Darkest of Days Review

Game Review: Darkest of Days
Release: 9-10-2009
Genre: First Person Shooter
Developer: 8Monkey Labs/Third Wave Games
Available Platforms: PC, Xbox 360
Players: 1
MSRP: $49.99
ESRB Rating: M
Website: www.darkestofdays.com

Darkest of Days is a game set into the future where time travel has finally been achieved. Time travel has provided scientists and humanity with invaluable information as they carefully observe, but not interfere in our history. Now it seems that the creator of time travel is actually lost somewhere in time and something is causing strange anomalies in time that may cause the fabric of space to tear apart. So in an effort to handle these situations they recruit you, a soldier whom was supposed to die at the battle of little big horn. Right before your death they pull you into the future and tell you what you need to do to be humanities hero.

As our games hero your job is to travel to different crucial periods in time to either save or kill certain individuals whom are not supposed to be there. First person game play with a mix of both old world and future weapons.

If I have to find one thing this game does right is, well the creators of this game sure had a good idea for a game, oh and they have created the perfect example of what NOT to do in a game. There are no fun moments in game play you often walk for what seems like long periods of time before you do anything, Bungie did it right with the 30 seconds of fun, explore, rinse and repeat. Any conflicts that happen in the game prove to be confusing as enemies scurry around like cockroaches, and the controls for aiming are sub par at best. Hit detection is very loose as you never really feel like you do anything. It’s more like ill shoot, and “Maybe” I’ll hit something, I hope I do?” Even the guns you use feel very floaty and have no real weight to them, any little extras set to immerse you into the experience also prove to be a hindrance for example. Early into the game you need to put on a gas mask to get around, and when the mash is on the interior of the mask takes up the whole screen and you only look out of the two holes that are located in the upper right hand side of the screen. This actually left me disoriented and frustrated. The voice acting is as good as any CPR instructional video, and the story characters have about as much personality as a rock. Even the menu and start screen design is absolutely lazy, I do not think I have ever started the game, and knew I was going to be in trouble just from the graphical interface, until now.  I cannot say these are the worst graphics I have ever seen, and at certain moments it actually looks o.k., but since overall the game is so bad it would be like getting excited because you found a whole peanut in a pile of poop. One thing you will notice is an actual lack of any type multiplayer, so the whole intent was for an engrossing single player experience.

In an effort to spare our readers by saying what can be done to improve this game, I’m just going to ask 8Monkey Labs/Third Wave Games…why? As game developers you HAD to know your game was bad. Nothing about this game is good, this HAS to be the worst game I have ever played, no joke. I’m sorry, but the fact that this is a retail game with no multiplayer, your single player experience should have at least been somewhat substantial.  I know games are not easy to make but this honestly feels like they didn’t even care about what they were making.

Final say:

do not buy this game, ever, not if it’s used, not for your worst enemy. If it comes in the mail, send it back. I have to be honest I play a lot of bad games and love them, but there is no excuse for this game, none.