For the first video game review we review one that is lessor known yet still deserves looking into.
Now since video games include gameplay as well for them, we’ll look at premise, characters, and gameplay rather than story to give a final score.
The game is set just before the start of World War II and the protagonist is a former air force pilot called Will. He flies into the Bermuda Triangle and as a result winds up in a completely different dimension. In that world other humans are battling against an alien race.
CHARACTERS
Will, the main protagonist is the guy on the box art with the helmet and the jetpack. As a character he’s no-one that you haven’t seen before in a third person shooter, the fact he sounds exactly like Nathan Drake all the way down to the same voice actor should tell you a lot about his personality. His primary motivation in this game is escaping back to his world as well as getting his lady friend back though thankfully he’s not too serious about it which makes him fun to play in high stakes aerial combat.
Ava is Will’s lady friend that he is fighting to get back throughout most of the story. She is a competent fighter at the start yet predictably gets kidnapped and is the focus of Will for most of the game.
The aliens in this game form most of their army through the use of cyborg like robots. They also have flying saucers which makes up most of the flying combat in this game. On ground though they aren’t all that impressive. The best they can do is jump up to high cover which you can get to via jetpack.
GAMEPLAY
The game itself is a third person shooter that uses the jetpack as the main selling point. That’s why for most it might be difficult to get into considering the first two hours of the game don’t give you the jet pack on the box art. The game is slow purely on the ground first person shooting, then it gives you a jetpack and you think flight time till the game goes “no you don’t get the big boy jet pack till you demonstrate your good enough with this training pack”. Along with that the game is slow the story is uninteresting and hard to follow.
Yet if you muscle your way through the first two hours you do get the jetpack on the box art and that’s really when the game takes off. Then you get access to aerial combat and get to fight UFO’s in truly well designed aerial combat. The fact you can take off with the jet pack at any time also frees up the gameplay so you don’t always have to fight ground enemies on the ground. For more details check out the video below from youtuber funkyoulol2 used under fair use.
Yet even after that some noticeable problems persist in that the game really feels rushed and unfinished. For example there is an entire level all modeled and explorable that looks to be a kind of mission hub area as there are no enemies present and your only goal is to go to the room that starts the mission cut scene. Yet you go there once and then never go back. In fact after that mission you skip ahead in time to an aerial combat section and the game only feels more rushed from there. As barely an hour and a half after that you can complete the main game.
CONCLUSION
With Dark Void the premise was good the way it was executed in gameplay was good but the actual product felt unfinished. Like they had a great game all set up yet their publisher moved the due date for the game forward by a large amount of time and they had to rush and finish it as fast as possible. Despite that the game can still be fun, the jetpack sections are still a blast to play and despite the gaps the story isn’t too hard to wrap your head around which saves it some points in this review.
Ultimately Dark Void gets a 7.1 out of ten.
If nothing else its worth trying out as long as you can get through till you get the adult jet pack.