Dark Void, Murky Combat.

click to biggerize

So the Dark Void demo is finally out and I have to say: I think they could have picked a better section of the game to show off. The flight combat could use some work, so having a demo that focuses almost entirely on that -- forgoing the "vertical cover system" we've heard so much about altogether -- is probably not the best first impression you want to make. On the same subject of odd choices, as talented a voice actor as Nolan North is, applying the same exact voice as Nathan Drake to a main character, William Augustus Grey, that bears a noticeable resemblance to said fortune hunter is a little distracting. But then, 360 gamers don't really have to worry about that. Hm...
Since I've mentioned the air combat already, let's get into that first. The demo tasks you with learning the basics of flight, shooting some stationary targets and taking down 3 Watcher flying saucers before moving on to some ground combat..and is quite short. Flying around and shooting at stationary targets works just fine, it's when you've got moving targets that combat gets a bit uncooperative. At all times while flying you have jetpack mounted machine guns and a crosshair to aim them with. You can press L2 to face the nearest enemy, however that only points the camera in that direction, not your character or your crosshairs. What this means is that, if your enemy's behind you, your view will be of the opposite side that your character, and thus your crosshair, is facing and you must maneuver that crosshair into view WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO SEE IT. As you've probably guessed, this can be quite disorienting. If you're not going to have a lock-on system (which I think could speed up the relatively slow pace of aerial combat, personally, but that's beside the point) your character should at least swing around to the direction the camera is facing so that the player can see what he's aiming at.
Questionable control decisions aside, the air combat looks like it could get old quite fast. Getting in close, although still far enough away to make me say "WTF?" allows the player to press Circle and latch on to the enemy flying saucer, triggering a minigame to hijack control of the vehicle. This minigame consists of the following pattern: wait for gun to charge, dodge left/right, hold circle, dodge left/right, and repeat. Occasionally the pilot will put the saucer into a corkscrew to try and shake you off, but if you manage to press Square or Triangle (whichever the onscreen prompt calls for) at least 2 or 3 times, you're not going to fall off. Since flying around and shooting down the enemy flying saucers is nowhere near as fast as hijacking and then abandoning the vehicle, this could get old fast. Which brings up another point, piloting a flying saucer is nowhere near as fun, or effective as sticking to your jetpack. But this is a demo, so I'll save my final judgment for the full game in case there's some other gameplay in store to spice up these sections.
On the ground combat is...serviceable. Those of you familiar with Nathan Drake's adventures will find a control scheme that is identical save for the reversal of the take cover and melee buttons. Speaking of melee, you can only use a melee attack if there's an enemy near enough to use it on. An interesting design choice that is nonetheless effective. I theorize that this is to prevent players from accidentally entering a melee animation that would leave them open to getting shot, but I can't say for sure. That said, I found that, in the demo at least, you could just run up to any enemy and melee them to death. They don't seem to have any type of defense against it and weren't very good at preventing me from getting close enough -- even on the "Hardcore" difficulty setting -- to use it either. As far as weapons, you can carry any two, plus grenades, (although your default weapon in the demo seemed to be the most effective overall) and switch between them by pressing any direction on the D-pad. Lastly, although I've made a few comparisons to the Uncharted games, the ground combat in Dark Void just wasn't as fast, fluid, or fun. But again, this is just a demo and I didn't get to try out the "vertical" variation.
All in all, I wasn't too impressed with the Dark Void demo, but here's to hoping the rest of the game will prove to be worthy of Geek God, Nikola Tesla.