Dark Void

We thought there would be a little bit more to the jetpack action announced. Surprisingly there is not. The lame story and always the same missions can’t excite for a long time. Dark Void ends up being just an ordinary “shoot and go” title.

Dark Void is an impressive title that simply falls short of greatness due to being so run of the mill.

Dark Void is a strong first effort. The combination of three combat types provides a fun and unique game that is not replicated by anything else today. If the bugs and audio glitches were fixed and the narrative improved, it'd be a great game.

It's certainly flawed, especially when it's trying to be a third-person shooter, but it also has lots of great ideas. It will surprise you sometimes, but mostly it'll leave you feeling like it could have been so much more.

Dark Void is seriously fun, even if it is a little vertigo inspiring.

The jetpack is one of the coolest video game accessories that can ever show itself in a next-gen title, unfortunately controlling said jetpack is nearly impossible inside close quarters.

It might have the best jetpack since San Andreas but as a game it just doesn't fly. [Feb 2010, p.74]

Its lack of multiplayer (dog fighting could have been sweet) and small hiccups in gameplay and presentation keep it from greatness. On the flip side, does it deserve the relentless beating it's taken from the press? No. It's still a fun science-fiction thrill ride, one worth taking for the sights, sounds and entertaining combat.

At first Dark Void seems to be a less than great third person action shooter. Then it seems to be a third person action shooter with slight use of a jetpack. But then it blooms and a whole new experience emerges with rapid aerial combat mixed with intense ground combat with a twist. Unfortunately the game’s potential is never reached but the idea is excellent and good enough to make a great game.

Targeting your enemies from high above sounds fun, but the mediocre AI and several glitches drag Dark Void to a decent level.

Unfortunately, the shining strengths of the game are buried underneath a thick layer of rust that only the thirstiest of air-junkies should bother chipping through. [Feb 2010, p.95]

The concept of Dark Void is great and the gameplay generally works fine. Unfortunately, the story isn’t interesting and far too short.

Dark Void’s single real achievement is the way it blends in-the-air and on-the-ground action without creating a horrible accident of compromise. While the game can be a lot of fun on a mechanical level, it’s not quite different enough to feel like a brand new experience, and there are enough minor-yet-noticeable problems that make it harder to appreciate the overall package.

Dark Void is a great example of wasted potential. The story, the "jetpack-flying-action", the 3D-Gameplay ... all that in combination could have made a great game, but thanks to a boring mission- and level-design, repetitive enemies and mediocre graphics it just isn't.

You can understand and appreciate what the goal was here, and had it have been pulled off, it would have been quiet the spectacle. Instead though, it’s fallen into a game that you will beat, then shelf, never to be looked at again.

Dark Void sounds a lot like a missed opportunity. Flying sections are good, but samey, and ground ones are nice, but could have been much better and Dark Void is over a little too soon, too.

A solid game with some great new concepts. The game is a bit on the short side but it's a great start for a new IP.

Zooming around with your jetpack can be a lot of fun, but routine shooter action and long flightless sections keep Dark Void from flying high.

Dark Void, despite its few fun and innovative perks, is a mediocre game. Particularly the story and the mission building makes it ...well… average. Fans of third person shooters may have some evenings of fun, but it lacks in length and multiplayer. That’ll probably make it fade into obscurity rather fast. Maybe it serves as a good basis for a better, more developed sequel? As a budget game and for the fans it’s a “yes”. For everyone else: there’s better out there.

Dark Void shows some good premises, but Airtight couldn't manage to let its wings spread open, delivering us an uninspired game lacking any truly memorable moments.

Tedious ground combat makes up the majority of the game, and the cool cover concept and sci-fi story are strong, but blown opportunities. [Feb 2010, p.86]

Dark Void has a generic and tedious part with the third person shooter levels but it is almost as solid in the other part: the jetpack areas. Poor use of the Unreal Engine 3, last generation visuals and the deficient AI unfortunately hurt this new project.

Dark Void has some enjoyable moments, but its poor control scheme and forgettable IA makes its gameplay pretty boring.

