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4/5 |
Space Invader type Western Vampire Horror !!
(May 30, 2007) |
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I remember when Doom 2 first came out on PC, I was single and had the money to go out and buy a new PC just so that I could play the game that the office staff were playing in their lunch hours. Now years later I am forced to buy the games I want to play at local cheap second hand games shop, to play on the kids X-box after they have gone to bed. My financial position may have changed but the 1st person `shoot `em up' continues to go from strength to strength.
I first saw this game advertised on Gamer TV a while back and thought that the mixture of vampires and the wild west - though bizarre - was really up my dark street and a game that I would try and get of a copy of.
In this game you play Jericho Cross, a seasoned outlaw, who has the misfortune whilst robbing a train to free the Vampire Lord Lazarus, currently being transported by a secret organisation called 'Darkwatch' to their Citadel. During his escape Jericho is bitten and becomes a vampire himself, his only chance of freeing his soul is to team up with members of the Darkwatch and track down and kill Lazarus.
Being a bit of a wimp when it comes to playing this type of game, I set it to easy so that I could enjoy the graphics, scenery and play the game at a bit more of a leisurely pace. Darkwatch is certainly an excellently visual game, but any thought of putting this game to an easier setting to reduce the number of monsters is clearly mistaken. There are only about 20 chapters to this game, but I think I must have got through something like about 2000 plus enemies ! Those banshees - flying bar girl/hookers unleashing balls of killer energy - were certainly the thorn in my side. The sheer amount of villains at times became so repetitive as to spoil the game at times - and when Jericho is first trying out for Darkwatch at the Citadel I felt like how you do when you complete a space invader screen and the screen suddenly fills up with more green men.
If the people that created this game had spent more time on the story/plot and less time trying to fill out each level with something to shoot at it would be a remarkably better game. Not that the story is bad by any means. Certainly the addition of other unique modes of transport took the monotony out of some levels. I certainly have never played a game where I am riding a horse chasing a train ! The weapons in Darkwatch are quite fun too - the Gatling Gun was by far my favourite weapon, though the explosive firing crossbow came a close second after seeing the dead explode running around the graveyard.
There are only two main `bosses' to kill in this game - Lazarus and Tala, and whilst they take time to inflict enough damage on to put them out of action permanently, once you get to grips with them they're not so tuff. Though being able to save the game during the fights may have been an advantage, I certainly didn't have to take refuge looking for the cheat codes on the internet !
Many people I know have slated Darkwatch over the length of the game - I myself am no expert at gaming finished it with a few days, and probably could have done it in a single day if I had had the time. But I found Darkwatch to be just the right length - I hate games that take yonks to get to the end of, games that make you not want to turn the games machine on for months on end.
At the end of the day, this was a truly great idea, carried off successfully in most quarters, and thoroughly entertaining. But with other games out there - like my personal favourite the eerie Doom 3 - this game is not going to set the shoot `em up world afire, like it set the wild west alight. Goths will love though !!
My tips ? Use melee attacks on the reapers, take out everything else with headshots - one shot with the shotgun worked for me close up on the Banshees - and park the Darkwatch Coyote in a nice quiet place and let the undead come to you. Chase the big bosses around and don't let them rest until they are pushing up daisies in hell !
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5/5 |
A truly great game!
(February 07, 2006) |
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I have played a lot of XBox fps's, and frankly, I was getting bored with them. So Darkwatch was like a breath of fresh air...it is simply one of the most fun games I have played.
The action is relentless. The enemy-Reapers, Riflemen, Gunslingers, Ryders, Keggers, Banshees, Oozers, Braves, Banditos and Vipers-just keeps on comin'; at the end of some levels I was laughing out loud, the action had been so frenetic; Darkwatch uses the havok engine, and gives the player
many opportunities to instigate large explosions...frankly, there's nothing better than shooting a barrel of tnt from a distance, and watching the charging hoard of undead go flying.
The hybrid western/horror theme is something new, and makes a change from the usual sci-fi/war fps scenario, and the graphics are the best I've seen on the XBox...really, really crisp.
On the minus side, the game is quite short, and very linear, and you've seen most of the different enemy types by the end of the first few levels...however, as I've said, the game is so much fun, so addictive, that it still rates five stars. |
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