Dark Void (PC)

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This man is not a lizard

You have to feel a bit sorry for David Icke. Once upon a time he was a popular TV presenter at the BBC; now he's regarded as a global pariah - an international object of ridicule. And why has he fallen from grace? Because he spoke the truth, that's why. Dave knows that Planet Earth is ruled by the Anunnaki - seven foot tall lizards from the planet Draco. These slippery buggers have the power to shape-shift, and they've used this skill to infiltrate every powerful corner of society. George W Bush is a reptile, as is Al Gore and Queen Elizabeth II. Even Kris Kristofferson has a penchant for dead flies, or so says Icke.

But Icke does not stand alone in this quest to spread the truth. Airtight Games has taken up the cause, and along with publisher Capcom, they're setting out to enlighten the world. The studio's first release, Dark Void, is a powerful parable about the reptilian threat. It's also a third-person shooter with a kitschy plot that features jetpacks, UFOs, and giant robot lizards (The Anunnaki have long since stopped using these in real life, as they were a bit of a giveaway).

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Dark Void itself has shown a few shape-shifting abilities during its production cycle. Both Tom and Wez have seen and written about the game before, and on each occasion little tweaks and changes have been evident. From my perspective, the most important change between the current build and the one I played at E3 is a more forgiving approach to using the jetpack. Our hero, Will Grey, is a vulnerable sack of meat, and in the past a mid-air collision would inevitably result in his instant death. Now he's far more likely to bounce off with just a minor injury. It may sound like a minor switch, but when you're hurtling through the sky, performing aerial acrobatics and duelling flying saucers, you've already got plenty to think about.

Aside from the notable shift in difficulty, the core gameplay on offer during my latest hands-on was much the same as on the previous occasion. Dark Void is a blend of Gears of War-style shooting and arcade aerial combat, and most of the time you'll be able to shift between these two styles at will. With only two months before the game's final release, we're now getting a sense of how these elements will fit together, with large, open "bowl-shaped" levels that allow the player plenty of room to zip around. In the early stages of the game players will be limited to a short-range hover pack, but once you acquire the jetpack you'll be free to take to the skies whenever you like. If you're in the middle of a firefight and you're taking too many hits, you'll be able to launch yourself into the heavens; once you've recharged your health, you can either return to the fray or use your 'pack to launch a swooping attack on your foes.

Of course, you'll eventually face enemies that can pursue you into the air - a turning point that senior producer Morgan Gray calls "The Oh Shit Moment" - but until this happens, the skies are the backbone of your offensive strategies. The game as a whole is a linear experience, but within each mission the idea is to give the player plenty of tactical options to use. Gray himself was on hand yesterday to demonstrate a few of these to me, via a mission that takes place in the middle of the campaign - roughly eight to ten hours into the action. By this point the human resistance is attempting to flee the Bermuda Triangle in The Ark - a giant ship called built by Nikola Tesla - unfortunately The Watchers have other ideas. The Watchers are more or less the same sneaky reptiles that Icke tried to warn us about: they used to rule the planet many years ago, until the humans rose up and banished them to the shadowy dimension (i.e. the Dark Void) that exists inside the Bermuda Triangle.

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