Darkest of Days | Review

Synopsis: In Darkest of Days, the player takes on the role of Alexander Morris, who is a soldier fighting under General Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn, and just before your untimely death, you are taken to the future by a time agent that informs you that your new responsibilities will consist of preventing an unknown faction attempting to re-write history by fighting your way through a number of epic battles of the course of thousands of years. This first person shooter takes the player back in history to reenact the most memorable battles taking place in the Civil War, World War I and II, and more. 8Monkey Labs uses their new game engine, Marmoset, in Darkest of Days to make it possible to fight on screen with hundreds of non playable characters on the screen at the same time in very large and incredibly detailed environments.

Praise: The ability for futuristic weapons to have an impact on the outcome of future missions is a very welcome feature in this title, mainly because if you are on a killing spree with a weapon from the future, you are sent back to the same time period to fight for the opposing side to even the score. The graphics stayed very detailed with everything going on from the large number of soldiers on the screen at one time to all the action taking place at once. Controls are solid and stick to FPS controls found in other games and has a reloading process, where the player needs to hit reload again at just the right time or you will be caught in the middle of a firefight with a jammed weapon.

Gripes: There is slowdown at times in the heat of battle, which I did not encounter too often but was hard to miss when it did happen. Also, the voice acting is far from Oscar worthy by the non playable characters that play a large role throughout the story in Darkest of Days. Lastly, the gameplay is fairly simple without adding to the other FPS titles available, while there is no online multiplayer, and the story is also rather linear without much replay value after playing through.

Overall, Darkest of Days is a fun game to play through and has a fresh storyline that keeps you playing to see exactly how intense the battlefields can get along with what new futuristic weapons will become available to ease wiping out the opposition. Though it lacks some elements that can help with replay value and only provides thirteen achievements, rather than the typical fifty seen on other titles, it does not feel like a chore to complete the game, unlike some others titles once you get about halfway through.

Mashbuttons.com gives Darkest of Days a 7 out of 10.

Darkest of Days is available now for the Xbox 360 and PC.