The expectations of those who were hoping for a videogame, Dark Void, which would finally be able to bring a breath of fresh air into the third-person action genre, are sadly disappointed, at least in part, from this title. Certainly the air-combat component has been implemented in a very good way, but it's unfortunately not sufficiently good enough, in a game were you must alternate flying phases with boring sections on foot. The game's value is also clouded by an only discrete technical compartment, lifted in part by a great soundtrack. A pity, because there was a huge potential in the concept idea of Dark Void.

Dark Void ends up a mediocre package despite housing such promising fiction—even if we wish the story of the Watchers, the Void, and even Will would have been fleshed out with more than texts found in-game.

On paper Dark Void was a Sci-Fi colossal: an interesting storyline, and a varied vertical gameplay seemed fairly good assets. Unfortunately, it all turned out to be a shallow blend of old ideas, slow and repetitive action, and limited longevity. That without mentioning the bugs.

What Airtight Games needed was more confidence: their pedigree with the flight sim genre would have probably been better served if they'd kept their game in the skies. Gears of War might be a popular game, but a sloppy imitation with tacked-on flight bits isn't going to win anybody over. Dark Void might want to soar, but it never finds a way to get its feet permanently off the ground.

Workman-like, forgettable shooter with a poor story and no multiplayer.

As a complete experience, Dark Void has moments of intense action, broken up by abject foolishness.

As a new franchise, Capcom’s Dark Void does a lot of things right and has quite a few nice ideas, and for that we can praise it. However, its shortcomings bring those nice ideas crashing back down to earth. With no replay value and boasting an awkward and sub-standard ground combat mechanic, it’s hard to see how the short 8 hour campaign is going to justify its price tag. There are a few nice set-pieces and the jetpack gameplay is a whole host of fun, but unfortunately that’s not really enough these days. For every moment of brilliance, there is a moment of mind-numbing gun-combat or a repetitive “haven’t I just done this?” moment.

Dark Void can be summed up in just six words: so much potential, so much disappointment.

The ideas weren't taken to their logical conclusions; the designers stuck their toes in the water, pulled them back, and decided they needed to gather a little more gumption before they could dive in. Maybe in Dark Void 2, in which a brash, headstrong pilot gets a hold of a jetpack created by an aging engineer and uses it to fight zombies, we'll see the full-fledged realization of this game's genuinely interesting designs. Until then, however, jetpack fans will have to settle for half-baked.

Dark Void doesn't stand out in a crowded genre; it's just another another action game that never fulfills its potential.

Somehow, Dark Void just about rises above its faults, but it's hardly at rick of flying too close to the sun. [Feb 2010, p.86]

Dark Void winds up being less than the sum of its parts.

The basic problem with Dark Void is that there are too many annoying moments and not enough great ones. It's not a bad game, but things like that the flying is constantly interrupted and the terrible camera make it tepid.

If the foes were cunning enough to make every encounter unique, or the game made better use of the verticality inherent in the premise, Dark Void would have fared a whole lot better, but ultimately, it's a disappointing title that never manages to leave the tarmac. [Feb 2010, p.78]

And once the brutally short campaign is over, Dark Void is over.

The ultimate issue in front of Dark Void is the fact that it doesn't know whether it's a third-person shooter or an arcade flight game, and does a pretty mediocre attempt at both. An uninspired approach to the design of the game's stages and challenges ultimately leaves Dark Void dangling in the chasm of mediocre shooters.

Dark Void is a good action game with some nice idea, but nothing more. It takes too much time to become really the interesting, graphics are average and the AI has got some problems.

The core elements in Dark Void are well-designed and fun to play, and it tells an interesting story while setting up a world that's developed enough to deserve a sequel. But with its technical problems and a lack of enemy variety, Dark Void starts to feel like the game is getting in the way of its own universe.

It is strange to say, moreover because this is an original proposal, but Dark Void lacks something, maybe inspiration or perhaps just a better execution.

It's just a damn shame that the nigh-amazing "The Rocketeer versus UFOs" premise crashes hard into "tepid Gears of Uncharted knock-off" ground.

In the end, Dark Void's final product didn't live up to the potential that it had going for it. It was a great concept with some cool moments, but those moments were far and few between the unfinished control scheme and other flaws that plagued the title.

