Terbinator
Reviewer - TerbinatorThe Good
The flying mechanic the game is based around is actually really good. As mentioned by other the controls are clunky (right analogue stick serving no apparent purpose) but the freedom to fight on land, air, and mix of both however you see fit was quite surprising to be and weirdly liberating - for this the game gets a plus from me and hopefully I'd like to see the concept revisited in a more highly polished game.
The pseudo customisation afforded to the user is also a nice addition with it not being very in-depth and seemingly no way for the user to lose out when upgrading weapons - the right direction I feel for this specific game. The environments were also quite varied, not only form but function. Taking the boat part for example - being able to scale the boat in various different ways was welcoming, even when you have limited jet pack capabilities but ultimately the areas you travel through sometimes feel bland.
The Bad
The technical issues have already been mentioned but its insulting to me at least that a customer cant realistically install he game from disc unless they want to leave there machine on for hours on end, the irony being they're not likely to even play the game for that long if they have the same views as me. The game is generally lacking polish in every area - animation, speech, video & sound are all very mediocre. The game doesn't loose the cheesy feel and you know as soon as you see the characters the role they are going to play: the bad ass, the bottom feeder, the women, the seedy old man who builds contraptions in caves like the guy from 'Up', this doesn't help make your hypothetical purchase seem worth it when you release you've got an extremely poor version of Gears of War.
Click for larger imageThe graphics and sound departments lack the customisation options offered by other PC titles and while some may argue this is because its a port but other UE3 titles usually have a decent array of options to mess with in addition to decent performance we've come to know from UE3 titles which is also on hiatus with Dark Void. The inclusion of PhysX is welcomed by me personally but its implementation is about as much use as Anne Franks drum kit and turns the game into a slide show.
Conclusion
Overall I wouldn't mind seeing the concept of flight and fight combined again provided it was done properly, unfortunately for Dark Void this key game play element seemed to be relied on too much and doesn't cover of the tremors and stability issues exercised by Dark Void and for me it wouldn't be recommended in any form - I only played it to the point of having some points to share as I owe it to Zak.