Dark Void Review

There are some cool points in the combat, if you can believe it. There was an honest effort to integrate vertical combat, with the hero landing on various parts of the area from walls, mountains and platforms, to engage the enemy. It's quite cool, but takes some getting used to. This part of the game can also make you dizzy when the camera starts twisting and turning erratically. Granted, this may not apply to every gamer, but we did get a bit nauseous more often than once. The rest of the game boils down to collecting a Tech Points that result in weapon upgrades. And here we come to another tedious part of Dark Void. All you get to do is basically increase weapon ammo capacity and damage. Other than that, you've seen it all before.

Overall, Dark Void offers pretty decent visuals and pleasing sound effects. In terms of presentation, it doesn't go beyond triple-A titles such as Gears of War 2 or Resident Evil 5, but you'll still get all effects you expect from a modern-day action game. Also, the music and voice-overs are pretty decent.

Wha..? Who? Where? How?

Getting dizzy is a must in this game.

As someone who's played games for well over 10 years and knowing how many excellent games Capcom put out there, I have to admit Dark Void is discouragingly substandard. Acting as a publisher, Capcom supported this project, but clearly had very little to do with the core development. Witnessing games like Dark Void makes us understand why Capcom is shunning its Western-based development teams (the company recently decided to develop key franchises internally).

In the end, it's not a question of taste or player skill. Dark Void is filled from top to bottom with lousy design choices, technical flaws and overall crappy and uninteresting gameplay mechanics.

Hm, looks like ex Valve talent Kim Swift (of Portal fame) arrived a little too late to save what has apparently become a sinking ship.