Darkwatch
Publisher:Capcom
Developer:
Tested on XBox, available on PS2 as well.
The Short Review:
While the idea of blasting through a wild Gothic west as a vampire outlaw cowboy sounds like fun, the execution of this first person shooter is clunky, repetitive, and has the shelf life of a pealed avocado. The game play is stiff, and though the baddies all look really cool, it gets old killing the same six character models over and over (in the same environments). I tip my hat for how cut scenes are skillfully placed in game play so as to compel the story without screeching the game to a halt, the fun weapons, and new additions to FPS game play.
But this one bonus does little to prevent the final nail in the coffin, which is the atrocious online mode. The generic interface is annoyingly slow, and fighting the five other people online isn't the same when they look just like you. The death matches are frustrating, because they have a frantic pace more from everyone trying out what the hell is going on then from the fragging. All in all, Darkwatch is a good rainy day rental, but it can't even stand on dead man's legs long enough to warrant shelling out retail prices.
The Long Review:
I must admit this game has left an overly sour taste in my mouth because I was so psyched to play it. The Gothic artwork, with steel skull embalms slapped over cowboys rocked. My girlfriend rolled her eyes when I told her about killing Zombie gunslingers as a vampire cowboy. A demo for the XBox a few months back got me even more revved for the game, with the floaty double jump and cool 'Blood Vision'. Needless to say, after pulling it out of an orange Gamefly folder and sitting down for a few single player sessions and three online matches, Darkwatch was in the mail, on it's way back to the good people of Gamefly.
The game is not all bad, and as I said earlier, I think I set my hopes to high. The ridiculous hybrid setting of goth meets the west is strung around a fun story line. The main character is Jericho Cross, a tall, thin one eyed outlaw, who robs a train. The train of course, is covered in cannons, skulls, and filled with uniformed guys fighting off sickle wielding skeletons. While this might stop most outlaws, Jericho figures something got to be locked up in that giant safe car, so he blasts it open. In the explosion a big bad vampire with demon wings, Lazarus, is freed and has a snack on Jericho. Jericho turns into a vampire, and is chased around, along with Darkwatch babe Cassidy, by Lazarus, who keeps babbling about destiny and how Jerico has a role to play. That's as far as I got.
What is most impressive about this plot is how well the cutscenese are dispersed into the first person shooting. The story is either spoken during game play, displayed in little movies using the game engine, or longer fully rendered bits. The full on CG movies are a bit stiff, as Jericho's blood eye tends to track at a different pace from the rest of them. Quality aside, the cuts move the game forward nicely without interrupting the game play. Never did I find myself pounding the X button to skip or sighing when another cut scene started. This use of discretion when mixing story into gameplay is a major challenge for game makers lately, and I respect Darkwatch for pulling it off so well.
Hints of such innovation shows up in the mechanics of the game. For the most part Darkwatch uses the standard controls established for first person shooters. Added to this limited range of moves is the ability to lean left and right, via the directional pad, to shoot from the safety of corners. Not that I ever found an opportunity to do so, as Darkwatch relies on wave after wave of baddies running into bullets.
Luckily, the simple melee attack is powerful. The game's greatest art assets are the weapons, looking like a mix between Renaissance blades and standard Western fare. Every pistol and rifle has an elegant blade coming off the butt of the stock, and Jericho hacks skeletons to pieces with swift attacks. Each weapon has its own animations and does different amounts of damage. The duel pistols get trilled around and turn into a nasty pair of tomahawks. Beyond looking cool, the melee attacks are often just as effective as shooting, getting rid of the FPS cliche of melee being only for last resorts or sneaking up behind dozing grunts.
If the the mobs of cookie cutter ghouls gets to be too much to fend off, Jericho has a quick escape with the floaty vampire jump. By double jumping, Jericho leaps into a controlled glide, able to move in any direction, rotate, and blast his undead heart away. The jump can be cancelled with the press of another button, bringing him to the ground with so much speed and force it should do damage to any enemies in its path, but does none. The nature of the jump, with some flying baddies like the Banshees, gives Darkwatch a new dimension to shooting, while resisting lapsing into frustrating platforming.
The last redeeming gameplay feature is the blood vision, Darkwatch's take on the good old zoom/sniper scope. As a man, Jericho Cross has only one eye, but through the magic of vampirism, his empty socket gets a glowing red orb. With a click of an analogue stick, Jericho's vision becomes a slightly zoomed wash of red. While the vision isn't much use for running and gunning, interactive elements like pick ups, puzzle pieces, and bad guys glow a bright white. This vision turns every weapon (besides the shotgun) into a viable sniper option. Being a player that likes clearing open spaces from the safety of an entry way, I found the feature nice.
The crimson wash of Blood Vision isn't much different from the regular textures, which lead to me giving up on the game. The environments are all very drab and repetitive, with enemies blending into their surroundings in a way more annoying then challenging. After fighting my way across a haunted train, a haunted grave yard, a haunted crypt, a haunted mine, and a haunted fort I had enough of the same grey stones and yellow ground and gave up on the single player mode. The repetitive nature of the environments and the game play just killed it.
But I gave Darkwatch the chance to rise from the dead through its online multiplayer mode. From the get go, Darkwatch presents an ugly face to online game play. The menus share the outdated design of early live games (like Crimson Skies) and the online community, just after a month of release, was near empty with 10 to 20 people online at a time. The game lacked any real personalization, with everyone playing in the same Darkwatch member skin. The levels are wide open, and designed with the Vampire jump in mind, which is a nice changing in online FPSes. But unfortunately everyone one blends into the drab backgrounds (as they all share the same skin), and there is little to no indication of what direction shots are coming from. I found myself dead before I could even locate the guy that fragged me, who, in a nice high camping spot with the carbine, can dominate a match for a long time. this leads to more of a 'oh crap, what the hell is going on' feel than frantic run and gunning.
Over all, Darkwatch has its good points. The balance between gameplay and cutscenes to move the story, the cool weapons, melee attacks, blood vision and vampire jump add to what is quickly becoming an overloaded console FPS market, but the poor execution, repetitive enviorments and enemies, and hollow online play makes the game not worth more than a rental for anytone besides hard core FPS fans and gunsliging goths.
