Featured

Dark Void – Xbox 360 Review

Reviewed by AceGamez on January 16, 2010

Dark Void - Xbox 360 Review | read this item

Fusing several game mechanics together into one title rarely pays off, as shown by the tirade of awful driving sections in shoot-em-ups over the years. The majority of these sections really water down the overall package and you are often left wondering why the developer bothered with them at all. Taking this into consideration, Dark Void really does cast its net wide by bringing together vast climbing and platform sections, cover-based shooting areas and full 360 aerial combat. It’s a jack of many trades and at times, developer Airtight Games really has pulled off an impressive juggling act with all three components, although some inconsistencies hold the game back from greatness. Thanks to an intriguing premise, a unique setting and tons of fast-paced action, you may just overlook these shortcomings. Strap on your rocket-pack and prepare to boldly go where no developer has attempted to go before.

Somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle region of the North Atlantic Ocean, there is a gateway to another realm known as the Void. When pilot Will Grey and his companion Ava crash land in this mysterious limbo, they are thrown head first into a vicious war between a band of other human survivors and the half-robotic half-organic race known as the Watchers. Rumour has it that the dimension is a gateway to Earth that the Watchers have been exploiting for many years to influence mankind for their own goals. Their motives are slowly drip-fed throughout the campaign, but information early on suggests that these aliens are just as trapped in the Void as you are, sparking an all-out ground war for control of the realm.

This really is the kind of plot that breeds an epic game but you can’t help but notice a lack of real excitement when things kick off. Much like the Need for Speed series, where you are teased with an insanely souped-up car at the start of the game only to have it cruelly taken away, the prologue opens with a jetpack stage that sees you zipping about at insane speeds battling UFOs. However, once the campaign actually starts, you only get to experience this again about an hour and a half in, so don’t get too excited just yet. It should be a white knuckle encounter, but you will be lucky to take down five or more enemy craft before the next scene triggers due to the twitchiness of the aiming and movement. I found that a trip to the control menu to reduce the aiming sensitivity was necessary after about two minutes of hitting nothing but thin air. At default sensitivity it really is like controlling a rocket-fuelled shopping trolley with four busted wheels, but if you tone it down it certainly becomes much more manageable and fun as a result.

Once you make it through this first scrap you get to grips with Will as he and Ava crash land in the Void and are promptly attacked by Watcher soldiers. This is where the game enters Gears of Void mode as you run n’ gun against waves of enemies, using various points of cover for protection. Again, this should be a genuinely exciting experience, but you will rarely feel threatened by the enemies and their general lack of intelligence. Watcher troops will often run around in the open with no clear strategy, making them easy fodder for your range of generic weapons. Guns range from assault rifles, sniper cannons, rocket launchers and plasma guns, all of which lack any real kick or bite to be deemed impressive. Guns can be upgraded at various weapon lockers using tech points you find scattered throughout each level, but you will rarely feel that outgunned to begin with. It’s also recommended to reduce your stick sensitivity for these sections as you can quite easily miss your mark when trying to aim at speed.

If all else fails you can simply run up to an enemy and take them down with a variety of pretty impressive melee kills. On normal difficulty you can do this to a lot of enemies before worrying about being shot down, while harder difficulty settings will require a better strategy. After a few skirmishes you will come across your first vertical cover section. This has been hotly tipped as Dark Void’s ace in the hole and it is actually quite impressive the first few times you use it. Essentially, if you come across a sheer drop, you can peer over the edge and shoot down, or look up if you are trying to scale platforms on a vertical surface. Enemies will take cover behind other platforms on the surface you are trying to scale or descend and this is really the same as horizontal cover, except a lot more vertigo-inducing. There really isn’t much more to it than this, but one vertical cover battle that sees you climbing up the deck of the USS Cyclops, a real-life military ship that was deemed lost in the Bermuda Triangle, really stands out. It’s quite similar to the opening train wreck scene in Uncharted 2 as you scramble up the crumbling hull of the ship, dangling precariously over a tropical cliff-face battling Watchers as you go.

Unfortunately, moments like this are few and far between but are very impressive when they do come along. At this point you have a stripped-down version of the jet pack from the opening prologue and this simply lets you jump higher and hover down lethal drops. While the device lets you navigate some pretty lush and grand scenery the camera renders it an annoyance, particularly when jumping accuracy is a life or death matter. When you jump and use your jet pack, the camera remains firmly rooted behind Will, meaning you can’t see where you are about to land. You have to map out the platforms in your mind and pray that your feet find solid ground when you land. Camera niggles are really becoming inexcusable in this generation and while this particular problem doesn’t plague you throughout the campaign, it really does stand out in this early section.

The next notable experience comes when you get the experimental jet pack developed by Nikola Tesla, who is also trapped in the Void for some reason. This time, you can take to the skies and engage ground troops with meaty shoulder cannons and pull off some insane but really satisfying aerial stunts. This is definitely where the game shines and if you have put up with the lacklustre shooting and platforming sections so far, consider these moments as your reward. Your first task is to knock out a force field that is imprisoning a human attack ship by destroying two generators housed in floating Watcher towers. As you are set upon by a pack of UFOs, you can choose to gun them down or hijack them. By getting close enough, you can latch on to the hull of smaller Watcher craft, rip out some of its electronics and fight the pilot on the roof. It’s as silly as the car-jacking mechanic in the shoddy Vin Diesel romp The Wheelman, but it is oddly satisfying here.

The graphics also seem to take a step up during the flying sections, with Will’s animation making a massive leap, particularly when you cut off the jet-packs engine and free-fall several hundred feet to evade pursuing Watcher craft. The way his body twists and contorts as he hurtles through the air is really over the top but looks impressive in motion. The neat hook here is that you can land on the ground and engage in some run n’ gun action with ground troops at any time. Say for example the action heats up and you are getting pummelled by enemy fire, simply turn on the jet-pack and blast off to safety while your health regenerates then swoop back down and batter ground troops with shoulder cannon fire from the safety of the air. At this point the game really becomes Gears of Starfox and these are the moments where it falls into a confident groove before stumbling time and time again with poorly judged shooting sections and bland visuals.

Another notable flying scene sees Will blasting through a tight mineshaft full of stalactites and homing mines, almost playing out like the Death Star trench run scene in Star Wars. It borders on excitement and had the game stuck to these moments and played to its strengths it could have transcended from a title with a bout of identity crisis to a solid package that knows what it wants to be. Once again, Nolan North’s voice acting makes for yet another instantly likeable lead character. Will is a tough one-liner machine who makes the other characters seem flat and uninspired, but once the genuinely intriguing story kicks in at the start of episode two, you will feel more engaged with what is going on. Dark Void is by no means a terrible game and it is almost a solid one, but between the twitchiness of the gameplay, some occasionally last-gen visuals and a lack of genuine excitement at some points, you may find it hard to persevere or even care. Those willing to put the time and endure the flat opening stages will be rewarded with increasingly exciting stages but if you keep low expectations you may be pleasantly surprised. An unfortunate miss-fire from what appears to be a genuinely bright and talented new developer.