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Darkest of Days - Time travel for fun and profit
HJE-Cobra
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Anyone else heard of this game? I read an article in the July PC Gamer talking about it. It had some screenshots, too, but I can't find any online. Here's the official press release from the company's website. (Phantom EFX, apparently. Never heard of 'em.)
So the short version is that it's a FPS based on time travel.
Apparently the official www.darkestofdays.com website isn't up yet.
EDIT (1/11/08): The official website IS up now. I dunno when it came up, but probably a while ago and I didn't notice.
Now, I love me the time travel variety in which you accidentally kill your own mother and need to fix the past to save the future, but their previous titles include "Reel Deal" casino games. This is their first foray into action games... That doesn't sound terribly promising, but who knows? Maybe they'll pull it off. The concept sounds pretty interesting to me.
If you'd rather read this next part straight from PC Gamer, they probably describe it better than I can, but whatever.
In the PC Gamer, they mentioned three different scenarios... a World War I part, where you rescue a Russian soldier and inadvertantly make the German forces lose, so you come back and help the Germans to win as they were supposed to, a Civil War part, and a Pompeii part, where it doesn't matter so much what you do because it's about to be covered by a volcano. Otherwise you're supposed to be careful not to show off your awesome future weapons. There were also some screenshots of stuff, but I can't seem to locate any on the interwebs.
So anyways, that's all I had to say. Thoughts/comments?
EDIT (9/25/09): Holy shit this thread has been here over 2 years? That's pretty nuts.
The game is actually out now. It got released on 9/8/09, and I completely didn't notice.
Demo available for xbox or over here for PC...
http://www.darkestofdays.com/demo/
Overall it got pretty... uh... bad reviews. Gamespot gave it 4.5, IGN gave it 3.6
They seem to say, though, that it's got a really cool premise! Just not that strong execution. I haven't bought it yet, but I'll buy it based on the premise alone. I wanna be the Time Squad!
Phantom EFX Announces First Ever Action Title
Darkest of Days
Historical War-Based FPS Promises Exhilarating Blend of Story and Action
(Cedar Falls, IA) – May 23, 2007 – Phantom EFX, a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment titles for PC and Mac, today announced Darkest of Days, a story-rich first-person shooter and the company’s first foray into the hardcore PC game arena. Created by newly formed developer 8Monkey Labs, the game presents an intriguing story of time-travel to some of the darkest periods in the history of mankind and melds it with amazing graphics and physics powered by the developer’s proprietary Marmoset game engine.
In Darkest of Days, the action begins with the player being ripped from his period in time by a mysterious organization moments before his grisly death. In order to ensure the future of mankind, he is then tasked with the mission to travel back and forth through time – to famous, turning-point battle campaigns in world history – acting as the organization’s agent in a larger, seemingly otherworldly, battle between good and evil.
Using a combination of both futuristic and historical weapons, players will be immersed in a world where in one instant they will be fighting against the Huns in World War I and the next find themselves battling at Antietam in the U.S. Civil War. A variety of combat missions, such as stealth, artillery assaults, and sniper attacks will keep players on their toes through dozens of levels spread out over five historical time periods – all while discovering the secrets of the mysterious organization for which they have been working. Fighting on one side of the action, then sometimes coming back to fix mistakes on the opposing side gives the player a chance to experience conflicts from both sides.
“All of us at Phantom EFX and 8Monkey are dedicated to making an immersive, exciting and completely well-rounded title for our first venture into the hardcore gaming arena,” said Aaron Schurman, CEO, Phantom EFX. “We’re confident that Darkest of Days is going to exceed our expectations and absolutely blow away any fans of first-person shooters – especially those craving a deep and engrossing story to drive the action.”
About Darkest of Days
Created by newly formed development team 8Monkey Labs, Darkest of Days is a combat-based, first-person shooter (FPS) action title which takes players on a journey through time to some of the darkest days in the history of mankind. Developed with the company’s proprietary Marmoset game engine, Darkest of Days features spectacular visual effects, superb gameplay, and one of the most compelling storylines conceived for a videogame. For more information on 8Monkey Labs or Darkest of Days, go to www.DarkestofDays.com.
About Phantom EFX
Founded in 1998, Cedar Falls, IA-based Phantom EFX, Inc. is a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment titles for PC and Mac. The privately owned company’s flagship product is the popular, award-winning Reel Deal line of casino parlor games – the best selling casino games on the market. Featuring top-notch game development, a highly effective in-house production team and an unparalleled worldwide distribution system, Phantom’s expansion into the development and distribution of hardcore gaming titles is a natural evolution for the company. For more information about Phantom EFX and its products, visit the company’s website at www.phantomefx.com.
So the short version is that it's a FPS based on time travel.
