On Tuesday, Sammy Studios released its unique horror/wild west first-person shooter Darkwatch, and while every copy Blockbuster had was out, my buddy was kind enough to come over with a copy and show me what I was missing.
For those of you who don’t know, Darkwatch takes place in the wild west, starring Jericho Cross, a criminal who finds himself drafted into the mysterious Darkwatch organization after a botched train robbery finds him serving as a snack for a powerful elder vampire. The experience leaves Jericho a changed man (meaning: half-man, half-vampire).
Because of this, the Darkwatch group gives Cross a job to aid them in their fight against the undead, basically to employ Jericho’s superhuman abilities so he doesn’t turn around and use them against the group. The game has you on a quest to fight the forces of the undead and, coincidently, to discover the mystery behind the Darkwatch’s origins. Naturally, this results in mucho bloodletting.
The graphics in the game look pretty darn good (especially on the XBox, no less), and there’s a heavy emphasis on style, atmosphere, and functionality. The areas you explore cover a wide range of locales and looks. You’ll see the obligatory Old West clichés on hand, such as the old town and the local church, with an undead twist, of course. So far, I’ve been able to get my hands on TNT, a shotgun and a rifle, which are all fun to blow away lumbering corpses. What’s even more fun are the vampire powers, including a Predator-style vision mode that lets you spot baddies in total darkness. Gamespot already has a review of the game up, along with more screenshots and movies from the game. Hit those up here.
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