Next month, developer 8monkey Labs and publisher Phantom EFX are set to release a new historical FPS for the PC and Xbox 360. In development for some time now, Darkest of Days casts players as Morris, a soldier who almost dies during Custard’s Last Stand, also known as The Battle of the Little Bighorn. This action centric FPS features a clever story, interesting characters, and some cool time travel themes. As much as I’d like to go ahead and do a review of Darkest of Days, having beaten a nearly final build of the game, I’m not able to do so at this time. I can elaborate more on the premise and a few of the missions however.
Darkest of Days begins during the Battle of the Little Bighorn. This battle that took place in 1876 had the US Army fighting the Cheyenne. The Cheyenne, led by Sitting Bull, defeated Custard’s 7th Calvary. Players take the role of Morris, a soldier in the middle of this bloody battle. Dozens of NPCs are fighting with and against you, but the battle, as history will tell us, is hopeless for the Army. Just before Morris’ death, he is pulled into a time bubble by a member of an organization known as KronoteK.
You wake up in a mysterious lab with no one around. A large, curved monitor stands before you. A female character, whose eyes fill up the screen, offers a brief introduction, but details are saved for later. Soon after, you are transported to a training area where you meet Dexter. Dexter, a nicely developed character throughout the campaign, doesn’t have a great deal of faith or interest in you, but he guides you through a very basic training area. In this training area, players learn to fire a few different weapons, throw grenades, use cannons, and discover Chasers. Chasers are sort of an odd weapon that are used to combat various enemies that have a blue aura about them. These enemies are really no different than the hundreds of others you encounter, but their lives are historically more relevant than most others. The idea is to not kill these particular enemies, but to instead subdue them with these Chasers, that act like grenades but only affect these special NPCs. More on this gameplay mechanic shortly.
After the brief training sequence, it’s time to get to work. You discover that Dr. Koell, the founder of KronoteK and developer of the time travel technology, has gone missing. Also, there have been some other disturbances in the timestream according to Mother, the female character that talks to you via the monitor in the lab. This lab is actually more of a main hub in the game; it’s here that you can use your Upgrade Points to increase the abilities of your weapons and missions are launched from here.
I’m only able to discuss five missions of the campaign, but rather than try to give specific information on those at the risk of saying something I shouldn’t (until the review), I will be more generic. That said, your goal at the outset is to find Dr. Knoell, but to do that you need to locate two men. It is thought that by locating and capturing these two men the when and whereabouts of the doctor can be learned.
The men are Welsh and Petrovich. Welsh is a soldier in the American Civil War, so a large portion of the game is spent fighting in the Civil War, primarily as a Union soldier. As a Yank, you will encounter hundreds of Confederate soldiers that must be fought using your ball and cap pistol and musket. The Confederates also have the Henry level action repeating arm that you can exchange for. The Henry is much more enjoyable to use than the slow loading musket.
Speaking of loading, Darkest of Days has a similar loading system to Gears of War. When you go to reload, a circular meter appears. A small mark on the meter, whose size and position on the circle vary depending on the weapon you are reloading, is the sweet spot. If you press fire as a line passes through this zone, the rest of the reload happens much quicker. But, if you press fire when the line isn’t in the zone, loading takes about twice as long. Of course, players also have the option to just let loading take as long as is needed without this extra bit of interaction.
When you aren’t searching for and helping Welsh in the American Civil War, much of your time is spent helping the Russians during World War I. Petrovich, the second important figure you need to locate and capture, is a commander in the Russian army. It’s up to you and Dexter to keep him alive and get him back to KronoteK. In both eras, your opposition is not solely the enemy of whatever force you are fighting for at the time. There is a third party involved, too, with time traveling capabilities and futuristic weapons. These Opposition Agents will appear at various times, but they are guaranteed to appear if you kill too many of the blue aura NPCs. You have to use your Chasers to take out these figures, or let your friendly AI do the work; if you kill them yourselves, time slows down, two or three portals appear, and suddenly you’ll find yourself fighting these Agents who are much tougher than your average foe. Fighting these Agents isn’t a bad thing though; when they die, they drop their weapons. Players can exchange their weapon or weapons of the time period for these futuristic guns, which makes combat a lot easier and more fun.
Besides the simple upgrade system in between missions, Darkest of Days is a very straight-forward pure action FPS. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a point worth making. There are no secret areas, keys, or side quests or much more than there needs to be to carry on the plot and the mission. I found myself stumbling into a lot of invisible walls, but usually the situations Morris and Dexter get into are very time sensitive anyway, so there isn’t any time or need to wonder about. Most missions take about twenty to thirty minutes to complete, and include lots of handy auto-saves. These auto-saves are all accessible from the Pause Menu, too. I actually had to use an older Auto Save rather than the most recent Auto Save during one mission due to a bug that caused me to die upon loading the most recent save. I’m sure this will get worked out before the final release.
Getting even more general now about Darkest of Days, it’s a fun game. I admit the pacing and design had me a little discouraged at first, during the training and first mission. Soon after that, the story, characters, and action really pick up and it became something I wanted to continue to play through rather quickly to completion. The difficulty stays well balanced throughout, and upon death an auto save is never far back. Reloading a save point or a new mission goes by very quickly, too. 8monkey Labs’ own internal engine, Marmoset, is utilized for Darkest of Days. The Marmoset engine allows for dozens upon dozens of 3D characters to be rendered on screen at once, and while the graphics aren’t as vibrantly gorgeous as an Unreal 3 powered game, they are still quite nice and certainly very sufficient. Most environments are large, outdoor forested areas with lots of thick trees and streams, with some good lighting; fitting for the battles that took place in the Civil War and first World War. I did experience some clipping, but nothing severe.
Aurally, the soundtrack was good; all instrumental and featuring lots of ominous drum beats, it was a fitting score. Voiceovers are good, too; Morris never talks, but Dexter sure does. Dexter’s lines are usually brutally honest and humorous, laced with some well placed cursing. Lastly, sound effects are good and satisfying, especially the blast of a musket and subsequent yell of a fallen enemy.
I’m eager to see what changes 8monkey Labs does for their final build of Darkest of Days. As it stands, I had a very good time with this preview build and outside of some good polishing, it’s shaping up to be a fine game. Even though the holiday gaming season is just around the corner and many big titles are due out, keep this one in mind going forward — it should be available inside a month and while no contender for game of the year, it’s still well worth a look.