I must remark in advance that foreign shops ask as much as 45 Euros for this game, in Hungary you can buy it in a Buy This! (Ezt Vedd Meg! – EVM) version for 1990 Forint (~7 Euros). Good for us, because Darkest of Days really doesn't worth more, but for this price it's not so bad. Why I threw this crap into the shopping cart were the American Civil War and the battlefields of World War I. Sure, in this the game of the tenderfoot 8Monkey Labs was doing well.
I used the word “crap” because of the lousy programming, the unoptimized and unmade graphical engine, and the Hungarian release. It happened that after a time the game gladly threw me out after every change of location. Sometimes it was lagging madly, and other times some textures were missing. After I reinstalled it without localization, these errors disappeared. No comment: EVM releases were never famed from their quality. I got over this whole affair very quickly, I didn't even swear so much as in the case of Dark Void, furthermore, after the errors were gone I started to enjoy Darkest of Days.
The developers were proudly banged the big drum about what a time travel we will have through two World Wars, civil war, antique Roman Empire, etc. At first, we didn't even imagine how 8Monkey Labs wanted to knead this all together, but later the picture became clearer. The devs wanted to guide us through the most famous battles of world history, and they did it. However, the story connecting the time periods is a bit yo-yo, and because of this it is completely uninteresting. There is a company, KronoteK, which sends agents through time to various places to save people who had important roles in history. You are such an important one who was saved from death in the battle of Little Big Horn by a modern soldier from the 20th century (he has a very unsympathetic face and talk). This opening is really a hit, when you have to keep the riding Native Americans back with only one Colt, lying on the ground wounded.
After that, your task is to save other people, and the main mission is the searching for the founder of the KronoteK – he was lightheaded enough to loose his way between the time gates, and this can have an effect on history. So, no more whining, let's go to the practice yard where you get to know various weapons and some little colorful balls too. Yes, you have not just to shoot things but play marbles too. Because some important people in the past have to live, and your order is to wound them – wounded they will live through the actual war – or make them unconscious with these little balls. If accidentally you shoot some of them, the counter commando comes, which is an organization of similarly though boys as you are. They are just taking history from another point of view and their goal is to eliminate you. It's not too funny to run through the ploughing with a musket in hand, fighting against some sci-fi commando with machine guns. So it's worth to throw some marbles sometimes instead of killing everything that moves by reflex.
In the missions you can choose between World War I. and the American Civil War. Of course, you will have fun in both events, but you can decide about the order in which you go here and there. Each battle is an excerpt from history, and I must admit I was grabbed by these famous fields and eras. Perhaps just because there are very few FPS games are playing in this two wars with period weapons, uniforms and situations. In the Civil War the basic hardware is a musket + revolver combination, so it's worth to aim accurately. Volley-fires, arson, cannons, charging cavalry, and other interesting things follow the conflict between North and South. The mood is perfectly caught, and I thought why aren't there quality FPS games playing in this period of time? Either in western or steampunk environment, a war game with classic CoD, MoHAA/PA gameplay would be really good. Darkest of Days shows some moments from this. Participating in the famous Battle of Antietam was a chilling experience in itself. Running on the cornfield, facing nefarious southerners, hiding before a volley-fire, climbing through the cadavers of our companions in the channels between the crop fields, etc.
The mood is also present in World War I. campaign too, in which you have to hold your ground as a Russian or German soldier. Compared to the arsenal of World War II. the weapons are laughable. Shooting from a zeppelin, war from rifle-pits, primitive guns, gas attack, trucks reminding coaches, and steam vehicles are waiting besides blasting a bridge and doing artillery tasks. Later you have a mission in World War II. in an dumbfounding situation: You have to save a Russian soldier from hanging in a divisional cage. Of course, you are one of the captives too. And there is Pompeii, where you can scatter unlucky legionaries with lead. Yes, sometimes the developers try to speed things up by giving you a modern weapon in an archaic setting. This may be a machine gun or a shotgun, but don't worry, this is not the basic lineup. To sum up: If I see only the two greatest battles in the game, I can say Darkest of Days is worth to take a look at. By the way, some fields were so big that 30-40 soldier, maybe more was moving on it at the same time.
The game is less entertaining with the above-mentioned lousiness. Totally random QTDs, frequent texture flaws, too big requirements compared to the quality of the graphics, and mostly braindead soldiers on the battlefields. There is no other FPS in which it's so easy to give headshots. What's more, it happened more than once that I hid in a house and sent at least 20 of them to the other world, because they ran in one by one. So the AI is completely idiotic.
The monumental battles are saving the game, be it the World War or the Civil War. Darkest of Days is an old school shooter in war setting, bringing all the cliches of classic Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, and mixing them gives an enjoyable gameplay. However, it doesn't worth more than one walkthrough.
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Title: Darkest of Days What I liked:
What I didn't like:
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