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After a moderately successful career in commercial architecture, Niz has struck out on his own as a writer and illustrator, and hopes to publish some neat books in the near future. Notwithstanding his daily regiment of prose, the lad also takes time out to check on the latest games courtesy of Joystiq and Destructoid, among others, and currently gets his dose of Canabalt in HD whenever the need arises. Motion sickness has made playing FPS a nightmare, though fortunately third-person action is still okay, and a soft spot for point-and-click adventures, platformers, side-scrollers and good story-telling will, without a doubt, keep this gamer active for many, many more years to come.
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Dark Void PC Demo = Headache
Niz | 12:30 PM on 01.16.2010 7 comments




Despite having read some mixed responses on Dark Void (I'm sure everyone's familiar with the Rocketeer-ish game), I still wanted to find out how the game was myself. The comments I read were from playing console demos, so when the PC demo from Big Download popped up, I knew I had to try it. I'm running a Quad Core setup with an ATI 4830, and after the installation, graphics-wise, the game looked promising. Texture mapping, lighting, particle physics, everything was looking up to scratch.

And then I attempted my hand at flying.

I don't know how the guys on the consoles did, but with a keyboard and a Razer mouse, I couldn't make it work for me. Maybe it's my lack of skill, but I felt severely handicapped trying to manouevre the hero. Trying to shoot things down was a nightmare, let alone trying to hijack one of those flying disk ships. I had the distinct impression this game was meant to be played with a controller, and even then, I heard the controls for those were pretty bleak.

That was flying. When I touched down on solid ground, I had some semblance of control, but between the keyboard and mouse, I was getting my ass kicked. Granted, it's third-person (which I thought would've worked for me since I suck at FPS) but my shooting was all over the place, and my attempts at doing that while hovering (which I thought was visually cool) didn't fare any better. I had a better time landing smack in the midst of the enemy droids and bashing them with my bare hands (and feet). Kinda defeats the purpose of using all those cool guns, but hey, I had to get the job done.

So the demo's over, and all I'm left with is a headache. So much for a man strapping on a jetpack and fighting anywhere, everywhere. The only fighting I'll be doing tonight is with some aspirin.



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6 comments | showing # 1 to 6
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Chris Carter's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/16/2010 16:43
Chris Carter
Without multiplayer, this game has the potential to bust more than Bionic Commando.
Elsa's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/16/2010 23:32
Elsa
I actually loved the flying. It didn't take me long to get the hang of it and I liked the aerial combat against the flying disks way more than the rather sub-par shoot out on the space station. The enemy AI was rather poor... and it wasn't overly exciting - but the flying was pretty cool!

I think I liked it because it was somewhat similar to what Warhawk does (though not nearly as well done as warhawk). Once I inverted the up/down on flight, it only took me a few moments to adjust then I was doing loops and turns - awesome!
(and it most definitely beats flying the planes in Battlefield 1943!! Those planes suck!).
pedrovay2003's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/16/2010 23:54
pedrovay2003
I agree with Magnalon -- I loved the demo like nothing else, but I can't imagine EVER playing it more than once.
DaedHead8's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/17/2010 13:46
DaedHead8
The only problem I had with the demo (I played it on my 360) was that the right stick doesn't move the camera while you are flying, it rotates your character instead. That was kind of annoying but I think I'll be able to live with it when the full game launches. Other than that I though the demo was a short bit of great fun.
Tubatic's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/17/2010 16:38
Tubatic
I didn't like it at first. But after a few replays, it feels good.

Did you know that you can go into a skydive style free fall if you turn off your hover? doesn't seem very robust, but its a nifty touch that they don't explore in the demo objectives.
Niz's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/17/2010 23:49
Niz
Sounds like I really need to get a controller for my PC if I'm going to have any decent fun on this game as much as you guys. Notwithstanding the issue of multiplayer, of course... time to save up some dollars!
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