Dark Void Zero

Some time ago, Capcom released Dark Void on the PS3/Xbox/PC, a game which I haven't played, but from what I understand is a fairly mediocre third-person shooter which uses a jetpack as its primary gimick. Lesser known is the original game which inspired the third person shooter.

The original arcade Dark Void was never released. It went unfinished and spent time in Capcom's archives until someone went rooting around for ideas for a new IP and rediscovered it. What's also cool is they also decided make an 8-bit version of the game and release it for cheap under the moniker of Dark Void Zero. That's really pretty awesome of them.

Sadly... the game sucks. There are tons of great 8-bit games, but this is not one of them. The graphics are pretty bad even for 8-bit, the music is non-existent save for a few instances of fanfare, and the gameplay's pretty bad.

You play as Rusty, some guy who works with a professor and travels to the maze-like dark dimension fighting dark creatures (which are really just guys with guns and robots). Sometimes you get a jetpack, but it can be lost pretty easily. There's five different guns in the game, but they're all pretty similar. The biggest difference is in the range they go and the damage they do, but they're all pretty much direct-fire weapons, nothing like say, Contra's spread shot.

When you pick up a weapon, it remains where you found it, so you can just go back and get it again if you lose it. Cool, right? Well, it is until you start to realize that the developers deliberately put some weapons in spots you have to pass through. so if you don't want a certain kind of gun, tough. They especially like forcing you to take the default gun. You also need certain types of guns to blast through certain types of barriers.

The enemies are... lame. Why have a different dimension if you're just going to use humanoid gunmen and robots?

Oh, and get used to collecting keycards, because that's pretty much the point every stage: find 3 key cards then get to the boss.. Cool boss fights, though.

In the end... It really doesn't have much going for it. Sure the jetpack is cool, but if you want a similar but much, MUCH better game I'd recommend Taxan's G.I. Joe.

Incidentally, Capcom acquired the rights to Taxan's G.I. Joe game engine after the company went under and made a sequel with the subtitle: The Atlantis Factor. It's not bad but I think the original is better.