enemies, and lots of combos. The “Zelda” element of the game adds more depth to the combat system – multiple upgradeable weapons, unlockable combos, and numerous puzzles add a lot of variety to what could otherwise be a rather tedious combat system.

The problems I have with Darksiders are mostly technical – common enough to annoy the fuck out of me but not enough to take away from the overall game. The most obvious of these is screen tearing – which was probably the worst I’ve ever seen on the PlayStation 3. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s really jarring. The frame rate also tends to be inconsistent at times, especially when there are large amounts of enemies on screen. Despite these flaws, Darksiders manages to be extremely enjoyable.

Darksiders will probably be hit or miss for most people – I myself enjoy it. It is by no means a bad game, and a great way to start off the new year.