In our last E3 podcast, we talked about how shooting in and out of cover is definitely in this year. But what about fighter pilots from the 1930s that get sucked into an alternate universe through the Bermuda Triangle, where human survivors are fighting evil alien robots in a world with no ground to stand on? That sounds at least a bit original, doesn’t it? Strap on your jetpacks, and we’ll dive into the world of Dark Void.
In our time with the game, it became apparent that certain aspects of Dark Void jump out while others sort of fade into the background. I wasn’t impressed by the game’s bland blue and gray color scheme, but at least the storyline seems to be a strong point.
Your character is sort of a fish out of water when the game begins. Explaining why the main character is a 1930s fighter pilot instead of a more modern day hero, President of Airtight Games Jim Deal (who was watching me play on the E3 showroom floor), explained that a technologically minded person from today would not be as impressed by UFOs and jetpacks. But your hero in Dark Void is not so dumbstruck by the future technology in this alternate world that he doesn’t know how to rip shit apart.
After a lengthy, corridor-crawling, cover-taking segment, during which my character blew up a dozen or so wiry alien-looking robots, we gained access to a jetpack that let him take to the skies. The flying segments were sort of loose and arcadey—I think Crimson Skies is the proper comparison here.
When your jetboy moved close enough to a UFO, you could trigger a hijacking sequence. To hijack the UFO, you would follow on-screen prompts to mash buttons, evading when its defensive turrets targeted you. Eventually we broke open the UFO, hopped in, and could shoot down the rest of the ships with relative ease.
The transition from cover-based shooting to flying sequences was quite welcome. Another unique perspective that stood out was the “vertical cover”, which is basically the horizontal cover mechanics, only flipped 90 degrees so that you’re fighting your way up a cliff instead of through a hallway. There were button prompts to jetpack upwards, swing to adjacent cover, and of course grab bad guys and throw them over the side. It’s not a startling change to the cover system, but it does look pretty interesting.
Hopefully Dark Void will be able to stand out on the merits of its solid shooting controls and jetpack flight, but we’re not sure most gamers will be able to tell this game from the similarly-titled Dark Sector and Dead Space. We’ll have more to say about Dark Void as we get closer to its release date, sometime in 2009.
