One of the most anticipated title of 2010, or at least, one of the most hyped ones (Capcom has spent millions on the advertising campaign), and sadly, it nothing like the game Capcom wants us to believe it is. In all aspects, Dark Void is a promising title, and in all aspects, it disappoints. It’s a dull, overrated, overexposed game that, while you will enjoy some aspects of it, you’ll forget all of it very soon.

The game is a third person sci-fi adventure game which centers around the pilot Will, who gets shot down over the Bermuda triangle, and he pretty much gets stuck there. While there, he joins the “Survivors” who are in a fight against an alien race taking over the world. Whatever. The plot is weak and the story doesn’t make sense, if you’d like to know more, read the instruction manual or some Capcom press releases.

The gameplay is laid out like your standard third person shooter, only that it doesn’t work like a third person shooter, most of the mechanisms are flawed, and doing simple things like taking cover is often frustrating and doesn’t work. Even the most noted feature about the game, the ability to get a jetpack and soar away (you get the jetpack quite early on), doesn’t really seem like a big deal once you get down to it (or up in the air). Sure you can fly over your enemies, use your weapons etc., but it just feels like we’ve seen this before in other games. You can also fly close to aircrafts and try and hijack them, but neither this offers much variety to the gameplay. The AI is rather disappointing, especially considering you’ll be fighting robots most of the time, and while they can take a lot of damage, they’ll do so gladly until simply falling dead. Melee combat is a bit easier and more interesting, but because of the bad AI, there isn’t really a challenge to be found.

The air combat, rather, the dog fighting, adds some interest but the controls aren’t sharp enough, and neither are the minds of your enemies, for it to be considered “great” by any standards. It’s just a mediocre feature in a disappointing game. But by far one of the dullest things about the game is the missions, which are far too generic for a setting like this, and some of which can go on as long as 40 minutes of the same, repetitive combat — enough to drive you crazy and shout “what were they thinking!”.

Visually, the game isn’t anything that we haven’t seen before, and we’ve certainly seen better looking games. However, considering the size of the worlds, and the scale of some of the air combats, it’s quite impressive. However, the visuals do not come without glitches, and the same can be said about the audio well. For instance, the dialogue lines aren’t exactly synced with the cut scenes — a major blunder and something that just looks stupid. Overall, it’s a disappointing game despite some good ideas. A substantial lack of polish keeps the title from being even moderately good.

The Good:
Interesting ideas
Air combat is okay

The Bad:
Bad story
Repetitive gameplay
Glitches and bugs
Bad AI
Awful sound and cut scenes

Overall score: 3/10