threevue

Tyler:
Have you guys seen that funny little clip of the Dark Void “prototype” ? The 8-bit game that the upcoming game was supposedly based on? It’s all a marketing ploy to amp up the release of the DS version of the series. At any rate, the reason I bring this up is because I feel like DV is a game that would have been a lot better if that was an actual game that came out in my youth. If I did play something like the DS version when I was younger than maybe I could summon some sort of anticipation for the 360/PS3 one coming out this month. I might have some nostalgic importance to me. As it is, I just can’t see what it is about this game that has people thinking it would be anything other than a perfectly par shooter. Everything, except the near-flawless flight controls, seems borrowed from other games. While playing the demo I had significant flashbacks to Halo and Mass Effect. And just like in GTA4, when transitioning from the flight combat (driving segments) to over the shoulder combat with robots (police/gangsters) something is definitely lost in the translation– the controls seem off a bit.

I like the goal here — air combat mixed with a Gears-like shooter. I’m all for blending genres, but I can’t say that I think Dark Void hits the nail on the head… more like it hit the nail almost in, but on the last stroke it bent it down so that the nail head left a little mark on the wood. Then they pulled the nail out with the reverse side of the hammer and tried to straighten it out and nail it in again, but it’s not really flush now and there’s that little ding from earlier.

What I’m saying is that Dark Void is not Bob Villa.

Steve:
When I first tried the Dark Void demo, my first thought was “why the hell is there a fat dude with his shirt off, and what does this have to do with the story?!?” It’s a feeling that never really leaves you throughout the course of the demo either; the question changes but the general feeling of bewilderment doesn’t.
It seems the further you progress through the demo, the more you feel that it’s a poor demo of what appears to be a decidedly average game.

The demo is bad because it’s just not cohesive in any way at all; the story jumps and skips all over the place in order to let you sample the different types of gameplay on offer, all the while, random characters come and go unannounced, and unrelated events pass by without any explanation. This can be excused somewhat by the fact that it’s just a demo, and its main purpose is you let you sample what the game has to offer. However, it still leaves you with the impression that the story in the full game will still be forgettable gibberish.
Another impression that the demo leaves you with is that almost every element of this game seems to be generally unremarkable, and that every component is somehow lacking in one way or another; the graphics are standard fare (with the possible exception of the environments), the action feels unspectacular, the cover mechanics seem recycled, and both, along with the controls in general, feel just a little too loose to be entirely satisfactory.
As a side note, why didn’t devs Airtight Games include any sections featuring the much vaunted “vertical cover” mechanics they’ve been crowing about for so long? It seems like, if this feature was really as good, or as game changing, as they would have us believe, then this would be the perfect way to let people experience it.

It’s fair to say then, that you probably shouldn’t rush out to buy Dark Void.  However, whereas this would probably be a good game to rent or pick up (really) cheap when there’s a lull in the release schedule, this years schedule seems to be far too unrelenting to even bother thinking about Dark Void any time soon.  Save your money and play some of the games that demand your attention instead.