"Dark Void does have good potential, it's just poorly executed."
Dark Void is flight simulation action game developed by Airtight Games and published by Capcom for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.
*****INFO*****
- Genre(s): Action – Shooter – Flight
- Age Rating: 15 +
- Contents: Violence – Minor Language
- Difficulty: Fairly hard
*****INTRODUCTION*****
THE POSITIVES
- On ground battle combat is rather fun
- It's funny
THE NEGATIVES
- Jetpack battle combat is not fun
- Really hard to aim when in flying mode
- LOTS, of cheap deaths
- Suffers from glitches
- Flight combat Hit detection
*****REVIEW*****
The plot takes place during World War 2 and revolves around a cargo pilot named William Augustus Grey, played by Nolan North (who provides the voice talent for treasure hunter Nathan Drake in Naughty Dog adventures hit, Uncharted). Will is teleported to another world while flying through the Bermuda Triangle; a world known as the Void. In this world, Will encounters an alien race known as the Watchers, and a human race know as the Survivors. Will joins the Survivors in aiding them against the alien race, with the only intention in returning home to earth.
Dark Void's story unfolds through in-game dialogue and after level cut scenes. Dark Void's loading times can be considerably annoying and tiring especially when gameover.
Dark Void's visuals are pretty decent, but nothing to get overly excited about. Textures and background object occasionally pop in after a scene has loaded, dull background textures, and minor awkward animation and facial expressions. Dark Void's visuals do shine in open areas with some really nice background sceneries, but nothing to really call the visuals outstanding.
Dark Void's game-play is split into two genres; one genre work well and is rather fun, but the other… not so much.
Imagine Gears of War, or Wanted: Weapons of Fate and Ace Combat rolled into one.
The game starts of as just a normal shooter, and you won't gain the jetpack till awhile later in the game. The over the shoulder combat in Dark Void is indeed rather fun, but offers nothing new into the genre. There are a variety of weapons to play around with (six in fact) as well as grenades etc. One of then a human based rifle, and the others are futuristic alien weapons, which I did find rather tedious than fun. The combat system revolves around you moving through slightly linear areas, shooting everything and anything you see. Dark Void has a cover system, which is similar to that of Gears of War etc, where you can take cover in nearly any structure, perform jump out shots, and of course blind fire. You of course also have a melee attack feature, which can kill almost any enemies with a few hits. The overall combat game-play and controls are good and fluent.
When you're not in ground combat, you'll be in air combat, which is after you gain the jetpack awhile later in the game. The jetpack allows you to fly from one location to the other, which does work quite well, but the problem is the flight combat. You can either hover in the one spot and shot your enemies with your current weapon, or fly, which is essentially for air combat against UFO's etc. While flying you have one primary weapon attached to the jetpack; a machine gun. The jetpack can be upgraded as you progress through the game; later you'll unlock a rocket launcher. Both weapons are ammunition free, which means you don't have to worry about looking or gaining ammo. There is no lock on system in flight combat, however there is a screen lock on system, which locks the screen on an enemy while you move around trying to position the crosshairs on the enemy your lock on to, which can be really monotonous, tedious and very frustrating, especially when many enemies are in the one area.
As you play, you gain experience points in which you can use to upgrade weapons and your jetpack. The enemies A.I. system can be rather challenging, but ground based enemies tend you just stand in one stop, and flight based enemies tend to fly into mountains and obstacles, as well as fly around in circles.
The sound design is rather good, with reasonable voice talent, great music, and great over all sound effects. The sound design does suffer from minor glitches i.e. dramatic music (or combat music) will sometimes continue playing long after combat is over, sometimes music will just suddenly stop, voice dialogue jumps and sometimes repeats the same sentences immediately after.
Dark Void does offer a good lengthy campaign mode, which should last around 8 hours or so to complete, but does not offer a lot of replay value.
Dark Void was a game I was truly looking forward to, but instead it turned out being half frustrating and half fun. While the combat system is relatively fun… the jetpack on the other hand is not!
Dark Void, to me, was half fun, half frustrating. Honestly, I hated the flight simulation combat system in the game. Although some levels can be played through using ground combat, levels that required flight combat I found unsatisfied. Whenever I was forced to use flight combat I just looked about in hope of finding a machine gun torrent to use instead. Flying around in generally i.e. from one location to another etc, does feel good, but the flight combat just put me of it. Coming toward the end of the game was just pure flight combat (which I did not find appealing at all), and the end boss what just a joke.
The story was unappealing. Nolan North playing as Will honestly just made me want to play Uncharted instead of Dark Void. Some of the voice dialogue was funny (in a good way) i.e. "Is he all right?" "Not really, he's dead!", typical humour from Nolan North, but overall the story it uninteresting.
Overall Dark Void is, an ok game… looking past the flight system. It started of really interesting and quite fun, but I honestly think after gaining the jetpack the game went down hill. I honestly screamed with joy (*****WARNING SPOILER ALERT - WARNING SPOILER ALERT*****) when Will throw the jetpack up in the air at the end and blow it up, because that was exactly what I wanted to do.
If you like over the shoulder action shooter, and flight simulations… you may find Dark Void appealing, but don't get your hopes up.
*****FINAL OVERALL SCORE*****
- Story – 4/10
- Life Value – 4/10
- My Thought Score – 5/10
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- Presentation – 5/10
- Graphics – 7/10
- Game-Play – 5/10
- Sound Effects – 7/10
- Originality – 5/10
*****EDITOR'S OVERALL THOUGHT SCORE – 6/10 *****
Dark Void Review by Simon a.k.a. [TheDevilDweller]