Before I start I should explain VTD is not a new sexually transmitted disease, but rather just my little acronym for View To a Demo. Which is what this is. A demo. From a view. My view.
I’m sure it’s a thought that’s occured to us all at some point amongst the action genre inclined – “What if I could take a modern day weapon to a past battlefield? I bet I’d kick ass!” Thankfully, games have heard this call in our childish hearts and are pleased to deliver. For this ladies and gentlemen, I pull back the veil on the gloriously silly “Darkest of Days”.
The demo is a quick 30 minute affair weighing in at a rather weighty 714mb, and is a snipet of the first two levels and a brief tutorial. From what I’ve seen in this small segment, I’m rather hopeful this will be a good game when it comes out. However, saying that I’m looking forward to the game doesn’t mean the demo didn’t make my brain implode trying to understand what was going on.
It’s nice when a game just throws you into the action, but I had no idea what this was about pre-demo apart from time travelling and using a Peacekeeper against Caesar. You start the game hemmed in by circling apaches during Custer’s Last Stand, where you start fighting till after a bit you realise it’s one of those sequences you’re supposed to get shot in order to progress further. You then wake up sat down during the end of the stand, given a pistol and told to keep defending. You are however injured by an arrow lodged…well, I can’t see any other place this injury could possibly be, so you wake up with an arrow in your penis.
You then see Custer die whilst you’re still wishing your injury could’ve been anywhere else than your crotch. Out of nowhere, with no explanation, a giant time bubble appears which an armored guy steps out of (ignored by the circling apaches) who asks you your name and then tells you to get in the bubble before getting shot by the indians (I guess they’d finished their smoke break). So you make like a turtle and crawl into the bubble before blacking out, to then wake up to a futuristic room where a machine heals you. Though it’s not told if they managed to regrow your appendage.
A pair of eyes then say hello, that you’re 300 years in the future and now some guy is going to train you to become a time agent. Wait what? I’ve suffered two blackouts and a mutilation and I’ve not even got to the tutorial yet? Plus why the hell am I suddenly whisked from Custer’s Last Stand to be told I’m a time agent? Why me? Why is my protagonist nonchalantly going along with this? This is only two minutes into the demo mind and already that’s a shit ton of craziness. If this were a serious game, it would be enough to put me off. However, even though it doesn’t look cartoony and has a storyline tacked on this is a game you realise you should take as seriously as Serious Sam. It realises it’s going to be sending you up against Roman Legionnaires with a combat shotgun, and is desperatley trying to keep a straight face. If you don’t believe me, go take a look at the trailer and how it describes the weapons here.
The tutorial is a brief affair thankfully, and it gives me a nice opportunity to talk about gameplay. The shooting and aiming is Call of Duty-esque, with iron sights, solid weaponry and “f” for melee and “g” grenade. The reload system has been stolen straight from Gears of War, which for those unfamiliar means a little circle appears and there’s a marker on it. As the bar swings around the circle you can press reload again when it gets to the marker to quick reload, press it out of the marker and the reload takes longer than normal or just leave it the fuck alone to reload normally. The period era weapons are fantastic, but you only get a small sample of the civil war and WWII weapons in the tutorial so who knows where else the full game will take you.
After the tutorial you’re told “Congrats! Now you’re a time agent after a rigourous minute of training and selection. Oh yeah, there’s some figures you’ve got to protect, here’s your first one. Off you trot”. It’s said a little bit more eloquently than that, but that’s the jist of it and it definetly doesn’t want to be slowing you down when all you want to do is kill. So off you pop to the American Civil War, with my character motivation I figure been then he can’t suffer any worse injuries and now has no chance whatsoever to become his own grandfather. That must be why they picked me! All time agents are selected on the basis of genitallia loss to avoid time loops! Fuck, I’ve just made sense of this game. I’m scared.
I’ve already said this game loves its silliness, but it does this amongst a seemless blend of real-life action with only the absurd weaponry you’re rewarded reminding you this isn’t a serious game at times. As I entered the first mission during the Civil War you’re commanded to blend in with the regular cannon fodder. This is both cool, as it’s ace been an agent let alone a time agent acting incognito, as well as bloody terrifying. You don’t get any fancy futuristic toys straight away, and walking control is taken away from you as your chap marches with the column to face another thing Darkest Days does well: Masses upon masses of A.I. With a one shot musket that takes ages to reload, it’d be almost pantwetting if you still had your penis as you stand there reloading 25 meters away from 100 of your foe as they get their muskets ready before yours and take aim. “I WANT TO TAKE COVER OH SHIT I’M GOING TO DIE THIS IS IDIOTIC WHY DID PEOPLE EVER DO THIS IN REAL LIFE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”.
After this authentic bit of warfare and some light skirmishes (which you can choose to either help out in or run off to find your target) the game then rubs its hands with glee and smiles knowingly at you. “So, how would you like a sub-machine gun?” If you fail to smile as you prepare to face tens of dozens of foes with slow one shot rifles compared to a lethal rapid fire machine gun, well, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Go to therapy. This doesn’t mean things are entirely favoured to you, as bullets are just as lethal as before. I kindof forgot this at first and went charging in blazing down everyone in my sight to only get bayoneted to death. It’s interesting to note that despite given what some would consider game breaking power, the need for ammo conservation (as you’re not going to pick any machine gun clips up) and your own vulnerability still makes the game challenging enough to enjoy.
If the game can maintain this pace and variety when it comes out I’ll be impressed, as the demo gives the impression that the game is not genre breaking, but does give the FPS genre a bit of much needed vitalitly and originality for blasting polygons. Grab the demo for yourself from here to see if it wets your tastebuds. I definetly know now that if I lose my little trooper, I’m signing up for the time agency right away.
Sold!