Browsing the top demo downloads on Xbox Live I found Dark Void sitting sadly between Madden’s latest foray into football and Army of Two’s second attempt at a co-op friendly, fist-bump simulator. With no knowledge of what to expect from the blandly named “Dark Void” I thought I’d take it for a spin. It was after my second go-round that I realized a few simple substitutions would result in a title I would be proud to call The Rocketeer.
The demo shares no details regarding the game’s plot leaving me to trust Wikipedia for answers. Once there I learned that the game follows one William Augustus Grey, a cargo pilot that nearly meets his end when he crashes his plane in the infamous Bermuda Triangle. Willy is suddenly transported to a parallel universe in which he encounters a hostile alien race known as the Watchers. Already locked in conflict with the Watchers are the aptly named Survivors, a sort of human resistance. In order to save the (other) world and get back home, William must defeat the aliens blah blah blah. Obviously there’s more to it than that, but you get the gist.
The most important element of the game, though, is the presence of the jetpack. One of the main mechanics of the game involves flying around by way of a very familiar flying apparatus. In-flight you can speed up, slow down, fire weapons and perform aerial maneuvers engineered to fight incoming enemies and dodge incoming attacks. Taking a step further, you can press B when you’re close enough to an enemy ship to enter a contextual mini-game. In the demo, when you hop onto an alien ship, you have to hold B to pull up a panel of the ship to open up the cockpit–all the while dodging the ship’s mounted gun. Once you throw the now headless alien from his vehicle you get to pilot it yourself with the option to abandon it at any time.
The demo starts with our hero discovering the jetpack and deciding to take it out for a test drive. This later leads to a jump from a really high cliff wearing questionable, possibly useless junk strapped to his back. Luckily the jetpack doesn’t fail completely and William is well on his way to learning how to fly. After the game lays out the basic controls, you’re tasked with blowing up a few communication relays to stop the Watchers from sending in any reinforcements. This prompts an alien patrol to approach your position and you start your first aerial battle. Afterward you’re directed to land on a nearby floating command center giving you a taste of what Dark Void’s ground combat is all about. You make your way through a small base, dispose of a few enemies and take out the controls. Of course the base you just disabled begins to explode and fall out of the sky and you’re forced to make a break for it, flying out of the wreckage seconds before it explodes. You’ve successfully sabotaged the enemy’s shields assuring your friends on the ground a clean getaway.
By the end of the demo (both times), all I wanted to do was play it again and again. The flying controls are fluid and refreshing and the ground combat is comparable to anything you’ll see on the market today. The story seems pretty solid but there was one thought I couldn’t seem to shake. With a few simple substitutions (e.g. a Luger pistol instead of the main character’s rifle, Nazis instead of aliens, fighter planes instead of spaceships) you would have one super-badass Rocketeer game on your hands.
For those interested, YouTube user DerfsonicGaming has provided a video of the Dark Void game demo:
