Plenty of great ideas, but not implemented as well as they should have been. Another "could have been"
When I wrote my review of the demo a couple of weeks back (below), despite a couple of concerns about flight controls and some ''lazy'' developer attitudes, I was still hoping that Dark Void would pleasantly surprise me and get me hooked in with its unique combination of gameplay styles. Whilst the game definitely feels different to many other titles I have played it most definitely suffers from the syndrome of unfulfilled potential that games such as Just Cause and Assassins Creed fell into.
CREATIVE LIMITS
Every great movie director will tell you that cutting a scene from his movie to keep the pace and style where it should be, is like cutting off an arm emotionally, but it has to be done. I think developers often lack this sensibility and instead of a painfully but finely tuned end product, what you get is a mash of great ideas that stan out individually but dont quite gel the way they should. More on this creative nonsense later...
PRE-FLIGHT. ZERO-HOUR 9AM
To basics then. Dark Void is basically ''Rocket Mans pan-dimensional vacation''. Your main character, Will, is a charter pilot who ends up flying through the bermuda triangle with an old girlfriend. Turns out that in the triangle there exists a dimoensional ''door'' into a place called ''the void'' - The Void is, if you will, the neutral zone, the middle ground between our dimension and the dimension of an alien race called the Watchers. However the Watchers have far greater technology than Humans and have taken over the Void, using it as a platform to slowly and subtley invade earth by taking on our form and mingling in government. Your job is simple enough, gather together with human survivors from inside the void (many of whom look oddly like Lost Planet's snow pirates) and stop the watchers.
The Story is passable, but rather bland and obvious. The scripting however feels like it was written as a high school drama project or something, Conversations are shallow, cliched and by the numbers. Not terrible, but not very emotive. There are two actors here that you will probably recognise, the first is Nolan North, Will, who voiced Nathan Drake in Uncharted. He does an equally good job here, but he doesnt have a great deal to work with sadly. Michael Schumacher in a Ford Fiesta. The other voice of note who actually manages to maintain his gravitas is Brian Cox. Most will know him as Stryker from the X-Men movies or as Helghan Leader ''Scolar Vesari'' in Killzone. I'm a fan of Brian and was pleasantly surprised to see him taking up a role in Dark Void.
IT'S LONELY OUT IN SPACE.
...but not in the void. The void is a suprisingly crowded place. With two races in a constant power struggle, one to dominate and the other to break free, theres always crap going down. Some of the encironments are huge but the story path is linear, so you are never far from the action. Here's the issue though - While Capmcom have done a great job of capturing some disctinctly different styles of gameplay, succesfully aping other great titles and pulling it off as an enjoyable experience, the different missions are pretty much tailored to each one individually so you dont really get to taste the full scope of what Will is trully capable of with his awesome rocket pack weapon. The sections that are predominantly on foot give room for hovery stuff, but no real room or reason for full on flight. Likewise the Full on flight sections dont really require you to hover or to land and get up close and personal with your enemies. You CAN on some levels, but it feels a bit pointless and isolated. There ARE some rare sections which integrate all of the play styles and do it very well, such as ''Into the Void'' (the level which the Demo was based on). Its these few scant levels that show you the genius of the game that Capcom unfortunately fell short of. It mostly feels like they just wanted to showcase all the different styles individually. Or they lacked the Time/Budget/Creativity to fully implement the whole package as a smooth and fully integrated experience. That said, each gametype plays very well, battles on foot and by air are are busy and usually challenging though occasionally a little easy. but you tend to overlook the little faults because your rocket pack is just such freaking fun.
THE WHOLE VERTICAL THING
Capcom shouted alot about their ''vertical gameplay'' which amounts to hanging off ledges and looking directly up with your shooter, or down, depending which way you're travelling. Although in essence its no different to ''horizontal gameplay'' except that youre limited to moving exclusively from cover to cover, it DOES feel like you're playing vertically and the camera does a good job of inducing a little of the vertigo factor. For me its actually one of the shining touches of the game. While not entirely diffierent it definitely gives you a sense of occasion, scope and danger. I really like the vertical sections and on the rare occasions that they are effortlessly blended into the wider gameplay (the flying bits) they come off really well and very much add to your feeling of purpose. An early section involves you climbing up a structure that keeps dropping to pieces around you. It's very ''Uncharted 2' - shamelessly so, in fact, but it does keep you grounded in terms of not feeling invincible. It shows you early on that you may have a cool rocket pack, but you can still die so - Don't get cocky, kid (Han Solo 1977)
NOT WITHOUT MY ROCKET
Yeah, its all very ''rocket rocket rocket'' but even without the rocket you have some great fun. My personal favorite level, the prison break, involves very little rocketing at all. The level design is excellent and the mission is simple but effective. It has lots of vertical gameplay, plenty of duck and cover, a little hover play thrown in for good measure and the level design is captivating. Its another great example of the games potential and shows that while the rocket pack is great, they can still do other stuff as well. I hate playing a game and thinking it could be so much better, in many ways its worse than playing a flat-out crappy game. Think of Just Cause, Creed and similar games and you'll know what I mean. you like it, you just wish they had done it properly brilliant.
