Slashdot Mirror
Review: Darkwatch
- Title: Darkwatch
- Developer: High Moon Studios
- Publisher: Capcom
- System: Xbox (PS2)
- Reviewer: Zonk
- Score: 6/10
There is a lot to like about the setting of this game. Darkwatch combines some of the best elements of Vampire Hunter D and Brisco Country Jr.; riding a horse quickly through the night pursued by a vampire lord, driving an armored buggy over ranks of skeletal undead, leaping onto a moving train just to hitch a ride. The two worlds are well blended, with the fantastical elements melded to the western in an interesting style.
You'll be seeing that world through the eyes of Jericho Cross, a former bandit turned vampire through his own bad luck and poor preparation. Cross is short on words, but rubs up against some interesting characters who do plenty of talking for him. The game follows Jericho's pursuit of the vampire lord named Lazarus, who kicks off the plot by slaying the protagonist within the first ten minutes of the game. In your afterlife you pursue Lazarus with the help of a pair of western beauties voiced by Jennifer Hale and Rose McGowan. These characters make up the bulk of the NPC interaction you'll encounter during the game. Representatives of the Darkwatch, an undead hunting organization, and the slavering undead they slay fill out most of the other NPC roles. Despite the subject matter, the voice work comes across as respectful to the roles. The voice actors gave their all to give these characters life. The dialogue is regrettably less respectful, with some corny eye rollers spread throughout the game. The storyline itself is interesting enough, moving with a frenetic pace and throwing a few twists and turns at you. Unfortunately, the game is over too quickly to really settle into the plot. Gameplay and story are somewhat interconnected. Throughout the game, you're presented with 'good' and 'evil' options. Choosing either path nets you new vampiric powers, but disappointingly does not affect the storyline or the game's outcome. Controls are the typical console based FPS, with one thumbstick controlling movement and the other orientation. Even with the sensitivity turned up as high as it went, I found the movement a little gummy. The problem lies in the pace of the game. Enemies spawn quickly and in many locations around the gamespace, forcing you to react quickly to incoming opponents. While this makes for exciting gameplay, the mushiness of the controls leads to frustration. Even if you see an opponent coming you may not be able to line up your attacks quickly enough to defend yourself. Thankfully, your vampiric powers give you an edge. In addition to a 'blood shield' (ala Master Chief in the original Halo), Jericho can execute great leaps, speed himself up, and enter a vision mode where his opponents are clearly highlighted against a red background. Other abilities manifest themselves as you consume the souls of the damned, or release them into blissful oblivion, based on your chosen alignment path.
The vision ability is very useful, because as you might expect from a title with a touch of horror there are a lot of dark spaces to explore. The game maps tend to be well laid out. Regrettably the sameness of the visual elements, the darkness and textures, begin to blend together fairly quickly. Creature designs, too, run together into sameness before the short title ends its run. They certainly look good, but after you've worked through a few levels you'll have already encountered most of the critters the game can throw at you. Refreshingly despite their sameness they can be crafty opponents. The skeleton foot soldiers are dumb as hammers, but the gunfighters do a good job of seeking cover in a long-range fight. Throwing a stick of dynamite in the direction of a group of foes will send them scattering, and they even react appropriately when one of their number is hit with an exploding arrow. There won't be any moments of eerie intelligence, but it's gratifying to know they'll at least put up a fight.
Visually, Darkwatch does a good job of placing you into the moment. While the graphical capabilities of the console of your choice won't be pushed to the limit, characters are attractively animated and opponents convey a sometimes surprising sense of speed. Both the undead and story characters share a somewhat exaggerated style, with large facial features and angular body shapes. Jericho's vampiric powers are stylishly realized, as are the explosions and weapon effects in the game. The audio landscape of Darkwatch is not as attractive. Generic-sounding monster screams and underwhelming weapon effects will be your constant companions. The game is slightly less forgettable music-wise, with some nice musical stings and twangy background tunes. But then, I like spaghetti westerns.
High Moon offers up a game with an interesting setting and memorable characters, muddied by sluggish controls and repetitive gameplay. Though Darkwatch will likely not be remembered as one of the pinnacle releases of 2005, it does stand out from the crowd of generic shooters thanks to the obvious attention paid to the game's background. Despite that the too-quick story doesn't allow for time to fully appreciate the environment, and the sameness of the game levels and monstrous opponents drains the player's interest in the gameworld long before the plot concludes. Darkwatch is another game that could have been great, but ended up only worthy of a rental. While I think there are elements to enjoy here, I can only recommend it to someone specifically looking for a shooter with a western or horror theme.
Update: 09/21 19:24 GMT by Z : Clarified that High Moon was the former U.S. publisher, not developer, of the Guilty Gear series.
is first darkness
But these things are capable of pumping out heat like never before. An efficient computer would produce no heat, or if designed like a heat pump could even cool a room, but instead designs seem to be moving in the opposite direction. One which is, based on economic indicators, quite likely to be unsustainable.
