DARK Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on July 12th, 2013

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Dark is a stealth action adventure that's brimming with good ideas, but poor AI, a weak story, and repetitive gameplay drive a three-pronged stake through the heart of its entertainment value. Dark's cel-shaded settings occasionally allow the otherwise drab experience to shine, but not without a forgettable protagonist and clunky movements sinking their fangs into the fun.

Occasional mechanical quirks, like Eric refusing to take cover behind certain walls or sliding around a bit following shadow leaps, are tolerable. Lousy AI isn't. Guards will frequently notice things that they shouldn't or, conversely, remain oblivious to activities clearly unraveling in their cones of vision. In a game that so heavily encourages perfectionism, unreliable AI behavior is absolute poison, and watching your best-laid plans come undone for reasons out of your control--because a soldier was unnaturally alert, or because your shadow leap wouldn't take you where you needed to go, or whatever--is exasperating.

So while it's always nice to see an attempt to breathe new life into stealth action games, Dark retains and even amplifies many of the frustrating trappings that make the genre so off-putting for some. It's too buggy, imprecise, and narratively unengaging to be of much interest even to those in the market for this sort of thing.

Dark feels like it wants the semi-noire, stealth style of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the supernatural powers of Dishonored, but it manages to fall way short of both titles.That alone wouldn't have been enough to avoid Dark, but there doesn't seem to really be any reason to go out of your way to play it either.

Even if you have a specific interest in vampires, you won't feel powerful enough to even enjoy that part of the gameplay, and there are better stealth titles out there. It's another example of Kalypso pricing, and you'll find you'll need to spend quite a lot to buy it as well.

Dark feels like a game that should have been better. Omerta suffered from a similar problem. Dark has a premise that would seriously interest me, and it still does, not that this title did anything to help.

DARK is not a good game. It is in all respects a bad game. The whole game is epitomized at the end by a severely lacklustre boss battle, which is the worst ending to any game that I have played. With that being said DARK does have a few, just a minute few, redeemable features but they are far and few between. With an injection of just a few more mechanics and non-clichéd writing DARK may have even been a good game. This is one summer title you will want to avoid unless you are set on playing every single stealth game you can get your hands on.

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