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Darkest of Days Review for Xbox 360

Darkest of Days Review for Xbox 360

Long on Creativity,
Short on Execution

Darkest of Days takes players on a ride through some of history’s most violent moments. Though the game sports a wonderful concept and a lot of interesting gameplay elements, the ultimate execution of the title is decidedly unpolished. Also, there simply isn’t a lot of content to keep players gaming for very long – all you’ll get is a single-player campaign with limited replayability. The result is a game that never comes close its potential.

Darkest of Days screenshot

The most intriguing element of Darkest of Days is its concept. Players take on the role of Alexander Morris, a member of Custer’s 7th Cavalry at The Battle of Little Bighorn. Just before getting pierced by an arrow and scalped, Morris is inexplicably saved by a radiation suit-wearing man who pops out of a large, liquid-like bubble that appears out of nowhere. As it turns out, Morris never had his unit transfer paperwork processed in Washington D.C., showing up in the historical record as MIA rather than KIA. This made him the perfect target for Kronotek – a megacorp from the future that has mastered time travel – in order to use him as a pawn to enforce temporal stability. As such, players will hop around the world and through time, fighting in some of the bloodiest battles of history to ensure the safety of the future.

While leaping through time to pump large pieces of lead into unsuspecting predecessors is a lot of fun, the narrative itself has Mack truck gaps in it – the whole premise of travelling back in time to maintain the true course of history is ludicrous. Regardless, the team at 8monkey Labs did put an emphasis on historical accuracy when depicting the battles and environments. The massive, open settings where you’ll fight it out are reminiscent of the actual battlefields. Also, the same political machinations surrounding the real events influence those in the game. The developers even went so far as to include interesting historical facts interspersed with game tips during loading screens. The historical accuracy and perspective definitely helps players get into the game.

The large, historically accurate environments also serve to let the player tackle the game how they want to. It was nice to be able to come at enemy positions from almost any angle, allowing me to form my own strategy. In that way, the game sort of feels like an entry in DICE’s Battlefield series. This is especially true when tens of allies and enemies face off in large-scale combat. Moreover, rather than entirely railroading you, players, to a certain degree, can constantly bop between different battles and time periods as they see fit. As the story progresses, more and more settings – from Antietam and Frankenau to Pompeii and Tannenberg – become available.

Darkest of Days screenshot

Unfortunately, this flexibility and open nature isn’t taken far enough. For starters, though maps are very large, you’ll constantly run into fence lines, cliffs, ravines, riverbeds, locked buildings, and outright invisible walls that curtail exploration. In other words, maps play a lot smaller than they look. Likewise, the game provides you with a very strict set of mission objectives you must follow in order to progress to the next chapter. Rather than giving you a bunch of tasks that need to be completed in any order, you essentially just follow your map to the next glowing objective. This quickly feels tremendously constraining – you’ll find yourself rushing through each chapter rather than exploring and experiencing the game.

Making matters much worse, this game has an extremely unpolished look and feel. The visuals are plagued by extensive framerate issues, the characters all look very fuzzy and lack detail, blood splatters are low-poly, and the abundant onscreen allies and enemies lose their realism because they all animate identically. The only bright spots to be found in terms of graphics are the lighting and water effects – light and shadows cascading through the trees are impressive, and the water shimmers and reflects quite realistically. Sounds are better, but they are by no means great. The background music nicely complements the action, but the voice over work is much spottier. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the low-brow comments made by Dexter (your mission partner), Mother (the enigmatic, stand-in leader of Kronotek) is one of the dullest characters ever portrayed. Sound effects are also quite amateurish – the pop of time orbs opening and the incessant “woo, woo, woos” from Jeffrey Osborne… I mean Indians are crude and grating.

