After slashing apart thousands of demons and other adversaries you'd think the combat would get a tad boring. At times when the waves of demons seem endless, it can indeed grow tiresome. But for the most part, the combat remains refreshing through all 15 hours of the game. On top of the typical hack-and-slash moves, you can block, counter, perform aerial attacks and even throw rusted cars, postal boxes, vending machines and other environmental items. Better still, War has four upgradeable powers that exhaust the horseman's Wrath and one overwhelmingly vehement transformation. After building enough Chaos via dealt damage, War can trigger his Chaos form, temporarily turning himself into an impenetrable demon. When the going gets tough or you're just too darn lazy to fight, this blood-red demon is the ultimate weapon.

A little less than halfway through the game, War can also summon his fiery steed, Ruin. Bigger than life and black as Hell itself, Ruin offers War a literal leg up in combat. As long as his icon is active, you can summon Ruin by simply holding the controller's bumpers, making this four-legged weapon another tool to which you can smoothly transition, both in and out of combat. He's best used to bust through large groups of smaller demon folk, since you can do little other than swing your sword and shoot your revolver while saddled.

Just when you can't take another fight, you stumble into the land of puzzles. The platforming side of Darksiders begins rather slow; you climb designated walls, scoot across ledges with your hands and double jump over unfriendly chasms – just another typical day in the life of an adventure RPG, simply discovering how to get from Point A to Point B. After collecting the Crossblade and another few handy items, the puzzling factor amps up considerably and pretty soon you're swinging over a pit, hot-switching to the Crossblade to activate a ledge, creating a portal and darting across a stone bridge before it crumbles beneath your feet, all at the same time. In later dungeons, you may get stuck for a minute or so, but you'll feel satisfyingly smart once you've reached your goal. Plus, there are also plenty of hard-to-reach collectibles for those up to an even tougher challenge.

As much as I enjoyed War's ungodly arsenal and the challenges I faced, I consistently felt that I'd seen all of this before. Ignoring the obvious Prince of Persia and God of War comparisons, you still have War's Voidwalker, an item that creates orange and blue portals, and the Abyssal Chain that acts much like Link's hookshot. The Watcher, a demon guardian voiced by Mark Hamill and the most interesting Darksiders character by far, also harkens back to Legend of Zelda, appearing from thin air to point out key areas like the fairy, Navi.

At the same time, Darksiders contains just as much original content, mainly within its story and setting. After the first two hours, the story wanes with the exception of War's encounter with the mean tempered, Scottish-accented Ulthane. The ending, however, is simply not to be missed. With mankind's destruction, a war waging between the angels and demons, and an underlying mystery behind those involved, you can just imagine how it all erupts.

What Darksiders does best, however, is merge all of its inspirations and originality together to create something almost completely new. In one 15-hour game, you get powers, transformations, hookshots, horses, hack-and-slash combos, counters, portals and the Apocalypse all rolled into one, not to mention the story and visually detailed settings, monsters and characters.

Darksiders has set 2010 off to a running start. With gory hack-and-slash action, challenging dungeon puzzles, an intriguing (albeit sometimes annoying) guardian demon, gorgeous scenery and a story that begins with killing mankind, you get a little bit of everything. To top it off, the end of Darksiders gives an obvious lead-in to the sequel, a feature I don't always favor. But in this case, I can't wait to see what Vigil Games has next up its sleeve.