Behemoth
Reviewer - BehemothThis is the first time I've ever reviewed a game, having played many I should think I'd have a good idea on what to write, so here goes.
I didn't know what game I was getting in the post, it was sorta like a blind date. I was half expecting some really weird horse racing simulator but to see on the cover of the case a man wearing a rocket pack my first impressions were just by looking at the cover this game is going to be cool.
Annoyingly when I put the DVD in my drive the game took an age to install, at one point I thought my hardware was faulty but it turns out that the media used in this instance is a dual layer DVD hence why it took along time to install from the DVD to my PC. I shudder to think how long this would take if you had to download it on Steam or games for Windows Live for example.
Once the game was installed it loaded into a series of advertising, then eventually to the main menu. The menu in itself has a pretty simple layout, nothing was hidden and it was very easy to get to the settings I wanted to change.
Finally once I'd sorted my settings I was ready to play !
As soon as you've selected your difficulty your literally thrown in at the deep end flying your rocket pack with little to no explanation of any kind of story. You have a few short moments in order to get used to your controls and you are told briefly how to use your rocket pack (afterburners, air brakes etc.)
Once you've grasped this it literally is time to start fighting. So you don't really get much time to admire the scenery or the graphics. Its become clear straight away that Dark Void was ported over from a console because the controls themselves when in flight are very clunky with the default settings out the box.
I found myself having to set the mouse sensitivity to its highest setting to get the rocket pack anywhere near controllable. That said maybe this would have been better served as a tutorial or maybe the game story should have started so you get some background as to what the plot behind Dark Void.
However once you've defeated the alien space craft that are shooting at you Dark Void abruptly goes to a cut scene which leaves you wandering what the point of all that was.
This is when the story line starts to unfold, and I have to say that I found myself rather intrigued by it. Set in the late 30's your plane and your crew are sucked into the Bermuda Triangle. I've always been fascinated by stories like this so I was happy to play on.
When you do get used to the controls you are rewarded with some very intense battles which held my interest as I was always kept wondering what would happen next.
I have to say the thing I liked most about dark Void was the fact it used the UT3 engine. This mean Dark Void will run with high settings on the most modest of PC's whilst leaving it open for mods later on.
To me the best part of Dark Void is its story, a different take on the Bermuda Triangle and on what happens once its entered.
Overall I really enjoyed Dark Void even though I did have a few niggles with installation and how to control it.
Behemoth scores - 6.5/10