There was a fair amount of excitement leading up to the release of Dark Void. The general ideas have potential, and the pieces of the puzzle seemed destined to come together to form something beautiful. Hell, the game was an inch away from appearing on our list of most anticipated games for 2010. But, being the crystal ball gazers we are, we saw the future... a future where Dark Void comes out with guns a'blazing, but ultimately slips into the murky depths of mediocrity. There are aspects of the game which still manage to shine, but it's just not enough to launch Dark Void up to the stars.
Like some sort of jet-fuel propelled Frankenstein's monster, Dark Void is a game made up of a number of different play styles which never really seem to mesh properly. Playing as the hero Will Grey, you will spend your time either flying around with your rocket-pack, leaping from ledge to ledge through the disorientating 'vertical action' levels, or hopping from cover to cover in the rather generic third-person shooter sections. None of these gameplay elements are particularly bad, but neither are they especially wonderful, and that is Dark Void's biggest downfall. Almost everything about it is decidedly average. And let's be honest, there really isn't much space for average games these days, not with the astounding levels of quality which some studios are producing.
The story itself is by no means terrible, but it mainly just serves as something to tie the different bits and pieces together. I really didn't find myself being drawn into the gameworld with much interest in getting to know the characters and their stories. You may blame that on my short attention span or lack of willingness to explore the nuances of the character development, but I think that it is the writers job to suck me in with clever plot lines and some depth to the people who drive the story forward. Dark Void does give it a shot, throwing in all manner of different story threads into the mix, from World War II to the Bermuda Triangle to aliens with an appetite for destruction, but the lack of focus on both story and gameplay mechanic leaves the whole experience feeling a bit flat. Lead character Will Grey (voiced by Nolan North from the Uncharted series) finds himself on an unknown island after a storm over the Bermuda Triangle sends his airplane out of control. Accompanied by his ex-girlfriend, Ava, Will is left with no choice but to try to figure out where he is and how to get back to civilisation. Pretty soon we've got a native island tribe, an army of aliens called the Watchers, a band of steam punk style human survivors, a rocket-pack and an alternate reality, and from there the story basically starts to crumble into itself because it just tries too hard. Had developer Airtight Games rather focused on fewer plot elements, and then polished and tightened the story into something streamlined and coherent, Dark Void would have been a far better game for their efforts. Instead we have a sort of mixed bag of loose ends which don't really fit together, and I found myself switching off from the story before long. It's almost impressive that the writers managed to add so many different plot lines together and still create a story which fails to grip the player.
Nevertheless, Dark Void can still be a lot of fun to play, even if you ignore your reasons for playing it. The third-person shooting action which makes up quite a bit of the gameplay can be entertaining, especially when you add the ability to launch over your enemies' heads with the use of the rocket-pack, but it falls well short of the benchmark set by cover-based shooters these days. Popping in and out of cover works just as you imagine it would with no bells and whistles. So, yes, pretty mediocre. The weapons on show are your serviceable but hardly unique, with a mix of standard guns and more exotic alien tech. The alien weaponry is a bit of a let down for the most part, and I really can't understand why developers insist on giving us these weak and boring laser pop-guns when they have absolute creative freedom since it's fictional equipment we're dealing with here. They could make some seriously intimidating District 9-style stuff, but once again we are handed another standard garden variety blaster, the sort we've seen a million times before. In the developers defence, at least the available weapons can all be upgraded in stages, so it's not all bad.
The vertical action sequences have moments of ingenuity, but overall they fail to live up to our expectations. Basically, Will leaps between platforms on a vertical plane, fighting off the alien hordes as they perch both above and below him. It's not easy to describe, and that should go some way to explain how cumbersome and awkward these sections can be. It sometimes takes a while just to figure out which direction you are facing, a disorientating feeling which can prove perilous if you think you are looking up but instead you are staring down a cliff face. It's one of the gameplay elements in Dark Void which has much potential, and it could have been a great addition to the game had the developer just spent a little more time tweaking it.
The ace up Dark Void's sleeve has always been the addition of a rocket-pack, and once again we have an asset which could have been something special but comes off feeling a little stale. It's not bad as such, but when you are dealing with something as inherently cool as a rocket-pack, it has the potential to be pure awesome. Flight sections are a little clumsy at first, especially as you get the hang of the transitions between hover and full flight modes, but once you get the hang of it you do get a sense of the aerial freedom we hoped for. The controls could have been tightened up a bit here, though, because there are times when pinpoint accuracy is required but instead the thrusters send Will flailing into a cliff face at full speed, leading to many frustrating checkpoint reloads. Thank goodness the checkpoints are abundant, so you will never have to redo very large sections of the game. Most of your time in the air will be spent locked in aerial combat with UFO's, which you can either take down using the rocket-packs built-in blasters (with unlimited ammo), or by getting close enough to hijack the alien craft. This triggers a series of quick-time events, something which I personally loathe, and something which quickly becomes repetitive. Once you get hold of one of the UFO's, controls are pretty much the same as using the rocket-pack, but with added firepower. The quick-time sequences grow tiresome before long, and soon you will realise that old Will is quite capable of taking on most enemy craft without needing his own UFO.
Ground forces are also pretty easy to kill off, since they have a limited concept of cover and often leave large parts of themselves exposed even when in hiding. They also have a tendency to stand dead still and trade shots with Will, a tendency which usually ends badly for the poor Watchers. Will is particularly resilient to blaster fire (it must be that leather jacket he's wearing), and he can take quite a beating before he goes down. Which is the exact opposite of his resilience to walls and cliff faces, which tend to kill him almost instantly when he takes a wrong turn with his rocketpack.
When you aren't jet setting around in the sky or free falling from great heights, you may be inclined to take a break and soak up some of the scenery. Dark Void is set across a myriad of exotic locales, none of them especially original, but all done with at least a touch of class. There is some less than stunning texture work here and there, and the character models aren't going to win any awards, but there are other elements which fare much better. Again it's quite a mixed bag, and in one level you may find yourself turning your nose up at murky textures on a stone temple the one moment, and gasping at the golden clouds above the next.
Voice acting is of high standard for the most part, even if the dialogue sometimes lets the actors down a bit. The sense of chemistry which you would expect between Will and Ava would have been turned up a notch had the dialogue been more emotionally fuelled, but then again this is an action romp first and foremost, not a soap opera. If there is one aspect of Dark Void which is definitely not average, it is the musical score, which can be quite stirring at times.
One area where Airtight Games really dropped the ball is the absence of any kind of multiplayer game. I'm the first to give developers respect for concentrating on a solid single player campaign, but as you blast through the air with your rocket-pack it seems like a logical next step to want to add the human element to proceedings. Perhaps they are saving that for the sequel. The fact is, Dark Void isn't a particularly massive game, and once you've taken out the various boss characters and completed the campaign there is very little reason to return to the Void.
There is a strange feeling which came over me a couple of hours into the story, and this is where things get interesting: I was jogging along a very high platform, having just dealt with a number of alien enemies, and when I reached the end of the platform I did a running jump, freefall for a few seconds and then hit the throttle on my rocket-pack, screamed downwards and then pulled up sharply into the sun and regained control as I cruised off towards a distant objective. And for all the average third-person shooter sections, all the uninspired action sequences, the sometimes bland colour palette, over and above all of that, for that moment I was the rocket-man. And I felt on top of the world.
Pros:
- Solid, if predictable lead characters
- Rocket-pack gameplay has moments of awesomeness
Cons:
- Never lives up to its potential
- Plot is all over the place
- Some dodgy control issues
Rating: 
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