When Undead Isn't Dead Enough

Before getting to the main point of today's post - a game review - I need to say something after the debacle that was yesterday's Heroclix games. Simply put, I hate Thanos. That freaking Unique is haunting me. I run up against a team with him at least once every weekend (twice in a row yesterday), and he proceeds to annihilate my team, which consists mostly of low-to-middle point characters (who tend to be my favorites) incapable of doing enough damage. Or even hitting him really. On the plus side, my Deadpool got killed by Thanos twice yesterday, so I'm thinking Death is gonna be pretty unhappy with the Mad Titan. Ha, ha. It would probably help if I were a better strategist (or not so married to my specific teams), but I'm not. Which is why I tend to stick to first-person shooters.

And that neatly brings me around to today's primary subject, Darkwatch for the Xbox. I know, the game came out 17 months ago, but I'm rarely in any hurry to get a game (Ultimate Alliance being a notable exception), and so I was content to get it for Christmas at a point when it cost about 20 bucks. So, where to begin?

Story: You're train robber Jericho Cross, who in attempting to rob a train, instead unleashes a powerful vampire, who bites you. So you have to work with the Darkwatch to defeat him and regain your humanity. Maybe. You get choices to make, either good or bad, usually involving a trapped soul, which you can either free, or drain for yourself. Depending on your decisions, you gain a sort of experience - good or bad - that will lead to learning various powers, with different powers for good and evil. The ending can be different depending on whether you go good or evil, but other than that, there doesn't seem to be a huge difference. Except that doing good gets you praise from the deceased Darkwatch agent spirit that's your companion, and evil gets nagging. In other words, the story is nothing spectacular.

Graphics, Sound: They're fine. There isn't much in the way of sound, some dialogue, a lot of various screams, from monsters and dying humans both, that's about it. I'm rarely picky about graphics, so I guess they were good for the time. Again, not spectacular, but not poor.

Controls: Alright, this is what aggravated me. You've got a targeting reticule, it looks like a bullseye (circle with a dot in the center). It's normally white, but when aimed at an enemy, it turns red. Except that it sometimes turns red when you aren't actually aimed at an enemy, but just off to the side. So you think you've got them, but whoops! you're firing at the rock just to their left. So it's inaccuracy, but not in the realistic sense of "the recoil from firing is throwing off your aim" that you see in your more high-end shooters (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, Halo, etc.,). It's just the game screwing with you. Beyond that, the controls are mostly fine, though I had some trouble with the "fan the shoulder button to rapid fire" thing. Might just be my controller wearing out.

Gameplay: Enter a room. Shoot enemies. Keep shooting enemies. Enter next area, shoot more enemies. Sometimes be confronted with Mark of Evil, a spire that emerges from the rock, and has to be destroyed or enemies respawn infinitely. Maybe you ride a horse and shoot things. One level involves using a ATV with dual Gatling guns. It's the 19th century equivalent of Halo's Warthog, and it handles about as well as you'd expect that to. Pretty repetitive. And I know it's a FPS, but it's possible to shake things up a bit. Metroid Prime did it. Goldeneye provided more than point, shoot, repeat.

I guess I should say I don't hate the game. It isn't bad, and I've certainly played worse (Turok: Evolution leaps to mind), but I was hoping that something that combined Wild West mythos with vampires would be better. I think they just figured the concept was enough to get by. So I guess I'll agree with X-Play and it give a 3 out of - Nah, make it a 2.7 out of 5.