Vulgrim sells everything from restoratives to excessively pricey permanent upgrades to the health and special moves meters (normally these are unlocked by finding pieces of the meter a la heart containers from Zelda). Given that as you use any particular weapon to kill enemies, it gains experience and eventually levels up in damage, which in turn allows you to buy new, more powerful versions of combat moves, Vulgrim looks to be an essential part to not only returning to old locations to use new powers and explore hidden paths, but to keeping the combat fresh and powerful.

Those blocked off paths are the most Zelda- or Metroidvania-like of the game's level designs, and like those staples of action/adventure, allows previously locked-off areas to be revisited or new routes to be opened up. These include the ability to glide on smoky black wings, the option to ignite dormant bombs by throwing a glaive that can hit multiple selected targets and what looks to be a hookshot-style grappling item, though we didn't quite get there in our preview time.

We did, however, have the opportunity to delve into two of the main dungeons and explore what's left of New York (or what looks like New York) at our leisure. Like the Zelda games, these are often hours-long traipses through areas that initially seem locked off by switches or impassible objects, but that eventually open up once that dungeon's item is found and applied as a sort of practice to various bits of the rest of the dungeon and of course the final boss fight. Again, it's familiar stuff, but done so respectfully and so effortlessly that you'd swear this was a game developed by a first-party studio.

That's something that rings even more true when you realize the tech that's gone into the making of Vigil's first game. There's almost nothing in the way of load times aside from an initial instance at the very start of each gaming session, and when there are masked loading screens such as in the Serpent Holes that serve as a means to quick travel between locations, it's done in such a creative way that it's hardly minded (Serpent Holes are connected by an ethereal plane with platforms that form underfoot from dozens of glowing rune-dotted stones as you walk across them). Framerate and tearing seemed minimal for the most part too, but the real surprise was in the animation.

War's finishing moves are, obviously, a showpiece here. He'll eviscerate, cleave, behead, slam and tear through enemies when prompted, but it was the cutscenes that showed a Jak-era Naughty Dog-level of animation. The lip synching was sublime, the faces and bodies were animated well and the voice work is simply fantastic, replete with lots of demonic growls and brash utterances of badassery all around.

Joe Mad's original designs have been lovingly turned to 3D, and a familiar Battle Chasers-style bit of chunkiness is applied nearly everywhere. What's big isn't always clunky, though; War moves with surprising grace given the weight of his actions, and when we finally hooked up with Ulthane, a huge vaguely Scottish/Irish/Northern English brute, we were completely sold on the game's handling of lighter moments.

In this segment, War and Ulthane actually have a friendly competition, felling an army of angels while seeking out the entrance to the second dungeon. Eventually we picked up one of the angels' massive guns and turned it on them (in both rapid-fire and charged-up attack forms) to really up the kill count. Ulthane's comments the whole time were hilarious, referring to the winged enemies as "pidgeons" and constantly quipping about the running total and how close he and War were. Absolutely awesome stuff.

We've still got plenty more of Darksiders to plow through (estimates from Vigil put our five or so hours at about 1/4 of the total game length, though we'll probably cut into that once we hit our stride), and so long as the game manages to keep hitting on all cylinders like it has been, there's absolutely no reason to think this won't be one of the best adventure games seen in years. Without a doubt, though, it's going to be the rallying cry for gamers as we roll into 2010, easily primed to be the biggest year in games yet.

We'll have the full review in just a few weeks, but until then, feel free to dig into the new screens and movies we manage to steal from THQ.