Apparently the official www.darkestofdays.com website isn't up yet.
EDIT (1/11/08): The official website IS up now. I dunno when it came up, but probably a while ago and I didn't notice.
Now, I love me the time travel variety in which you accidentally kill your own mother and need to fix the past to save the future, but their previous titles include "Reel Deal" casino games. This is their first foray into action games... That doesn't sound terribly promising, but who knows? Maybe they'll pull it off. The concept sounds pretty interesting to me.
If you'd rather read this next part straight from PC Gamer, they probably describe it better than I can, but whatever.
In the PC Gamer, they mentioned three different scenarios... a World War I part, where you rescue a Russian soldier and inadvertantly make the German forces lose, so you come back and help the Germans to win as they were supposed to, a Civil War part, and a Pompeii part, where it doesn't matter so much what you do because it's about to be covered by a volcano. Otherwise you're supposed to be careful not to show off your awesome future weapons. There were also some screenshots of stuff, but I can't seem to locate any on the interwebs.
So anyways, that's all I had to say. Thoughts/comments?
EDIT (9/25/09): Holy shit this thread has been here over 2 years? That's pretty nuts.
The game is actually out now. It got released on 9/8/09, and I completely didn't notice.
Demo available for xbox or over here for PC...
http://www.darkestofdays.com/demo/
Overall it got pretty... uh... bad reviews. Gamespot gave it 4.5, IGN gave it 3.6
They seem to say, though, that it's got a really cool premise! Just not that strong execution. I haven't bought it yet, but I'll buy it based on the premise alone. I wanna be the Time Squad!
I'm just an 8-bit guy in a 32-bit world.
HJE-Cobra on
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http://pc.ign.com/articles/794/794658p1.html
Some screenshots too. (Click to go to the bigger ones on IGN.)
And a few more, too. Also some more shots of civil war cannons and farmhouses and stuff.
The article says how enemy AI will vary depending on the time period. Like the tactics soldiers would use in the Civil War era would be different from the World War I ones, and how they'll have morale, too, which means they could flee in terror. Like if you're firing futuristic auto-shotguns at terrified Pompeii citizens.
And apparently other time travelers from the future would be coming back to hunt you down, too! From the IGN article, "These fights should be pretty interesting, especially since identifying soldiers from the future won't always be easy. They're all coming back looking the same as you. They're wearing period clothing and using period weapons. Sometimes you'll only get the feeling that something is amiss while others you'll definitely know people aren't supposed to be there."
I don't know why I'm going on and on about this game. It's being made by people who make casino games! That's not promising... But time travel! I loves me the time travel.
That's like a babies toy
Am I the only person who cares about this game? Or even heard about it? I guess we don't really know terribly much about it, and the developer has an atrocious track record thus far, but still. Time travel! Go to ancient Pompeii! Those are two things have fascinated me since I was a child.
I can only hope this game turns out not-terrible. Like, TimeShift, for instance, was a decent game. It wasn't Game of the Year, but I enjoyed it well enough.
EDIT: Almost forgot to mention, RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE! I am the Thread Necromancer!
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Which can then make the game really good to you. I love playing games that I have low expectations for, because they end up 100x better than I originally thought.
I agree, I have low expectations.
But I have hope. That is the difference. I can hope this game will not suck horribly. That's all I'm really hoping for... something decent and playable.
Back to details about the game, the official website says there are five time periods. Antietam, WW1, Pompeii, and two unannounced periods. Wonder what those could be.
Also, on the "Gameplay" page, in addition to the usual stuff like "Participate in epic battles" and "use future weapons" and "fight in five time periods" and the like, they also have this cryptically listed... "SECRET Gameplay Ability Not Yet Announced".
Wtf? That's weird. Is it really so SECRET?
I'm sure it'll be something boring like bullet-time or whatever, but who knows.
Tumblr
There's a developer update here...
http://www.darkestofdays.com/news/index.php/2009/06/02/developer-update-state-of-the-union/
August 25th is actually pretty soon! Maybe I'll be able to time travel and shoot Russians or whatever and critically alter the time stream sooner than I thought!
As a side note, it has been a little over two years since I started this thread. And it's got like ten posts in it. I hope there wasn't a new thread at some point that I didn't notice.
Awesome concept, no faith in the devs.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-firearms-darkest-of/53410
So these two videos were released recently. Colour me surprised, this doesn't look half bad! I mean, just comparing it to the last video it certainly looks a hell of a lot more polished (especially animation wise) and the shooting looks a lot more solid.
Mainly though I'm just a sucker for time travelling.
Well apparently this game exists
Looks like it'll probably be pretty generic, but I am very fond of the sense of humor they've got goin' on in those videos
-BAYONET IDEAL FOR CLOSE QUARTERS COMBAT
-USED IN DEADLY VOLLEY FIRE TACTICS
-LOOK AT THIS BAYONET
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
-Is a Shotgun
Seems like a silly game.