With the increasing price of oil, I can't help wondering what the face of computing is going to look like five or ten years down the line. The average computer uses as much as 1¾ Titanics worth of coal to run on any given day. Much of this is spent on wasteful peripherals we could do without, such as fancy 3D graphics cards or optical mice, but even more is being spent on processing power well beyond the needs of the average user.
Inefficiencies in microcomponent fabrication mean that a great deal of the electricity that goes into your computer is given off as heat. Techniques such as reversible or quantum computing hold much promise in the future for putting more energy into computation but today it is up to the consumer to safeguard the environment.
In a way, the argument is the same as with vehicles -- most people don't need a SUV or a top-of-the-line system but many choose to get them to compensate for inadequacies or because of marketing -- but with computers at least it is impossible to argue you are "safer" for having a faster system. Indeed, you are more likely to run viruses or worms without realizing it because you don't notice the hit in operating performance.
I've noticed that I've been holding on to computer equipment longer and longer these days. Oh sure, I have to fix a power supply here and a fan there, but besides slack engineering standards from software companies there is little reason to keep up with the hardware treadmill... and at least one compelling reason not to.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
*sigh*
Why is a run-of-the-mill game given front page space. I doesn't sound much different than any other FPS (apart from the bizzare scenario), and Zonk (the self-poster) only gives it 6/10. Is this the quietest news day-ever of was Zonk just desperate to post something?
Yes, quality postings from the huffington post. Only insane leftists take anything posted there seriously.
Cannibalism in New Orleans!
Has slashdot slashdotted itself?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I don't know how DarkWatch even merited a review, let alone a spot on the front page of /. Out of all the games that come out everyday, Zonk chooses to post a mediocre review of a mediocre game that leads to a mediocre discussion of this year's gaming mediocrity.
This is literally all I could stomach of this week's Zonk-errific game "review".
Let's deconstruct this amazingly retarded opener, just for fun. First, it's totally untrue that control schemes are standardized. That's such an irritating assumption to make right at the top. To the contrary, every FPS seems to have a new button layout and a new way of screwing with turning and aiming.
And then Zonk completes his thesis with: "developers seek to differentiate their titles with theme and storyline". As if theme and storyline were never important until developers got that pesky control scheme worked out! I'm missing the logic here. This kind of bogus, non-sequitor thesis might have gotten you through English Lit 101 in college, Zonk, but you're gonna have to do better in front of this audience of tens of thousands.
Plus, on top of his utter inability to write good prose, Zonk is the Gene Shalit of gaming: all thumbs up and flat jokes. I wouldn't be surprised if he has the hair and moustache, too.
Look, I know how a news site runs. Have you also noticed that I post my comments about Zonk LOGGED IN? It is because I believe in what I am saying and not hiding behind AC. The reason I am capable of posts like the one you linked is because of my familiarity with the business and I am not happy with the current direction of Slashdot as a whole. A big part of this downward spiral is Zonk. I am not against an editorial piece, BUT WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME AN EDITORIAL WAS ON THE FRONT PAGE OF YOUR NEWSPAPER? Yeah, never. Let alone an editorial based on blatantly untrue statements like "The gamecube was a failure." /. is not a news outlet per-say but a link to relevant news in a number of categories to sites all over the internet. Lately it has been pretty much 1UP.com, Apple, Firefox. I'm sick and tired of 1up.com being the only site linked to anymore. It is out of hand. This is NOT news. /. used to be full of insightful news links to cool projects and accomplishments and geek stuff, now it is basically litigation, advertisements, and product announcements.
Maybe stop to think about the fact that when someone who posts such informative and thoughtful stuff to this site on a regular basis is pissed off enough to voice their opinion and slowly moving away from the entire site that it is a BAD THING!(tm)
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Somehow, I thought that they would never find somebody who could match michael's stupidity, but I think that Zonk even has him beaten. I've finally removed the "Games" topic from my home page. He's managed to completely kill it.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I will back you up here, as many others appear content to remain silent in the face of the 'troll' modding onslaught. We shouldn't have to filter out an *entire section* (games) on the basis that we don't like one particular editor. Zonk's constant rambling editorialising (yes I know he's an editor, but it's never interesting), lack of insight and generally mediocre way of doing things should be ringing alarm bells for the people who make the calls behind the scenes, whoever they are.
./'s (former) calibre. And his ability to judge what is actually worth posting is close to zero as far as I can tell. This is all rounded off by an unpleasant air of self-importance, like he's actually a seasoned pro who's been writing about games since the Sinclair or something.
Example: Taco posts the story about the Revolution controller. Zonk posts his own opinion about the Revolution controller. I wonder which is more significant and worthwhile?
Look, Zonk seems like a sincere guy. He sincerely believes he is a good writer and has something interesting to say. Nevertheless, the quality of his opinion-driven articles is substantially worse than that of many of the posts in the ensuing discussion. His basic literary skills are just not up to par for a site of
And you people modding down the complaints about Zonk as trolls - shame on you. This is a legitimate discussion and it must be heard. Trolling is saying something just to get a rise out of other people. This is not a troll.
Read Pynchon.