TECHY STUFF
Graphically Dark Void is sub par. It has to be said. A company with Capcoms pedigree and budget should be capable of much better detail and variety. Most textures look acceptable at a distance, but get very blocky close up, even the exclusively on-foot sections dont raise their standard. Pity. Character models and animation sequences are polished and actually look great, but as a consequence make the rest of the game look bad. Ironic.
Maybe its the scope of the spaces that they needed to implement, I dont know, I'm not an expert on how you juggle processor power. All I know is that I have seen games of this scope and scale that look better, even the original Just Cause managed it.....no rocket pack though.
I cant be sure if the next issue was just my xbox playing up, but its never happened before. Occasionally speech would stutter e.g ''the place is coming down, is coming down, we gotta get out get out of here'' and once or twice the action slowed ridiculously and damn near froze. it was like playing multiplayer on a dodgy server.
SUCH A TIMELESS FLIGHT
I'm told, reliably, that the game lasts around 10 hours though I didnt time it myself. However it feels remarkably short....they say time flies when you're having fun (no pun intended) and although the game is fun, I'm not sure the saying applies here. It felt more like 5 hours to me. I finished it day of purchase with many long breaks in between and I'm not the greatest gamer. The game also ended on a kind of a nonsense. There is an emotional climax of sorts, but it happens right in the middle of events. Its clearly a set up for a sequel, but you can't help wondering that if no sequel comes, what you will end up with is a fantasy story that has no place, no conclusion and no meaning in the great scheme of things. Someone at capcom clearly oversold this new IP to the share holders and ended up having to back up quickly toward the end of development. I really thought and hoped this game would be special something special but I find myself following capcoms lead...they were all about Void and obviously had big plans for its long term future, but at the last stretch they seemed to get all shy and quiet about it, slashing expected sales figures in half and where is the marketing? I havent heard a peep about this game in the mainstream. not a sneeze.
SUMMARY
I had fun playing Dark Void. Its definietly a renter, perhaps not a purchase. Especially with the short shelf-life. There is some replayability. You will struggle to upgrade all your equipment first time round and completists will replay their favorite chapters to earn the xp needed to get all the upgrades. There is SOME replay in those levels that show the true genius potential of this game, but I have a feeling that of the 16 odd levels perhaps only 3 or 4 will draw you back for more of the same. The story is unique but the script is very average, though the actors do the best they can with the material, you just never really feel a great deal for the main characters.
Influences on the game are obvious and numerous, they steal gameplay and design from all the best and mostly do it well - Red faction, Uncharted, Lost Panet, Half Life, Resistance, Capcom's own beloved crimson skies and even a touch of Halo.
As I said in my demo review, considering how unique it is in essence, Dark Void is a very lazy game. You can see the influences EVERYwhere and its obvious that Capcom figured they could cash in on the success of Naughty Dogs ''best of everything'' ethos but they just haven't managed it, sadly. Dark void fails at being subtle in its apery and aside from the actual story, there is very little here that is original or unique in its self. Capcom took all the best ingredients for the pot but sadly forgot to sprinkle it with pixie dust to add that little bit of magic.
Enjoyable, passable, occasionally remarkable, but almost forgettable.
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Dark Void Demo - First Impressions.
Lazy....is the first impression that comes to mind. While it is fair to say I had fun playing this demo, its clear from the offset that the makers of the great title 'Crimson Skies' have simply ported over the control system to the rocket pack in dark void. The result is that while it oddly worked for CS, on a jetpack it is a little cumbersome and confusing.
