Dark Void Takes Flight, yet it Doesn't Soar High

Take a first person shooter, add a little influence from The Rocketeer, and you have Dark Void. Set in the 1930's, the game has a story line straight from science fiction that immerses the player character, pilot William Grey, in an alternate dimension after an encounter with the famed Bermuda Triangle.

If there is a need to be picky, there are two ways to approach Dark Void. If you are a casual gamer who is new to first person shooters or only plays them occasionally, the game will be fresh and engaging. For the avid gamer with experience playing games in this genre, the excitement will likely end very fast.

Regardless of the approach, the story is interesting but loose. The story plays like an old retro sci-fi movie and begins with the audience on the edge their seats. Through the game's progression, however, elements simply don't cohesively glue together.

Game play isn't horrible, yet it isn't overly memorable either. The avid gamer will find annoyance with glitches and other quirks without a blink. Additionally, the non-player character AIs, such as "The Watchers" are not actually all that artificially intelligent, and in some cases they are quickly defeated without much of a fight. Flying with a jetpack is fun, but the fun ends quickly leaving the thrust at idle. With development roots branching to the era of Microsoft's Crimson Skies, the hopes of nonstop thrilling in air dog-fights during flight are grounded. While sporting a jetpack seems like an exciting idea, the unfortunate reality is that the game itself adds a lot of mediocre and repetitive first person shooter game play. In air combat does take a lot of practice to master as the ability to control and move quickly does not come easy. There is a fair balance between air and land combat, however, action is basic and repetitive, leaving a desire for something more.

Dark Void is available for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC (Games for Windows) for an approximate street retail price of $59.99. The title is developed by Airtight Games, published by Capcom, and is rated "T" for "Teen" due to containing mild language and violence. For fluid game play on the PC, requirements are average for a newer basic home computer. The hard-core gamer will likely have a system beyond capable for playing the title. A system with an Intel Core Duo or AMD with Dual Core of 2.4 GHz is required and faster is highly recommended. In order to take advantage of Dark Void's stunning graphics at a reasonable frame rate, a high-end video card with a modern GPU is certainly required. At minimum, the game should use something from at least the NVDIA family of 8000 cards for smooth game play and to take advantage of NVIDIA's PhysX technology. Anything less will get you through the game but potentially at the risk of a choppy frame rate at a high resolution.

Until a significant price drop, game buyers may want to consider a rental over a purchase on this one. Although it is visually appealing, Dark Void does not introduce anything new that doesn't already exist in a players game collection. Without any built-in multiplayer mode, the game also does not have much of a replay value.