GC 2008: Dark Void Updated Impressions

The amount of time separating the E3 Media & Business Summit from the Games Convention in Leipzig is only about a month, so with that short timeline, a lot of publishers will be relying on the same demos for each event. While Capcom is showing off a lot of new material this week, some of its demos are the same as what we saw last month in Los Angeles. Dark Void is one such example, but considering the grab-bag nature of the gameplay, we decided to offer up a second look at this interesting mix of genres.

Dark Void tells the story of a cargo pilot named Will. He's had the unfortunate luck of taking a bad turn in the Bermuda Triangle (does anything good every come out of a visit there?), and subsequently, Will has found himself in an alternate dimension called The Void. It's here where a race of cybernetic bad guys called the Watchers rule over everything, causing all manner of havoc and generally unpleasant living situations. Not a particularly big fan of The Void, Will has taken it upon himself to fight the Watchers and make it back home.

The demo we just bore witness to began as a third-person shooter, with Will fighting through a few waves of Watchers in traditional action style. There's a Gears of War-style cover mechanic, a selection of firepower ranging from 1930s steel machine guns to Watcher plasma rifles, as well as a pretty sweet collection of melee techniques. When fighting up close, Will can be seen knocking a Watcher to the ground and blasting him in the face execution-style or lifting him up in the air in a chokehold only to fire a round through the Watcher's back.

Not long after we saw Will's collection of devastating melee attacks, the Capcom rep guiding us through the demo reintroduced us to Will's perspective-shifting vertical combat abilities. This is basically a way for Will to climb up a massive rock wall, shooting upward at enemies and leaping up from ledge to ledge with a little help from the rocket pack on his back. The animations of Will yanking a Watcher off the platform above him and throwing him mercilessly to the ground is especially cool.

Later, Will found an upgrade for his jet pack, which let him move on from temporary hovering to full-blown flying. This is where the game takes on a whole new feel, turning into a Crimson Skies-style dog-fighting simulator. No, Will doesn't take on enemy airships using only his rocket pack. He can actually skyjack enemy ships in midair. It's simply a matter of getting near a ship, pressing a button, and playing a quick minigame where you need to avoid the turret's gunfire while yanking out a security panel on the outside that will grant you access to the cockpit. A gunshot later, Will is yanking the dead Watcher pilot out and piloting the ship on his own. Then you can really get into the spirit of things, flying around a large space with plenty of enemies on which you can test your machine guns and missiles.

Dark Void is still a year away from release, but even in this early stage, it's a pretty slick-looking game. The lighting effects are great in the level we saw, with the dusk sky providing lots of nice glowing light and rays peaking through the clouds. The animations also look pretty good, especially the melee kills and vertical climbing. If there's one low point to the game, it's that the weaponry feels a little underwhelming. Will's default machine gun seems especially anemic with its old-fashioned rate of fire. However, there's still plenty of time to add to Will's stockade of weaponry, so we'll hold out judgment for now and wait to see if the weaponry matches the slick presentation. In the meantime, we're looking forward to seeing more of this 2009 release in the near future.