Review: Darkwatch - PS2, Xbox

The best console first-person shooter since Halo 2

Friday, August 26, 2005

Jericho Cross has had a bad day. On his way to another rudimentary train robbery, he gets to the safe where he’ll take his loot and run. Unfortunately, behind the locked device is Lazarus Malkoth, a dark vampire lord who infects Jericho with a Vampiric curse. With this mishap, Jericho has unleashed legions of undead as he battles to get to the Darkwatch camp where he may be able to be cured. During his journey, Jericho is faced with clear-cut moral decisions, forming him into something more evil or more pure.

While Darkwatch, in all of its slick old west/vampire hybrid presentation, does immediately feel like Unforgiven meets Halo, it’s the bits and pieces along the way that make it stand apart from the horde of copycats. Every so often Jericho has to make moral decisions in which to help or hinder innocent lives. Your choice tilts your moral meter one way or another and determines which new special powers you get. Choosing good over evil yields much better augmentations, but the permanent vampire abilities like a vampire double jump and vampire zoom vision makes the combat more versatile than your average run-n-gun shooter. Where most shooters have endless corridors of left and right, Darkwatch explores heights and depths just as much, making the world seem free.

Jericho has a fun and powerful arsenal of goodies. A headshot-worthy pistol, exploding crossbow, dynamite, sniper rifle and my favorite, the shotgun all grace his hands. All of this would seem standard fare unless the game controlled well and the enemies were fun to play. And in that respect Darkwatch really succeeds. Not since Halo 2 has the Xbox had a game that “feels” this good. And PS2 owners don’t have many great FPSs to compare it to. The enemy intelligence is actually smart. Each weapon serves a different purpose and packs a great punch. Turrets and vehicles are fun to use and the horseback-riding sequences, though few, are truly amazing and engrossing.

The single player journey keeps you on your toes, playing for many straight hours. This may be why the story seems over with so soon, but you’ll be telling friends about several high-octane moments that you’ll want to go back and demonstrate.

The Playstation 2 version has a cooperative mode, letting a buddy join you on your romp through the story. But the Xbox gets a robust online multiplayer mode instead. This is obviously the better of the two exclusive modes. Multiplayer modes include a standard deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag, but also adds Soul Hunter and Team Soul Hunter. In the Hunters, souls appear in different places on the map, and the object is to be the first to fill a meter by catching these souls. The maps play smoothly and are very abundant in little things to do. 16 original maps ship with the game with an extra 10 “day” versions of some maps which disallow any vampire abilities, making it flow more like a professional tournament mode.

The graphics are decent for a current generation game, but the animations really make the game come to life. Many moments seem so cinematic that it’s one of those games that’s just fun to watch. The sound effects are pretty meaty, but much of the music gets lost in the background, playing third fiddle in this well-tuned orchestra.

Darkwatch won’t revolutionize the genre, but it does many little things so well that it will make enough noise to get noticed, enjoyed and replayed. PS2 owners would be foolish to ignore a solid FPS, and Xbox aficionados tired of Halo 2 or the Tom Clancy shooters would do well to test their trigger mettle with some vampire goodness.

Graphics: B

Sound: B

First Play: B+

Last Play: Xbox: A- PS2: B

Gameplay: B+

Overall: Xbox: 89% B+ PS2: 87% B

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Review: Darkwatch - PS2, Xbox

The best console first-person shooter since Halo 2

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