The problem centers around the boost and brake functions of your jetpack which are mapped to the Y and X buttons accordingly, But as you need BOTH thumbsticks to perform sharp evasive manouvers, boosting and braking are suddenly pointless unless you want to take your left thumb away from the thumbstick to do either, reducing your manouvering quite drastically. More frustratingly they could have easily used the left trigger/bumper for the boost and brake allowing you to stay completely mobile with both thumbs on the sticks. It appears to be a glaring oversight. The left trigger is secondary fire which could easily be swapped to the Y button , and the left bumper target-lock could have easily been moved to the right bumper which toggles your 360 camera (which is a neat option but doesnt work so well and could easily have been a thumbstick-click) Better yet why not just TOGGLE the booster instead of having to hold it? I know some may think that perhaps the idea is that the boost and brake come at the cost of manouvering as some kind of insentive to strategize, or to add tension to the dogfights. Rubbish, its just plain annoying and VERY frustrating. The bulk of the tension in any game comes from strategizing around good enemy AI, not poorly devised equipment.
That said, the flying itself is well realised. The space you are given to fly around is sufficiently large, but still has obstacles to avoid as well as the enemies. Most of your manouvering is done with the left stick but you are also able to roll left and right with the right-stick adding a great deal more freedom to those tight tricky turns (as mentioned earlier if you played Crimson Skies you will feel at home very quickly). As you might expect its a fairly low-key level designed to teach the basics, but ample enough. Strangely though there is nowhere in the demo where they show off their much hyped 'vertical gameplay' - You kind of get the impression that capcom doesnt think its that great after all. I guess we won't know for sure until we actually play the full game. As you have probably seen in the vids, you are also able to hijack enemy aircraft. Whilst this is fun, its also lacking in tension. You have to avoid the ship's main cannon by dodging around the edge of the craft, repeatedly going back to the same spot between blasts to rip off a control panel, exposing the pilot. While the dodging is fun and they even throw in a grip mechanic when the pilot tries to shake you off the craft, ripping off the panel (the most crucial element) is nothing more than holding the B button. A quick-tap event would have heightened the tension and increased the feeling of achievement a little....again, lazy. Once the panel is off, its a quick tussle with the pilot via a stick-waggle and then the ship is yours.
Whilst the flight controls are the same as for your jetpack, the craft do move a little differently, most noticably they are less manouverable than your jetpack, which makes sense but as the weapons seem no more powerful it makes keeping hold of one seem a little pointless. The loss of manouvarability could have easily been offset with more interesting weapons such as heat-seekers adding to playbility. Instead it's far easier to just capture the ship, kill the pilot and then eject....rinse and repeat.....lazy!
Once the flying section is over you get to a shooting section where you have to infultrate a small building that houses a control panel that you must destroy. Its at this point that you realise just how clonish the fighting system is. We all knew it was ripping off the cover system that Gears made famous (though in honesty it feels more UC2 than Gears, especially knowing that Nolan North is the lead voice actor in both DV and UC)- In itself, using the tried and tested is not a BAD thing, but its all pretty much carbon copy here, no little void-twists refinements or additions......Lazy! Yes they do have the jetpack so you can launch at any time to change the angle but you dont get much chance to experiment with it here and even so this is a SEPERATE type of shooting from the cover mechanic in question and I still cant help feeling I've also done jetpack warfare before...COUGHREDFACTIONCOUGH.....
As for the AI it is perfectly efficient but not at the level of my favorite Borderlands which has outstanding AI (except for the occasional midget that just stands and stares at you)
*SUMMARY*
My overall impression is that while the Dark Void DEMO is a competent and enjoyable game and does FEEL different to most other games it doesnt actually DO anything that different and none of what it does really stands out. Some may argue that UC2 is an offender for combining established gameplay styles made popular by other franchises, but when a game does this well with a high level of expertese and the addition of something all your own, I have no issue. the game becomes greater than the sum of its parts. However, whilst UC2 excelled in its production values it seems that DV does not, at least judging by this oh too short demo (nearly a gig for 4 minutes gameplay??) Yes it looks nice and yes it seems to be a relatively smooth experience and aside from a few small control niggles it IS fun to play, but really on first impression it would seem that Dark Void does only what it has to do, efficiently drawing from other well-loved games (even the menu sounds are ripped right out of DeadSpace) and combining their best mechanics in a relatively fresh and new formula, but never really excelling at any of them. Different, yet so, so familiar.....LAZY