I think any game that let's you take auto-targeting machine guns with flechette rounds to the Revolutionary War can be assumed to be somewhat silly leaning.
Silly Game CONFIRMED (still fun as fuck though).
I would love to be pleasantly surprised by a good funny game coming out of nowhere, but I must admit that my expectations are not particularly high
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
That demo just sold me a copy of the game
Everyone should try it, it's short but it definitely gets across what the design philosophy of this game is - participating in historical battles with startling accuracy before acquiring far future weaponry and fucking those primitives up the ass
I like the guy who voices Dexter, he does a good job
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I like this concept
I hope every time period is like this; you play through a portion of it on equal footing with the chrono-locals, using their own weapons, and then you get future support and wreck their shit
This is the correct answer
Also dayum the shooting is this game is nice, feels very powerful
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
It does, after you change the sensitivity, it's way too low at start. I wonder if they are going to do any multiplayer, and if so, how it'll play
i made a post to tell the devs about them, so i'm just going to copy what i said at their forums. :P
-the player handles like a quake character. if i'm just an unaugmented guy, there should be no way i can jump like that. secondly, there's no reason why the player character should feel so "loose". it makes the game feel like a mod of a sci-fi FPS- textures and environments changed, but the underpinnings of the game remain the same. add more weighty movement (mirror's edge does this well).
-the option to change overlay color is all well and good, but ALL colors are GUFFING HARD TO SEE against the environment. i don't care if it's green, orange, blue, or red - i need to see it clearly wherever i'm looking. if i'm looking at the sky and in order to see the text i need to look at the ground, that's bad design. Go with full-opacity text, and a dark outline around it. this is a basic, basic usability issue.
-maps and radar. i see you've combined them into one. it doesn't work very well. radar in games is only useful if it's available on-the-fly. an overall map of the battlefield is crazy useful, yes, but when you make me STOP MOVING ENTIRELY IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIREFIGHT just to pull out a map that takes away my ability to shoot, that's REALLY bad design. this is the future. put the radar in an ocular implant or something if you don't want it to be seen externally.
-objectives. these need to be visible on the radar as arrows, or visible as soon as they appear in the game. too often, i'd reach one objective and the next one wouldn't appear at all until i first consulted the map and got close enough. it's like you're having a fight between the map guy and the radar guy over which one actually needs to be used the most often, so you put in a crappy compromise. THE RADAR GUY IS RIGHT. you should not have to open the map to just navigate, since you're FROM THE FUTURE, and happen to have all this modern technology.
-the reloading minigame. It's gotta go. take it out. it's got no place in the game, and it only serves as a distraction from the gameplay. every single time you finish a clip, it pulls your attention away from the battlefield. in gears, that's not so bad. you've got COVER, so you can afford to take 10 seconds fiddling with your weaponry. if you're in a cornfield getting forced confederate lead fillings, you don't have time for a reloading minigame. "but that's why you can ignore it!" you say. not so. in most games, once your clip runs out, you can keep mashing down on the fire button while you reload. in this game, that just SCREWS YOU OVER EVEN MORE. horrible decision to put the reloading minigame in this title. it belongs in cover-based games, not straightforward action shooters like this.
-presentation: find someone to work on the main menu, please. your game logo and cover are ok, but the menu looks like a 90s web page.
-that "special" glow. are you telling me that with all of the physx and ambient occlusion and fancy settings that you have to make the glow around the special guys look like something out of an N64 game? please. you've got the shaders to make the time-travel spheres have that shiny effect. just look at mass effect's biotics glow to see what you need to do.
-last one best one: i'm supposed to have TWO choices of campaign in the demo, but antietam is the only option there. what the eff is up with THAT? either the demo is broken, or you've deceived a lot of players, because antietam is not even a quarter of an hour long.
the good:
-load times. what load times? this game has virtually no load times, not even for the menu, which comes up instantly. kudos on that.
-lotsa options. not all that many PC games come with options anymore. good thing this one does.
-the fog of war/immersion. there's a lot going on, there's a lot of enemies, there's a lot of confusion. it really makes the player feel that they're at that time in history.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I'd say this is because it's a demo and it's only 700MB, they used the mission where they can reuse assets
The advertising on Steam is the following: It does include those two battles, but I don't really see how a single playthrough of the demo could be stretched to two hours.
It uh
It says "hour long"
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Damn, you're right. I have no idea why I read it as two hours.
Did you go to all the checkpoints? After going to a checkpoint, there's a new one farther ahead. Check your map.
edit: ah wow I should pay attention next time
Steam ID
Worked perfectly fine, but it doesn't have any EAX or surround support as far as I can tell