Darkest of Days

Title: Darkest of Days
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Date Played: September 2009
Time Played: 8 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 2/5


Opinion:
Deep inside I knew Darkest of Days was going to be an abomination, yet I still hoped it would turn out well... who am I kidding... I hoped it would turn out playable.

I think Darkest of Days has one of the best premises. You are a soldier with time travel technology, and you get to travel to different points in time and alter history. Or to be more precise, prevent history from being altered. Its kind of like Back to The Future, except with shooting dudes. You get to fight in the American Civil War, World War 1, and even Ancient Rome (Pompeii)

See why I was excited for this game? Great concept right? Imagine taking a machine gun to the Civil War!!! Or taking a grenade launcher against spear wielding warriors of Pompeii!!! For the most part you do get to do exactly that, until the game designers made THE biggest mistake, and that is to have other time travelers who have advanced weapons show up. When that happens for the first time its a b0n3r to zero in 0.6 seconds. All of a sudden, the excitement of having centuries of technological progress is swooshed away and you are fighting guys that have similar guns to you.


The campaign (although featuring real location layouts and battles) ends up feeling rather boring most of the time, with nothing exciting happening, and you moving 10 feet, shooting some guys, moving 10 feet shooting some guys, over and over again. The act of traveling to different time periods and shooting up guys with modern tech is fun, but the actual campaign story is rather meaningless.

The levels look rather dull and brown, and textures are not of the resolution you would expect from a 2009 game. There are also a ton of bugs that range from funny to frustrating. One of the funnier bugs I've encountered was in the Civil War era, where a group of guys (20 or so) were supposed to advance at me from behind cover, but I guess the trigger is missing. So they just stand in a row with hands at their sides, and I can run up to them and stand shoulder to shoulder to them. They will not move unless I actually shoot one of them.

Darkest of days feels like it needed more time. Perhaps if the release date was pushed back another 6 months the developers would have time to polish and pretty-up the game.  But in its current state it is largely passable. The only reason it gets a 2/5 instead of a 1/5 is its premise. It is very original, and exciting, I just wish it took the idea and ran with it, instead of taking it and stumbling.