Finally, a shooter that doesn't involve aliens, outer space, or war. Darkwatch is a breath of fresh air.
User Rating: 7.3 | Darkwatch PS2
Finally, here comes a shooter that doesn’t involve aliens, outer space, or war. Darkwatch is a breath of fresh air in the now-clichéd FPS genre. The setting is the Old West. You are the outlaw Jericho Cross—a train robber who decided to rob from the wrong train. You unleash the wicked vampire lord Lazarus from the Darkwatch vault. He bites you, leaving your soul to slowly succumb to your vampiric tendencies. You can win back your soul by joining the secret Darkwatch organization and killing off Lazarus—if you so choose. This sets up the storyline to Darkwatch. The story, while not as complex as your average epic RPG such as Final Fantasy VII, moves very quickly. Cut scenes are short, to the point, and move the story along. While at the beginning they may come often (and perhaps a little annoying), in later missions the cut scenes come less frequently. Some may feel that the story moves along a little TOO quickly. (A lot happens in the first half-hour of gameplay.) The voice acting presented in Darkwatch is above average, with noticeable appearances by Rose McGowan (“Charmed”) as the sultry agent Tala and the under-used Michael Bell (“Legacy of Kain” Series) as General Cartwright. As far as the gameplay goes, it plays like any other shooter on the market. The controls are comfortable, highly responsive, and make it easy to control your character. (One of my complaints about the demo was that when you pressed L3, you remained in the crouched position until it was pressed again. That led to you not realizing you’re still crouched. It is now adjusted that it must be held to crouch.) While there aren’t many types of weapons at your disposal, a strategy element is introduced as you can only carry two weapons at a time and dynamite. Location-based damage allows for blowing off enemies’ limbs (and the FPS staple head-shot). The game itself is not very difficult, but there are multiple difficulty settings for players at any skill level. Players expecting a long single-player game will be disappointed, as the it clocks in at 7 hours at the longest (less for most people). In addition to your regular gun ammo, you’ll be using your guns for melee attacks as well. When enemies give you the sense of claustrophobia, just whack them with the end of your gun or crossbow and send their heads and limbs flying. In fact, you’ll find yourself killing off the weaklings by melee attacks pretty often to conserve ammo. Enemy A.I. is varied. The enemies will attack you the minute they spot you. The low-level reapers won’t do much to avoid your attacks at close range, but will run away from sticks of dynamite or exploding crossbow darts. Smarter enemies like the banshees dodge many of your hits while attacking at both long and short-range. Horseback and vehicle levels are a welcome change of pace, but they’re just under-used. The levels where you ride your cursed horse Shadow appear on-rails, but you actually have control on the horse’s direction and speed. For one mission you get to ride the Darkwatch Coyote vehicle. It’s fun for while it lasts, but it would have been nice to see it in more levels. A major marketing point in Darkwatch is the option to choose your fate. A morality system is set in place to determine whether you’ll follow the path of good or evil. However, this system wasn’t implemented to its fullest. Most decisions involve removing curse from a tainted soul and don’t affect the storyline at all. These decisions determine what vampiric powers you’ll be endowed with. Also, they are clearly marked as a Good or Evil choice. I would have preferred something a little less obvious, and a little more variety. Only one decision fairly late in the game will determine which of the two endings you’ll see. Your vampiric powers aren’t necessary to complete the game. There are only a few you’ll ever use, and the good powers seem more favorable. Levels in sunlight mix things up a bit by forcing you to give up your vampire abilities, but are few in number. The graphics in Darkwatch are decent, but look dated now that games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 have set a new standard. The blame could be on the game’s many delays, the developers splitting from Sammy to form High Moon Studios, and the period of time without a publisher (later picked up by Capcom in the United States). As far as replay value goes, Gunslinger mode lets you play any completed mission, with the option of you choosing the difficulty setting and whether you’re on the dark or evil path. Completing certain tasks will unlock concept art and movies. The Playstation 2 version has an exclusive 2-player co-op mode that moves through the single player campaign. In all, Darkwatch is a worthy break from the normal FPS games. It’s worth a rent, as many people want a longer single player game. 
