Darkwatch
- October 13, 2004 18:47 PM PST
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Tempted by both good and evil you have to choose an alightment if you want to compete in Sammy's "vampire western."
Balancing the path of the righteous against the desire for personal glory and power is not an easy cross to bear, but for Jericho, the hero of Darkwatch it is a necessity. Cursed with vampric powers he must choose between good and evil in his quest for survival. These choices are more than simple game options though, as we saw in a recent demo. The developers over at Sammy have done their best to ensure that the choices made by the player help shape both the main character as well as the story--how you play the game will effect both the ultimate ending as well as the powers that Jericho can use.Although the vampire powers for both the good and evil path are different, they are roughly equivalent. Going with one over the other will not hinder you, however trying to be neutral and dabbling in both with the hopes of coming out ahead will hurt as each side has an ultimate power that can only be gained once all of the prior powers have been acquired. Mixing good with evil will prevent the player from acquiring that ultimate power.
In the two level build that we played only one of the missions featured a choice--to save a girl, or kill her and drain her blood. Saving her granted Jericho the ability to have a one-hit, one-kill attack with ranged weapons, while killing her gave him an amped melee ability, once again resulting in instant kills and somewhat remeniscient of the beserk attack in the original Doom. These attacks were time limited and could only be activated by pressing the L2 and R2 buttons when the blood meter was flashing.
The levels themselves were two snippets of larger missions as Sammy is still keeping most of the game close to its chest. The first had us trying to takeover a runaway Darkwatch train, while the second had Jericho fighting his way through a graveyard.
Starting out on horseback, riding alongside the train, Jericho had to board by running alongside the caboose and then hopping on all the while being attacked both from the train and by demonic skeletons also on horses. What was noteable about the demo was the level of detail in both the train and the character models. With the exception of an extremely close draw distance (most likely to allow for more detailed textures) the PS2 build of the game looked as if it could have been running on a Xbox.
Once onboard the train, the first order of business was to open a locked door. A hidden switch on the upper level of the caboose did the deed, but moving forward through the cars was slow going as enemies were hiding around every corner. Enabling the blood vision helped a great deal as it highlighted both weapons and opponents. Although the train cars were fairly confined, movement was natural. At the end of the train Jericho hopped behind a gatling gun and had to eliminate an onslaught of enemies before the segment ended.
Back in the graveyard the fighting experience was a bit different as there was a lot more space to play around in. The weapon selection was also different, most noteably due to the avilablity of the crossbow--perhaps the coolest weapon in the game. The crossbow shoots enchanted arrows which explode shortly after hitting their target. There is nothing more satisfying than shooting an opponent and watching him run around helplessly with the arrow sticking out his side and then seeing the demonic corpse rocket through the air when said arrow explodes.
Moving through this level we noticed a little bit of difficultly in circle-strafing, but aside from that the controls were extremely tight, even at this early level of deveopment. Drawing a bead on your target was not an issue, so long as you could read your opponent properly. Rest assured the enemies here are not dumb and they will actively evade your shots in order to stay alive.
Midway through this segment you are faced with the choice of either saving or killing the girl and earning the respective power. No matter which you choose, the level will continue and toss a mini-boss your way, however the exact bosses presented will vary based on your choice. Going good and earning the amped ranged attack will result in a series of flying banshees being thrown your way, while going evil and earning the pumped up melee attack results in a series of large ground demons appearing before you. Looking something like an extremely obese man, they attack by vomiting acidic blood in your general direction.
While extremely short, the Darkwatch demo both looked and played quite nicely. Assuming that the full game can keep up this level of polish and playablity Sammy should have a winner on its hands. In addition to the single player modes, the full game will also feature multiplayer with support for the PS2 network adapter and full Live 3.0 support on the Xbox. Look for more details early next year once we've gotten some play time with the online game.
