Sep 21 2009
Rants and Ravings
The other day I played the worst game I think I’ve ever had the misfortune to attempt. Darkest of Days for Xbox 360. The really sad part is that Darkest of Days didn’t have to be as terrible as it turned out. The game has a fantastic premise, you start out as a soldier in Custer’s last stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Of course it’s a hopless fight, and no matter how many Native American’s you take down, more are there until you are overtaken. But then at the last moment, a orb that looks like rippling water appears before you and a man in a hazmat suit steps out to save you. Ba-boom you become a member of a futuristic society that watches over the strands of time, and through time travel corrects any mishaps that may present themselves.
That’s really awesome, because Darkest of Days affords you the opportunity to go back in time and fight past battles with futuristic weaponry. So you get to fight Romans with automatic weapons, as well as participate in the American Civil War, etc. Cool as hell concept, absolutely cool as hell.
The problem is in the execution, where Darkest of Days becomes a laughably bad, horrendously developed mess. The gunplay controls are terrible, the physics are incredibly unrealistic, and the system for detecting voices around is ludicrous. Since when is sound filtered out because someone is standing behind you? In my real life I don’t find myself having trouble listening to someone talking if they’re behind me. But in Darkest of Days if you’re not two feet away from the person and facing them, you may as well be deaf.
I’m just disappointed that here you have a great concept, and it’s been butchered beyond recognition. TimeShift was a fantastic example of how to use time changing fun effectively, Darkest of Days is an example of what happens when a good FPS ends up in the hands of a clueless developer.
