A stealth action role-playing game doesn’t usually get me on the edge of my seat asking to find out more but add a whole load of vampires and you may get my attention. So I am talking about “Dark” (Xbox 360) which is the first developed Xbox 360 title by Realmforge Studios and published by Kalypso Media (of Tropico3 fame). Will it have a real bite to it and grip you in where you won’t want to come off it or will you end up hiding in the shadows until it disappears from your disc tray?
You are the almost full vampire Eric Bane, a name I won’t forget in a hurry as he likes to announce his name quite often, you could call him the James Bond of the night (although that is quite offensive, sorry James). Unfortunately he has a spot of memory loss, waking up at a nightclub in confusion and blurred vision which is softened by an apparent guardian angel. Here you are told that you have been “turned” and must find then feed on your make to complete the process otherwise he will end us as a ghoul which he doesn’t want, however with your limited knowledge there’s seemingly no way to find him. The nightclub owner Rose feels obliged to help you, giving potential suitors of older vampires whose blood could help with the change, they will need some aggressive persuasion though.
Using the back alley of the club it starts a tutorial which goes over staying hidden, activating vampire powers and killing or feeding on the enemy. Right at that moment I thought to myself ok that was easy, straightforward and I enjoyed being sneaky lurking in the shadows... but this is a tutorial hence it was always going to be edged in my favour to progress smoothly whilst learning a thing or two.
Eric wonders what he is doing in this game and how he can escape it.
Basically you will find yourself in the area in which your target or objective is thereabouts, within the larger area e.g. the museum you will have the navigate through initial security, the lobby, exhibition room then finally meet your target in this case a rather large gentlemen who likes chopping people up. The problem is that everywhere is heavily guarded and getting spotted will cause an alarm where they will all swarm to your seen location like bees to honey.
I had to spend considerable time scouting these areas, monitoring all the guards’ movement (well those I could see within range of my vamp x-ray vision) and plotting each move carefully. It gets to the point where it becomes extremely boring waiting and when you can only really take on one guard or ghoul at a time its time consuming as well as monotonous. Don’t mistake this as merely my lack of patience as although not a huge stealth veteran it is all stealth and samey. At one point I took down a whole massive room of enemies one by one only to encounter a smaller room where with my limited vampire abilities it was impossible to not get spotted and once they start shooting unless you can run away to a safe haven you are dead. Only to reload the previous large room, rinse and repeat repeat repeat!
It is a shame really because it offers a good selection of abilities and powers to upgrade using experience points earned from kills and picking up the collectable PDAs dotted around. These range from abilities such as increased Shadow Leap (teleportation) distance to powers like distractions for enemies and killing from a short distance using the shadows. To use these cool powers though you need blood points which you can only gain from feeding (very dangerous as it takes longer to do and more chance of being seen) and such the powers are used sparingly if at all.
He should really take part in this year's National hide and seek contest.
Add to this the cel-shaded Borderlands style graphics which are not executed very well and the odd animation errors, for example when I was dragging bodies to hide them it felt clunky whilst looking a real mess (and I don’t mean a mess because it was dead). The script itself is laughable in the way that it is really terrible what these voice actors have been given, not only is it bland but it just sounds awkward.
What else can I say except that it is a game of pure stealth and doing anything but that you will end up in a coffin, no wait that’s where he’d sleep so I guess ending up as a pile of dust is more appropriate? Having patience still won’t save you from boredom and even though it only has six chapters I was tearing my eyes out through chapter one. There’s also a challenge mode with only a couple to play but these are pointless it just places you somewhere you’ve already been and goes “go take them all down quick as you can”. Avoid at all costs, boring, repetitive, simply put nothing good can come of this game (except large and often simple achievements, but even that wasn’t worth the pain).
