Dark Void: (Better Late Than Never Review)

I started and finished Dark Void today, which is by far the worst part of the game — I hate that it ended. It also ended pretty abruptly, which for a game with such a huge scope and such innovative gameplay is really disappointing.

At first glance, Dark Void is a lesser Uncharted, but after the first hour or so Dark Void turns into something entirely different. It’s Rocketeer: The Video Game; the protagonist, William Grey even looks like The Rocketeer. While the regular gunplay sans AWESOME JETPACK is somewhat trite and unoriginal, everything related to flight is incredible. There are really only two sections that don’t make use of your Jetpack, and they are a combined total of about 1 hour. Unfortunately that’s about 1/7th of the game. As previously stated, anything related to flight is so awesome, and I never wanted those sections to end. The jetpack enables you to have complete control of the battlefield and your imagination is free to go nuts as you fly behind cover or drop from the sky to flank your enemies. Even the open air combat feels great. They took the best parts of a flight sim and combined them with OK ground combat to make a great game. Ace Combat meets Uncharted. All around fun.

The scope of the story is huge. It is a great, very original Sci-Fi plot, sort of resembling Indiana Jones. The love interest, Ava, is a straight rip of Marion Ravenwood from Raider Of The Lost Ark — she’s a badass, and she’s there to assist in the rebellion against The Watchers. All-in-all Dark Void is one of the most fun games I have played in a very long time. It is one of those rare games that has the free feel of an open-world game inside the confines of a highly linear game.

I don’t totally understand why this game got a bad review from so many sites and journalists. I think Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw (Zero Punctuation from The Escapist) said it best: it’s a game that goes from down to up to down. It is so highly disappointing because it could have been one of the most memorable and innovative games (as far as gameplay is concerned) in the past 5 or so years, but instead will be thought of as “average.” I played this game at the highest resolution on my PC with my PS3 controller and I had so much fun playing it.

I happen to agree with Zero Punctuation on another thing he said. He said it seems like the developer ran out of time, or money, or laundry detergent or something and was forced to cut the game short. You go from playing awesome mission after awesome mission to this very easy final boss, and then it’s over. By the time I got to the final boss fight, I honestly thought I had completed the first half of the game. When the credits started to roll I thought there was some sort of extra missions or something after they roll, but no so. The game just ends. It ends with a cliffhanger, and I’d love to see Will Grey heading back into “The Void. I sincerely hope this game sold enough copies to justify a sequel, because this game NEEDS to live on.

Lastly, the musical theme is BEAUTIFUL. The music doesn’t vary much, but there is this beautiful theme that accompanies the cutscenes and the non-action segments that is just incredible. One of my favorite soundtracks in a while.

7/10 for Gameplay

I had to take off points for something, and honestly the gameplay when you don’t have a jetpack kind of sucks. At one point in the middle of the game they take your jetpack away for about 15 minutes and that just was stupid. I think they take it away just to show you how awesome the. That being said, the flight mechanics are so f*cking amazing it’s hard to express in words. Take one romp through any Superman game, especially for N64 and you’ll see that EVERYBODY F’s up flying. Not so for Dark Void. They pwn.

5/10 for Story

Don’t get me wrong the story is amazing. Well, not amazing, but has the potential to be amazing. It just ends so quickly. That sucks. A lot. It’s the one thing that took away from the game’s awesomeness more than anything. I wish it had been longer and that it didn’t end so abruptly. Would have made the game go from mediocre to absolutely freaking amazing.

10/10 for Visuals/Sound

Looks great. In 1080p I was actually getting Motion Sickness because it looked so good. As for music and SFX…Well they were the best part of the whole game. The music was amazing. AMAZING!

10/10 for Entertainment Factor

I think a Free Play section would be the only way this could have been more entertaining. Like fly all over and drop from the sky and just do w/e you want however you want some more. If you aren’t going to give me some more game to play, at least give me some more game modes so that I can use the jetpack some more. It is a really entertaining game. The perfect game for a weekend. Instead of watching a movie on a Friday night, you can rent or buy this game and just play all weekend. It’s a good story and a fun game to play, even to watch someone else playing. I personally loved this game – it was an interactive movie otherwise known as a “cinematic game.”

5/10 for The Feed Factor

The game was made by Airtight Games, and published by Capcom. Oh that’s right Capcom, you know that company that made games like Resident Evil, and Lost Planet. Yeah that one. You should check them out if you don’t know them. Other than Capcom this game doesn’t have much else for you to check out — something that plagues new IPs unfortunately.

37/50. It’s a way above average game that needs to be supported. Without the support of the gaming community this innovative title that has the potential to make big changes in gaming could be just another dead IP. Please support this title.