All of the pieces are there for a successful game, and while there are flaws in the controls and visuals, none of the problems are really all that troubling. It's just that... the game isn't very fun, and the fault is based on the levels themselves, not the mechanics of play.

An unfortunate miss-fire from what appears to be a genuinely bright and talented new developer.

Dark Void is a pile of disappointment.

Dark Void is a disappointing game, it promised so much but at the end of the day it delivers so little.

Besides flying around (which unfortunately is not as exciting or fun as one might hope) it is a pretty standard and dull third-person shooter.

The fundamentals are there but Dark Void never soars to great heights.

You'd have thought that any game featuring a high velocity jetpack would be a guaranteed winner, but Dark Void somehow manages to ham-fist the execution completely, leaving a game that's only ever fun in parts, while the rest is simply not up to scratch.

The story’s never explained adequately, the combat’s pretty much always a chore, and flying isn’t nearly as fun as it should be. I don’t hate Dark Void, but I don’t care for it, either.

The story is bad, the shooter elements are lackluster, enemies are repetitive, level design is confining, and vertical combat is a gimmick.

Dark Void is probably going to go down as one of the most disappointing titles of the year, after all of the expectation and hype. With a bit more time spent polishing and developing key elements and its story this could have become a “classic” as the potential is their for all to see, however in its current form it will sadly slip into the void of mediocrity that has claimed so many third person shooter in the past.

The basic premises of Dark Void are promising enough. Combining ground based combat in third person with aerial jetpack combat could very well be the foundation of an entertaining action title. Unfortunately, Dark Void is a prime example of great ideas executed poorly. A far too drawn out introduction, terribly bleak storytelling and uninspiring combat all contribute to the wasted potential that is Dark Void.

At the end of the day it may be trite and an unfunny pun, but unless you’re a massive fan of Battlestar Galactica and have the ability to put shonky gameplay to the side, I’ll offer this one piece of advice… Avoid the Void.

The jetpack might be a nice gimmick, but it’s not innovative enough to carry an entire game, especially since vertical cover can only be used in certain places. Everything else in Dark Void is as generic as generic can be. The level design, enemies, weapons and story, nothing stands out particularly. But for an eight hour single player-only experience, it should have.

Every bit as disappointing as expected. By Capcom's normally impressive standards, this is by some margin its least impressive offering for a generation. To be blunt, Dark Void is a bland mass of half-baked ideas, generic combat and unengaging aerial action, with poor AI and a wearisome story.

A game we wanted to like more than we did. Its retro sci-fi concept is so appealing it initially makes it tempting to excuse some of the game's rougher edges. In the end, however, no amount of nostalgia can absolve the game of its ropy gameplay, patchy plot, substandard production, generic (and sometimes poor) level design and thin content; the campaign takes around eight hours to complete and that's the only mode on offer.

Dark Void's extremely short campaign - with no motivation for replay and no multiplayer options - is more like a portfolio of half-baked concepts hurriedly crammed into an uninspired package for ease of presentation, more show-reel than show-stopper.

It's hard not to feel sorry for Dark Void. It feels like all it ever wanted to be was a popcorn B-movie blockbuster, and there are plenty of moments where you can see how it might have managed it. But they're all so disparate, so badly arranged, that its latent charm is completely lost.

Dark Void suffers from poor execution that prevents its interesting blend of unique gameplay styles from ever forming anything cohesive enough to be considered an enjoyable experience. It’s truly the first big flop of 2010.

Dark Void may be the most aptly named game to ever be released - with a half-dozen good concepts sucked in, alas, never to be seen again. It ranks even lower than last year's Bionic Commando in Capcom's list of franchises that had promise but turned out to be no fun to play. A little more fluidity, polish and thought would have made a big difference for this game, as it stands though, Dark aVoid this one.

From glitches to repetitive dog-fights and long stretches sans jet-pack, there is always something to ruin your fun as you trudge toward a wholly disappointing boss-battle and an inconclusive, patchwork ending.

Overall, Dark Void was a definite disappointment, but at the same time it's completely playable.

Even though some stages (like the penultimate aerial battle) felt like they lasted forever and ever, Dark Void is a pretty short game with an anticlimactic ending that does little more than set up a sequel.

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.