This week Capcom released a demo for their upcoming sci-fi shooter Dark Void, and for anyone either too lazy to download it or just uninterested but still curious, I thought I would give my own opinion on this slice of the pie.  Dark Void has an odd history in regards to exposure.  At one point, Capcom really pushed on the advertising, even going so far as to give away a Tesla Roadster in their efforts to promote it (I didn’t win it, which will forever leave a bad taste in my mouth).  But since then, the publisher has been fairly quiet about the title.  With its imminent release on the 19th of this month, we’ve seen a slight resurgence in its promotion, but still not a ton.  The game’s biggest selling point seems to be its jetpack, multi-level combat, and thankfully that’s just what the demo gives us. 

As with most demos, we don’t get much story going in.  We meet Will, our pilot protagonist, stereotypical for the game’s time period with his plastic hair and bomber jacket.  We also meet a weird islander who I think was named Tavi, though we don’t get much from him aside from some ineffectual voice acting and a few radio directions. 

It’s also right at the beginning that we hear an all too familiar voice.  Yes, Will bears the voice of Nolan North.  I’m sure I’d heard this somewhere before, but it still gave me pause when it actually happened in game.  For anyone unfamiliar, Nolan North is probably the most active voice actor in video games, period.  He is famous for his portrayal of Nathan Drake in the Uncharted games, but he has been in so many that it’s impossible to list them all here.  His bigger roles include Drake, Desmond from the Assassin’s Creed series, the Prince from the latest Prince of Persia game, and Jason from Shadow Complex.  But if you can name a game made in the past five years, chances are ridiculously good that his name is attached to it.  He plays the lead in Dark Void, and as much as I respect and love his work over the years, I’m not sure I appreciate hearing him in so many roles.  It just reminds me that I’m playing a video game when I hear the same guy’s voice as every male lead. 

Anyway, voice acting rant aside, the demo wastes no time slapping that jetpack on Will’s back and sending him flying.  Yes, not two minutes in players literally take flight into some open skies, and for that initial take off it’s an exhilarating experience.  I love flying in games.  I can’t get enough of it most times.  Many developers won’t allow it because it because of the technical hassle of giving players access to…well everywhere.  But for those who do, your efforts are appreciated because flying is the one thing I do in video games that I wish I could do in reality (yes, I cast spells and teleport in real life).  The flight controls are simple enough.  One button accelerates, one breaks, and there is a hover button that will allow Will to pull up and bring out his assault rifle or whatever weapon he has equipped.  The jetpack itself is equipped with turrets that players can fire while in non-hover flight mode.  The left analog stick controls direction, and the right analog stick controls spin. 

Once the controls are accustomed to, players are given directions to destroy some stationary sensors way up in some mountains.  This is where those jetpack turrets come in handy, though Will’s equipped weapon does the job as well.  The turrets just do it much faster.  This is followed by a straight up dogfight as some drones some winging Will’s way, and unfortunately this was about the most awkward bit of the demo.  I love flying, but I’m not too accustomed to it because outside of flight simulators, which I have played 0 of, few games allow players to wing it.  Even the ones that allow it generally have their own methods, and Dark Void is a bit different than any I’ve played.  Perhaps with more time and practice dealing with the controls, I might have fared better or enjoyed it more.  As it was, I found attempting to shoot these drones out of the sky far too difficult.  I failed two or three times, and only won on my fourth by spinning around in one place and shooting them all down.  The flight also becomes less exhilarating after the initial rush.  Though Will has the ability to boost his speed for extended periods, I still didn’t feel as though it was fast enough.  I wanted to zoom along.  I never felt like I was zooming.  There does seem to be a system of aerial tricks to be toyed with, but they only give a taste of it in the demo, and it’s also kind of awkward.   

After drones and sensors are destroyed, Will is instructed to land on the structure that just had its shields evaporated by his mayhem, and the game transitions from flight combat to third person shooter.  In this rendition, it’s completely familiar territory.  It plays just like the standard Uncharted or Gears of War cover system gun battles.  Will can melee enemies to death if close, one shotting the standard dudes every time it seems.  He kills robots and some weird alien manta ray with legs type creature.  He’s instructed to destroy a console aboard the structure, and then get out.  Once out, a nasty robot scorpion emerges, kills a bunch of dudes, and the demo is over.  It hints at an interesting boss battle, and to be honest I would have liked to experience that bit of it.  The scorpobot planted itself out in the open with plenty of maneuver room and if it’s possible to engage in both land and air combat with the thing, I’d find myself suddenly much more interested in the game.  But it ends, and that’s that. 

The demo is quite short.  Maybe too short?  It’s hard to say.  I don’t feel as though I received a hearty impression of just what the game is all about.  I appreciated test driving the jetpack, so to speak.  I appreciated that it showed off the combat, both on land and in the air.  But I’m still left with an unsatisfied grumbling in my stomach in regards to the game itself.  Demos are usually, for me, enough to tell me whether I will buy the game or not.  Infamous and Dante’s Inferno are both two recent examples of games that demos completely sold me on.  Capcom has something here with this jetpack business, but I’m not sure they’ve done enough to convince people of that.  I suppose the reasons for this will become clear on the 19th when people start getting their hands on Dark Void officially.  Personally, I’d like to see it work.  We’ll see.

Tags: Capcom, Dark Void, Demo, Impressions, nolan north

This entry was posted on Monday, January 11th, 2010 at 6:23 am and is filed under Impressions, PC, PlayStation 3, Previews, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.