[Review]- Dark Void

The shooting and cover mechanics feel smooth, though the actual aiming can be a little clunky at times. Your bullets only seem to hit when the dot in the center of your reticule is directly on the enemies, not any other part of the circle, as if the gun doesn't have enough spray or is a bit too accurate. This doesn't help when all of the robots you fight throughout the game take an ungodly amount of bullets to kill unless you aim carefully for the head (but to be fair, I was playing the game on hardcore difficulty). In close quarters it's actually easier to kill with melee by simply hitting the B button near enemies, which starts a short animation. This will kill most average enemies in one hit, and most of the more heavily armored bots in three.

One of the most innovative features in Dark Void is the vertical cover system. When you stand near certain ledges, you can go to a cover mode where you can jump down or climb up ledges and shoot enemies poking their heads out from above or below you. It can be very fun to move around and take cover in all directions, but I felt that this feature was not quite used often enough in the game.

The game really starts to shine once you get your jetpack. At first it's a glorified glider that allows you to jump higher, but later on in the game you get a fully powered jetpack that essentially turns you into a personal fighter jet. There are two modes of flight. Hover mode let's you hover around and use your normal weapons, of which there is a decent selection of rifles, rockets, and a gravity gun that makes enemies float away helplessly. You have much more control in this mode, but it's not very fast. At the press of a button, however, you take off like a jet and fly around like Ironman. Once in this mode you can fly at high speeds attacking enemy UFOs with your jetpack's built in machine guns. You can fly up to the enemy aircraft and hijack them (with a minigame that, while fun the first couple of times, gets old very quickly) or simply commandeer allied planes. However, I didn't find using the aircraft very useful anymore after upgrading the jetpack and unlocking rockets for it.

The sound quality in the game was very good, and I enjoyed most of the music in the game. There were some epic tracks that did a good job of setting the mood. A track that I particularly enjoyed was the main theme that sounds like it came out of Star Wars, which plays during one of the final aerial battles.

The graphics are decent, and the scenery is very large in scale. Though most of the later flying levels look roughly the same (bottomless sky with rock pillars sticking out of it), there is some pretty grand scenery in some of the earlier jungle levels.

Probably the worst thing about this game is that it doesn't have any multiplayer modes. This is a huge waste of potential as there is a lot of fun that could have been had flying around cooperatively or fighting competitively with jetpacks. It's just a very fun concept that they could have taken advantage of, which could have resulted in fun multiplayer dog fights along the lines of Crimson Skies.

Tips and Tricks

- Try to fully upgrade the jetpack as soon as you can afford it. The rockets you unlock with the final upgrade are incredibly useful, not to mention infinite.

- Some copies seem to have a redeemable code for the golden jetpack, which was supposed to be a preorder bonus, printed on the back of the game manual. Check for this, as it will give you unlimited boost, despite it's tacky appearance.

- Sometimes it's easier and safer to go to hover mode, turn, and boost off in a new direction than it is to try to use an aerial maneuver in flight mode in tight quarters or near obstacles.

- The description on the "Fireworks" achievement is wrong. You need to blow up 10 enemies with grenades exploding above their heads, not blow up 10 flying enemies.

- When hijacking a UFO, move to the side of it, wait until you hear the ship charging its gun to shoot you, then move back to start pulling the panel while it blasts away at nothing. Repeat this two or three times to finish the minigame more quickly.

Reaction

I rather enjoyed Dark Void. There is a massive amount of negativity surrounding the game that I had a hard time comprehending when playing it. Sure the game was short and had some bugs, but they weren't anything game breaking. The worst bugs I've encountered, such as being unable to use my weapon, simply required a restart to the last checkpoint (which aren't too far apart) via death.

Now, one thing I should mention, is that I got this game for $10 new during a sale. For that price it was amazing, and had very easy achievements (I managed to get all 1000 points after playing it for only two days). The game is still very cheap at the moment for a title that only came out January this year, but because the game is so short, doesn't have that much replay value, and has easy gamerscore, you may want to simply rent it. It is a pretty fun game while it lasts.

AudaciousKevin gives this game a respectable 7.5 out of 10!