Dark Void Review

Dark Void Review

Roydon Cerejo, Jan 19, 2010 1759 hrs IST

We reviewed the sci-fi game for PS3 platform and loved it!

Brilliant air combat, seamless transition from ground combat to flight, very entertaining

A.I is not very challenging, slight glitches in textures and frame drops present

Expert Rating :

Expert Review

This parallel universe is controlled by an Alien race known as the Watchers. Their original appearance resembles serpents which is evident from the wall paintings seen in the lost temples. What they have done is salvage and modified parts that get sucked from the Bermuda Triangle to create their own army of mechanical droids, some of which are controlled by an actual living slug like creature.

Back to our hero, after you brave the initial boring trek through the jungle, you stumble upon this village where the survivors have settled and are living in bondage, trapped there forever, all thanks to the Watchers. It's here that you meet Nicolai Tesla (yes, the one and only) whose been secretly working on projects of his own from the planes and ships that crash into this parallel universe. You start off with just a hover pack which is like a miniature Jetpack which only lets you hover and not fly. This is when you are introduced to the vertical cover system. As you progress through the story, you meet new Survivors who, unlike the first lot, are not under the mercy of the Watchers but more like the resistance and are waiting for right person to come along and set them free as prophesized by the Imperator (who is somewhat like the Oracle from the Matrix). As expected, Will is the chosen one who will set them free and is also referred to as the "key" by the watchers.

The vertical cover system plays a major role in your survival

After a couple of events that take place (most of which I can't seem to recollect), you start making your journey deeper into the Void which is a place from where one can return to the normal universe. This part part is notably darker. Gone are the lush jungles and instead, all you'll find are empty canyons. During this time, you get the Jetpack and the game suddenly feels completely different; it's a lot more fun as you are no longer restricted to ground combat. All weapons in the game are upgradable to two levels up. You can carry only two weapons and four grenades at a time. For the most part, you hardly ever use the machine gun (The Liberator) since the most popular gun is the Oppressor which is a rapid fire pulse rifle used majorly by the sentry droids. One of my favourites has got to be the Sniper rifle which when targeted at the head produces a one shot kill, especially for the weaker droids.

Airtight games have certainly made the flying experience quite seamless as you can engage the jet pack almost instantly at anytime. You can even stop the engine cold turkey anytime and you'll just hover. The Jetpack comes mounted with machine guns with unlimited ammo which can also be upgraded and in level three you even get mini-rockets. The flying will take some getting used to but once you get the hang of it, it's too much fun. This jetpack not only helps you to get out of tight spots but also the bolted machine guns help you take down tougher enemies like the Archon. You'll encounter many more beasts as you progress but on Normal mode, none of them are very challenging no matter how big they may look.

Graphics and Sound:

Taking down an Archon is very satisfying, you'll wish you there were more!

The graphic of the game are nothing to shout about and if you've played Gears of War then think of it as a slightly less detailed version of it. In the PS3 version that we had, there were many glitches throughout the game like pop-ins. Also, sometimes, the texture would take a while to load and so, after the game begins, the ground will be a large brown patch and a few seconds later, the actual gravel will be seen. At times, even while switching between weapons, the texture appears quite late on the selected gun. There was one point in the game (somewhere mid way in Episode II) where the frame rate would drop way below to unplayable levels and once it simply froze completely and I had to restart the PS3.

The sound in the game is by Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary which give s a nice backdrop to the on going action.

Verdict:

Dark Void, which is being launched across all platforms on the January 22 in India, should be in you "must-play" list. I would say it's worth playing inspite of a few very obvious flaws and a cheesy story line with a badly executed love story which made no sense right till the end.

The PS3 version should retail for around Rs. 2,500 (approx.), whereas the PC version ideally should be under a grand. Overall, the Dark Void could have been much better with more challenging boss battles and a better A.I but inspite of this, we give it a 4 star rating just because it's too much fun to play this game.