Darksiders is as unapologetic and shameless a game as they come. The art-style mimics World of Warcraft, the gameplay structure lifted without as much as a single tweak from the Legend of Zelda series, the combat ripped straight from the heart of God of War and plot, hackneyed, peppered with a smidgen of post-apocalyptica. Needless to say Vigil, the developers behind the game weren't looking to rank too high in terms of originality and creativity.

 Playing as War (yes that is really the name of your character), one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you have to find out who decided to bring the world to an early end. In order to do so, Darksiders puts you through sequences replicated from the Legend of Zelda but with a visceral touch given how the game has been styled. Each boss has its own dungeon, replete with regular enemies, mid-bosses, puzzles, power-ups and the eventual showdown.

 Rinse and repeat the process around four times, throw in some backtracking across the barren but gorgeous landscape of the world after Armageddon, and that sums up Darksiders' gameplay. Nothing new in terms of gameplay progression, but it works.

Laying waste to legions of demons is fun but repetitive given that we've seen the same mechanics in play since the first God of War button masher. Throw in some incongruous upgrades into the mix like a gun (something no Legend of Zelda game would ever carry) and a horn that blows your enemies away and you have just enough at hand to keep you interested. It's an ancient formula that gets the job done.

 By this point in the review, if you’ve soldiered on reading, you’ve probably made up your mind about the game given the tone of the last few paragraphs but what you’re probably missing out on are two things. Firstly the Legend of Zelda games have never been released here officially, and even if they are, they’re never going to be as violent. They also won’t be on the PS3 and X360 because it’s a Nintendo-based game. Secondly, for all its derivation from the classics you still have a game that looks very good, handles extremely well and at its core is a lot of fun to play. Factor in fantastic production values in terms of CG, overall graphics, awesome voice-acting (Mark Hamill as the Watcher is great) and Darksiders just about manages to salvage itself from the depths of mediocrity.

Even so there’s a lot of scope for improvement and originality that should hopefully be addressed in the sequel, given that the premise of the game is anything but ordinary. Till then Darksiders is worth a buy only if you haven’t played any of the other games it’s referenced from or if you’re the kind that needs 20 years of Zelda gameplay history distilled into a 15 hour game.