Darkest of Days screenshot

Unfortunately, the jenky production values don’t stop there. As you complete missions, you will be awarded with points that can be used to “upgrade” your character. However, what you’re actually upgrading are your weapons, á la Resident Evil 4 and 5. But rather than upgrading specific guns, you’re simply improving clip size, rate of fire, accuracy, and reload time for rifles or pistols across the board. What’s more, upgraded weapons don’t perform noticeably better, except for increased clip size. Not only does this seem contrived, but it provides players with no substantial reward for getting through chapters, and there are no bonuses for doing so in style.

Darkest of Days screenshot

If you’re an Xbox 360 owner, you’ll instantly recognize how rough the game is due to the fact the Achievements were likely slapped together in about five minutes. This is the kind of game that rewards you with 300 points just for beating it on the most difficult setting. The only Achievement I enjoyed obtaining was getting 25 points for punching a horse (a feat more difficult than besting the game itself). The Achievement for getting through a combat mission without using lethal force was ridiculous, especially considering it can be achieved on a number of maps.

Which leads us to our next complaint: kills are meaningless. Besides being bored to tears from shooting at the umpteen clones, on a couple of occasions I had enemies disappear right before my eyes. I can’t tell you how jarring it is as a gamer to be hunting down the enemy, plinking their domes with well-placed shots, just to see them vanish from existence 10 yards away because the program decided it was time for the A.I. to fall back. Speaking of artificial intelligence, both enemy and friendly A.I. are appalling – there is seemingly no reason behind any of their actions. Furthermore, while bringing futuristic weapons to the American Civil War, WWII, and Pompeii is initially fun, it soon becomes tantamount to shooting fish in a barrel. Virtually every difficult situation presented to the player is handicapped by the use of automatic weapons, machinegun emplacements, or some insane rocket gun. Finally, when you are forced to use archaic firearms, the reloading mechanic that has you time a single button press is tedious and unnecessary. These missteps combine to take all of the pop out of the FPS experience.

While controls are, for the most part, standard FPS fare, they have two major flaws. In order to crouch behind cover, you’ll have to hold the button down. This makes aiming inefficient, and it eventually gets your hands tired. Second, there is no way to sprint. While this does make things interesting when you’re being chased by futuristic police cops, it is a shooter convention I rely upon for getting into strategic positions. The lack of it here is often frustrating, especially on the highest difficulty level, when foes are insanely accurate and seem to be firing machine guns at you.

Darkest of Days also features very little content – there is only a single-player story mode to wade through that has very limited replay value. This game features a great concept, but poor execution does its worst to keep the game’s appeal as limited as possible. Those of you that are very forgiving may have some fun with this game, but anyone now permanently jaded by games like Gears of War and the recent Call of Duty titles should give this title a wide berth.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.5 Graphics
The large, open environments and large-scale battles are initially attractive, but closer attention reveals loads of glitches, a painful framerate, fuzzy character models, and cookie-cutter animations. 3.5 Control
It’s easy to make your way through this game due to its mostly standard FPS setup. But the wonky crouching, no ability to sprint, and superfluous reload mechanic brings them down. 3.5 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The background themes are pleasant and your partner’s comments are often a riot, but other voice acting and the sound effects are rudimentary. 2.0 Play Value
There is only the single-player campaign and it’s not very much fun due to the utter lack of polish. 2.9 Overall Rating – Average
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • You will fight against the Confederates (and the Union at times), facing a staggering number of troops, all fighting in unison. Ready, aim…steady men…FIRE!
  • You will jump from the trenches in WWI to lead an attack against the Huns. You will fire artillery to hit distant targets. You will defend to the last man!
  • You will fight in Pompeii, while Mt. Vesuvius is spewing ash and fire into the atmosphere. You will fight amongst a frightened population, fleeing for their lives.
  • Play From Opposing Sides Of Conflicts: Nearly every time period offers game play from each side of the conflict. In trying to keep history pure, you have to undo mistakes you make, which may require fighting from the other perspective to “mend.”
  • Unleash Hell With Futuristic Weaponry: What could you have done with an automatic rifle during the Civil War, or some futuristic laser sighted pulse cannon in the trenches of WW I? There are times where you have no other choice but to bust out the big guns.

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