Dark Void Preview

Meet Will, aka, Mr Jetpack.

Of all the games Capcom showed off at Captivate 09, Dark Void left me the most confused. The jetpack dogfighter meets Gears of War descriptor sounded great in principle, and I genuinely wanted to enjoy my two hours with it, but my hands-on session amounted to little more than frustrating death after frustrating death.

The premise is this: you play a cargo pilot named Will who accidentally (although it turns out it wasn't an accident) takes a detour through the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle, as everybody knows, leads to a far away place called the Dark Void, where a mysterious robotic race called the Watchers keeps unfortunate humans subjugated as slaves. You didn't? Well now you do.

Will crash lands in a jungle, hooks up with the local rebellion, (and, incredibly, Nikola "the Father of Physics" Tesla), and attempts to spring the rest of humanity from its cage as he finds a way back to earth. After about an hour's worth of play, Will gets hold of a jetpack, which enables him to fly about dealing death from above. This is what Dark Void is all about: intense, expansive dogfights.

The Captivate 09 build on offer begins in this way. Will is flying in a canyon of sorts, weaving in and out of alien spires, along with a number of rebellion ships, towards a Watcher prison. The goal is to take out four anti-air guns so the main force can land and begin its assault. The first thing that strikes you is that the controls don't work as you'd expect them to. Played on an Xbox 360, the A button boosts, the X button brakes, the left thumb stick moves Will about in the air and aims the targeting reticule, and the right thumb stick governs rotation. At first this wrecked my third-person shooter happy brain - why isn't the right thumb stick moving the targeting reticule? There's a simple answer: because you're flying a plane, buddy.

In-air is where Dark Void is best

You're not, of course. You're flying a jetpack, but it controls like a plane. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who played any of the excellent Crimson Skies games - Dark Void is being developed by Airtight Games, founded a few years ago by ex-Microsoft staffers who worked on the series. In the air, Will's got twin turrets that protrude from his jetpack that he can fire to take down the anti-air guns. These aren't especially powerful, however. In fact, neither is Will - he's more agile and nimble than your average super tough space marine. Luckily for him he's able to toughen up, both in terms of defence and attack, by "skyjacking".

Here, when you approach one of a few Watcher crafts that Will can pilot (in the build played the only "jackable" craft was a spherical core with rotating ring), you're able to press the B button to send Will off in hot pursuit, landing on the exterior. A simple game of cat and mouse ensues: you need to attract a laser beam away from a panel by dodging, then get to the panel and hammer a face button until Will rips it off. This draws the pilot out from within the sphere core. There, waggling the left stick sees Will engage in a spot of mid-flight wrestling, which, if won, will result in him throwing the hapless victim off its own ride. The craft is now Will's to pilot, giving him extra destructive oomph.

Dark Void's hook, however, is that you're able to seamlessly transition from this in-air gameplay to on-foot cover-based shooting in the blink of an eye. Will can land on a platform, for example, enter a door then proceed through tight, alien-built corridor sections having been hundreds of feet in the air only seconds before. After dealing with the AA guns in the demo, Will's able to land on a platform where resistance forces are already engaged with the Watchers. Here the controls again confuse. Pressing the Y button turns the jetpack on, propelling Will into the air, complete with flailing arms and legs. Pressing Y again will turn it off, sending Will plummeting to the earth. I died more than once trying to land simply because I wasn't aware that you're able to whip your assault rifle out and "float" down with more traditional third-person controls by turning off the jetpack and pressing A.