Dark Void PC
Dark Void is a different first person shooter and platform game rolled into one that does make a difference in gameplay using the flying and hovering capabilities but the game does not really stand out much in any other way.
Ratings:
Graphics & Audio: 18/25,
Gameplay: 18/25,
Creativity 20/25,
Fun 18/25
Total: 74/100
Dark Void from publisher Capcom and developer Airtight Games had promise with its hover and flight mode for combat that increases the abilities and tactics for a first person shooter but still lacks an overall entertainment factor. Dark Void follows the crash and transportation to another dimension of our hero William Augustus Grey voiced by Nolan North in mostly a first person shooter.
The game actually does not start out with the crash and your adventure but with the full fledged use of the jetpack in a combat situation against several aliens flying and shooting at you. You need to learn how to use the rocket pack and shoot down several of the UFO's attacking you to end the level which is quite frantic.
Once this level is over you start the campaign proper and also start at ground zero, no flying but you do have a gun and two feet so you can walk into combat. You start as Will Grey hired to fly a transport plane for an old acquaintance Nikola Tesla and end up flying to another dimension through the Bermuda triangle.
Gunplay is pretty good with rifles and some alien weaponry so the first few levels have you starting off getting used to your weapons and slowly getting more and more abilities. Once through a couple of levels they start in on using your rocket pack first as a hover and jump booster and then into full fledged flight using the pack.
The rocket pack adds the third dimension to your gameplay to add a different feature to the game but problems arise from this added motion and direction. The gameplay is stunted by the auto aiming and other parts of the game that make it feel very much unfinished.
The main problem you get is the further into the game you proceed the more problems creep in so when you finally get to the full featured flying and fighting you have several different things combining to add to your lack of entertaining gaming. The games use of the rocket pack is great taken in little bites but when trying to combine fighting and flying from a first person perspective you have a few different problems the game has to overcome.
Aiming without having the solid footing on the ground becomes more of a challenge and using an auto aim feature was supposed to overcome the added problems of flight while shooting. This just did not work out as the auto aim is very loose so it only partially helps you get bullets and other projectiles on target while zooming around the playing area.
Flight in itself would have been great but by the time you get all your abilities with the rocket pack the game is at the end level and your done without much use of the full flight. This wound up being quite a disappointment and I felt they did not get things as developed as they wanted to because they just do not give you much time in the full flight mode as you could hope for.
This means either a short game in comparison to others or just one that spends too much time getting to the good stuff only to have the good parts too short. I would have preferred not even playing the end scene at the beginning as it is very difficult but you get a glimpse of things to come, problem is those moments are too short when they finally arrive.
Dark Void pits you against a good number of enemies with futuristic weapons against your more rifle but even the weapons are a bit of a letdown with the always numerous refills and dropped weapons you can use. The game really has little in the way of difficulty other than poor control schemes that make the gaming a bit more difficult than it should be especially when combining flight with shooting.
Once you do get in the air things add not only a new dimension of tactics but problems as well because direction can be a slippery control when trying to use a keyboard and mouse. I found it easiest to use a controller like the Logitech Chill Stream for use in flying with the keyboard and mouse for general walking around shooting type work.
The game is fun for the most part but when you get further in it does get harder to control and still keep the bad guys in your sights during the last few levels. Gameplay is pretty good from a first person shooter standpoint but when you introduce the fight it gets pretty difficult to enjoy the game as it just does not get easy to fly and fight at the same time.
The game had so much promise but in the end leaves you wanting for more of the very beginning and end of the game and much less of the ground combat. Dark Void does well with graphics and audio but the object models could have been a bit more varied to add some well, variety to the enemies.
The game does well with graphics and effects, textures and even audio for a well made game for the most part but nothing more than average for the game's final score in these areas. Audio is also well done with good narrative and voice from the actors and well done sound effects for a generally good game.
The main problem with Dark Void is the proportion of ground tramping to flying when the game's best features are flight and the rocket pack use. If they would have added a few more levels toward the end of the game using flight the game would have been great. Adding levels where they take the rocket pack away and send you back to hoofing it with a gun gives the game a backward leap instead of a forward push.
Dark Void does not have much in the way of value as you will not enjoy the game enough to bother playing it more than once or twice as it will lay out the same way the second time around. The game has no multiplayer and does spend too much time on the ground so I don't think there is much value here other than a bit of a different gameplay technique that could have been used a lot more.
Dark Void takes a bit too much to get to the good stuff you are given a too quick glimpse of at the beginning and even once you get this fun ripped away from you in the form of a capture and strip down of all weapons and devices. Dark Void for the PC is a decent enough game but it just falls short of being different enough in any lasting way to make it a better game other than as a temporary diversion.