PDC World Championship Darts Review

Darts is a rather strange sport when you think about it: its best players are anything but ‘sporty’ and the game itself is as simple as a game can be. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that video games simulating the ever-popular pub game haven’t been all that plentiful. In recent memory, only the fairly entertaining mini-games in Gangs on London on the PSP and 42 All-time classics on the DS come to mind. These were good for a few minutes every now and again, but they were just mini-games. I’m not sure if there has been a huge outcry amongst the Darts community, with fans demanding a proper video game of their beloved sport, but Oxygen Games certainly thought a full-blown simulation was needed.

When you consider that darts is simply the act of throwing a dart at a board, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to hear that the core gameplay in PDC World Championship Darts is incredibly simple. You can opt to play using a basic or advanced throwing system, but the core principle is exactly the same. A target on the screen is used to pin-point the position you want to hit, and then you move the right analogue stick back and forward to mimic your player’s throwing action. Just as in modern golf games, the down motion on the right analogue stick determines strength – whether the dart will hit above or below the target – and the push forward controls the accuracy, with any deviation from a straight line affecting the dart’s trajectory.

That’s pretty much all there is to the game, with the advanced throwing mode simply removing the power meter from the screen, meaning you have to rely on the action of the player’s arm to determine the strength of the throw. When you’re on for a checkout (able to score all the required points with three or less darts) the target moves around slightly, making accurate throwing more important. If you have even the slightest interest in the sport the game does become rather engrossing, especially when playing against a real-life opponent, but the simplicity of it all means that it’s never going to have the longevity of other more complex sports sims.

Darts fans will no doubt appreciate the inclusion of many of the sport’s big players (Taylor, Barneveld, Part and co) and the official PDC World Darts Championship licence, but non-hardcore fans have less to get excited about. Darts isn’t something that lends itself to numerous game modes, so, despite a decent career mode and numerous party games, unless you get a kick out of playing against the real-life pros the experience will soon become rather dull.

The fact that this game has been released is probably good enough for fans that have had to make do with mini-games in the past, but a little more work could have been put into the presentation. The licensed players all look the part and the arenas look competent, but everything is rather motionless. Each player looks like a low-polygon waxwork, appearing totally motionless until their arm moves to throw each dart, and the overall atmosphere of tournament play simply isn’t brought through into the game. Commentary is equally poor, with Sid Waddell repeating phrases far too often.

PDC Darts was made for a very specific group of gamers, and taking the other options available to darts fans into account it can be considered a small success. There’s no getting away from the game’s major flaw though: the core gameplay is so simple that it soon becomes more than a little tiresome. If you simply must play a virtual representation of darts then PDC World Championship Darts will do the job, but any casual fans pondering over a purchase should stay clear.