Vigil Games and THQ are teaming up to bring a new action adventure game to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Darksiders: Wrath of War places you in a biblical post-apocalyptic world in which you assume the role of War -- one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. While the fate of the other three horsemen remains a mystery, the game looks set to concentrate on War's adventures against torrents of undead and demonic forces as he explores and conquers vast dungeons.

From a gameplay mechanic perspective, it's obvious that titles such as God of War, Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry heavily influenced the development of the game. This is no bad thing. Dungeon crawling in Darksiders plays a big part of the experience, and will offer up various devious puzzle-solving elements -- think Lara Croft's past offerings and you'll get a sense of what's in store. The dungeons will be large affairs featuring many encounters with bosses, sub-bosses and enemies. At the end of each one, you'll be rewarded with a unique item which will in turn help you progress through subsequent dungeons.

The game takes place in the third-person perspective and features combat that is similar to that of God of War and Devil May Cry. You'll be able to jump, glide, hack, slash and kick your way through countless enemies. A combo system will allow you to chain hits together to pull off some impressive and devastating attacks. Each weapon will be upgradeable. This is achieved by collecting blue-colored soul orbs which can be found in chests.


War will have a selection of secondary items available too, including a Zelda-style boomerang device called the Crossblade. The player can tag multiple switches, hot spots or bombs and trigger their effects from long range. It'll be used to solve basic door-opening puzzles and the like.

Graphically, Darksiders is a pretty clean game. The main character and enemies are imaginative in design and from what we've initially seen of the environments, careful attention has been paid to detail. The main boss battles promise to bring some cool context-sensitive gameplay elements and there's a good sense of impact and weight behind the blows, which goes a long way in a game where the majority of your time is spent pummeling enemies into small bloody chunks.

Vigil Games is aiming to make the dungeons last up to 90 minutes each, with checkpoints scattered throughout. Darksiders holds promise for those who enjoy visceral combat but we're wondering what kind of replay value it'll ultimately offer. Single-player gaming walks a delicate balance here, so we'll have to wait to see if Darksiders: Wrath of War can make a name for itself in the crowded action-adventure genre. We'll be bringing you more on this title post-show.