Darkwatch Review

Up until now I hadn’t bonded with any games in the First Person Shooter Genre. I had played and admired Unreal tournament, but felt that the learning curve would take too long for me to become accomplished at the game. I played Area 51 and enjoyed it. It had the best control set up for me that I had found since DOOM on an old Apple.

I looked forward to Darkwatch with somne anticipation. <i>Darkwatch</i> was released last August. It’s a first-person shooter on both PS2 and Xbox. It has three levels on foot and three on horseback too.  The game is an unusual combination of a western and vampires. Unusual but not original. Try to find copies of the first vampire western, <i>House of Dracula</i> (1945) <i>The Monster Club</i> (1980) and <i>Twice Bitten</i> (1979)  it isn’t easy. When you think about it, the legend is that vampires have existed since the dark ages so why wouldn’t there have been some still around out in the old west?

In the beginning of the game you are in a train wreck and then you get cursed and you are turned into a vampire. Then you become a member of an organization called the Darkwatch that fights evil creatures. There is a  single player campaign with seventeen missions. Each one has to be finished off in order to move on.  They are all different which gives it more variety. Then there is a choice of good or evil to play. It is a fun game that is different from the other FPS in many ways.

Gameplay

Darkwatch has fast paced adventures in the old west. An unknown artifact is on that locomotiveand once it is stolen from the safe Lazarus, the oldest and most powerful vampire gets loose too. Eventually abilities like Silver Bullet, and Mystic Armor provides you with protection. There are  many monsters for you to kill with the guns as you shoot from horseback at flying bat things above you in the sky. Or you may stop to do a shooting gallery style round. Sometimes a crossbow is offered to do different sorts of damage. The camera has some problems. It is difficult to stop the horse and turn backwards to face the enemies. It takes a while to get the hang of that.

Graphics

The graphics are good and crisp and clear. The female characters are very sexy and pretty well covered at the same time. They look strong and tough. There were the obligatory hot females. The horse riding is very well worked out. The graphics keep up with the action. It looks good most of the time. The colors and backgrounds do tend to get a little monotonous after a while, but it is in keeping with an endless undead desert.

This was a fun FPS. Vampires are an intriguing subject. Many of the vamp games are lacking something. Though this game wasn’t perfect, it brought something new to the horror game genre. Or at least banged some existing elements together in an unexpected way. The game has some replayability value because some of the missions could stand alone and be enjoyable just as a shooting sim. It does have the capability of multiplayer cooperative mode which also adds to this game’s features.

Girls Point of View (Graphics): Very good
Girl Power (Are girls going to want to play it?):Bang, Bang I Shot you Down!
Purse (Value for money): US$39.99

8/ 10

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