Since the dawn of flight, human beings have reveled in taking to the skies. Yet it was
only with the invention of the jet engine that man realized his true destiny: to strap
one of those bad boys to his back and take off like a bat outta hell. Dark Void tries
to make the theoretical awesomeness of jetpack flight into a videogame reality.When it comes
to zooming around with your jetpack, performing acrobatic airborne maneuvers, dogfighting
with UFOs, and flying places you probably shouldn't, Dark Void can be pretty darn fun.
Unfortunately, the other parts of the game aren't as fun. The third-person shooter action
is competent, but mundane, and the plot is an adventure-y cliche with only a few sparks
of life. The campaign isn't particularly short, but once finished, there's nothing else to
do except play it again. It's baffling, but true: there are no online jetpack dogfights
against your buddies. No multiplayer of any kind. It's a shame, because there is some
fun to be had here. Sadly, it just isn't enough to justify the sixty dollar price tag.
And it doesn't help that the game gets off to a slow start. Discounting the throwaway
prologue mission, it'll be a couple of hours before you can take to the skies with your
fully operational jetpack. In the early going you'll plod through levels, shooting enemies
with a few different guns and taking cover behind a lot of objects. Dark Void has that
sticky, press-a-button-to-enter-and-exit type cover, and if you don't use it fairly well,
you stand a good chance of being mowed down by enemy fire. And cover isn't just walls
or low barriers. Dark Void has a vertical cover system that allows you to lean over
or hang from ledges and shoot enemies below or above you. It has a certain novel appeal,
but it doesn't significantly improve the action. Shooting mechanics are good and headshots
are reasonably satisfying, but the third-person run-and-gun action isn't that exciting. You'll
realize very quickly that you have the power to kill most robots with a single punch, so
you'll melee attack whenever possible. This encourages you to be aggressive and elevates
your run-and-gun tactics to run-and-punch-and-gun, but again, this kind of combat doesn't get
much better than competent. Unfortunately, the narrative elements in Dark
Void sometimes seem to aspire to competence. Things start off with a few cliches: The handsome
down-on-his-luck roguish fellow, a mysterious woman from his past, a fateful airplane ride.
Throw in a sci-fi twist and it's pretty much business as usual. The bad guys have some
enjoyably sinister moments, and the journals you find scattered around tell some intriguing
tales, but these signs of life are overshadowed by predictability, dull dialogue, and occasional
miscues. One glaring example is the introduction of one of the main characters, which could
hardly be called an introduction at all. There is a lot of assumed familiarity that deflates
any sense of wonder or intrigue. Why do the protagonists know the names of landmarks they
haven't encountered before? Why does our hero know exactly how to melee kill a complex alien
combat robot? And on the opposite end of the spectrum, why does the main character say,
"Wonder what this is for?" after picking something up for the eighth time? Inconsistencies and
loose ends plague the plot and the characters alike, making hard to really get involved.
Yet the story proceeds at a reasonable clip and takes you through a fairly sizable adventure,
so it isn't all bad. It's just not particularly good.
The one part of Dark Void that is particularly good is the jetpack. You fly with a fun sense
of speed, and each flailing take-off is a great visual reminder of the forces that propel
you. You can fly, boost, brake, and hover. There are also a few acrobatic moves that
you can pull off to help evade or pursue enemies. You are very maneuverable in the air and as
a result you can take some daring and disorienting flight paths if you so desire. Alien UFOs
prove to be engaging foes, and the large-scale dogfights provide some entertaining aerial
combat. Getting fancy with the flight controls Dark
Void's most appealing activity. Sure you could hover into that open hangar, land, and then
pick off the enemies from behind cover. But why not try to scream in there at top speed,
blast a robot point blank, smash the control panel, and zoom the hell away? Yeah it's dangerous,
but why else did you strap that thing to your back? Dark Void is at its best when it lets
you use your arsenal and abilities in whatever way you see fit. The simplistic cover combat
becomes much more entertaining when you are jetting across a level and then landing gracefully
behind cover. A field of stones custom-made for cover-to-cover movement is a lot more
fun when you just decide to fly back and forth over it, strafing your entrenched foes. The
best moments in Dark Void are those of your own making, when you embrace the fact that
you've got a crazy jetpack on your back and try to pull off daring stunts and maneuvers.
And that right there is Dark Void's chief appeal. If tooling around with a jetpack sounds
like fun, then you'll have some fun here. Unfortunately, it takes a while to get there,
and the other action isn't fun enough to stand on its own. And without any multiplayer modes
or replayability to speak of, Dark Void isn't a very good value. If you've got a few bucks,
some spare time, and a hankering for flight, consider Dark Void a reasonable rental. You
may have to slog through some mediocrity, but you will earn yourself some high-flying
thrills for your troubles.