Dark Void takes an interesting twist on the Bermuda Triangle by having us believe it’s a gateway to another dimension where Nikola Tesla is fighting off a alien race called the Watchers. While the Bermuda Triangle has been used for a lot of dimensional travel and what not in the past, it hasn’t gotten a lot of use in recent gaming history. It’s also nice to see games that use the past in some crazy Sci-Fi way that borders on totally unbelievable territory. This is the stuff that comic books of the ’30s and ’40s were made of.

The game starts off with our hero, William Augustus Grey, on Earth moments before crossing into the Bermuda Triangle, and subsequently crashing into the Void. At first the game is entirely played on foot which I can’t help but draw comparisons to Uncharted from as it plays strikingly similar. The fact that Will and Nathan are both voiced by Nolan North doesn’t help this at all, and I personally couldn’t wait to get a jet-pack. There is a little bit of the Vertical Shooter system that pops up early on in the game, and while unique it just doesn’t happen enough throughout. The fact that Capcom was using this as a major bullet point seems a bit off after actually playing the game.

Things don’t really change gear until Will gets the first jet-pack, though it’s not used for flying and instead boosts jumping. By the time flying comes into play the player should be well versed in flight controls and what not, despite the game making you go through a tutorial once more (You start the game doing a jet-pack tutorial, why do we need another?) before actually getting on with the game. At this point I was hoping the game might open up, but instead it stays very linear all the way to the end. Having a jet-pack does allow the player a lot of ways to tackle most fights in the game, but due to the way the game is set up it forces you to play it the way it wants you to. Each area in the game is separated by what is required of the player, each objective sometimes requiring a different thing. Either you’ll be in the air, or on the ground without much mixing of the two due to level design. During flying missions Will can hijack both human and alien fighters, which is generally a good idea to do since Will can’t take the hits a fighter can. In fact I tried to get myself into a fighter or a turret as soon as able in all of the missions which defeats the purpose of having a jet-pack. On top of all this, the radar the game uses is pretty useless, and I never once relied on it. Having to play through the flying areas without a radar isn’t very fun. Just wait until you beat the game and it shows where the collectibles are, talk about confusing.

Throughout the game you collect upgrade points which allow Will to upgrade weapons and his jet-pack. This is the most choice that the game offers, allowing you to level up any of the weapons you want. As you move through the game, more weapons become accessible, and depending on play-style, you might favor one over another. I spent much of my time using the enemies weapons on them as running low on ammo was then not much an issue. Getting ammo for any of the human weapons can only be done at weapon lockers (where you can upgrade and change weapons during a mission) or ammo pick-ups. By the time I made it to the end of the game I had only really leveled up the alien weapons, and only touched the starting human weapon unless the game forced me to use the other two human weapons. The third alien weapon, a sniper rifle, saw no use by me at all save for the first time I encountered it. The first two weapons you come into contact with in the game are really all you need, which is a shame. There are also grenades in the game, but after leveling up the first two guns to level 2, I doubt you’ll remember.

A lot of people I’ve talked to don’t really like Dark Void as it tries to do a lot of things all at once. I have a feeling that if the game were made in the Sandbox style it might be better received. Flying in this game, for myself, was rather easy to do (I LOVE flight-sim games after all) but for the average run-and-gun player they tend to find flying too hard. I personally like the game, but after beating it I didn’t really feel like playing it again, even with the stage select being open. Many of the areas in the game just aren’t as fun as others and having to play through the parts I didn’t like just to get to the good spots.

Dark Void over all is a good game, but unfortunately doesn’t really nail any of genres it tries to tackle. The game is also very short, and had I not ran into a few nasty bugs (PC gaming isn’t always superior) I’d have finished it in on sitting. I could have turned the difficulty up, but I am a firm believer in difficulty not factoring into the length of a game. This game is worth a rent, but I can’t honestly suggest buying it.