Dark Review - Frightfully Awful

[@pixlman]

They got Doug Cockle to voice the main character, just to have his dialog consist mostly of "tell me more about..." TELL ME MORE ABOUT VAMPIRE SOCIETY TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE LABS TELL ME MORE ABOUT VAMPIRE POWERS Also since you didn't finish it, I'll spoil the final boss. You run around dodging a big monster until a button appears, which you press, and then you win.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

So it just *slightly* changes the boss fight formula. Seems like I'm not missing much. How about the story twist? Was I off with that or are my predictions more or less what happens?

[@pixlman]

@@CultoftheCyberSkull it's been some months since I played it so I might be missing a few details but Eric worked for this company that was making these experiments with vampires, and was supposed to infiltrate their society to find and capture the most powerful one. He then gets converted and loses his memories. People from the vampire club get kidnapped by this corporation of vampire hunters and Eric as well when he tries to rescue them. He then witnesses how they experiment on the vampire elder he wanted to find (the one he thought sired him) but obviously the experiment goes wrong and he transforms into this big dick beast which ends up being the final boss. Oh and the angel was his lady boss leading him by the nose. There's actually two endings to the game, you either leave Rose to die to kill your lady boss, who is responsible for the experiments, or you save Rose and let your boss escape. Both set up a sequel lol

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

@@pixlman Thanks for the rundown! Neat that I wasn't that far off, so that's nice to know at least. Still, it sounds so contrived and cliche. And defintely not worth the extra time to just to see it. Sorry you had to go through that pain on your own xD

[@pixlman]

@@CultoftheCyberSkull funny thing is that the final levels are the strongest ones imo since you have most of your powers and the rooms have predictable patrols and enough cover. There's even a DLC chapter that's a bit of an epilogue, with Eric looking for this bitchin' occult book but I didn't bother to play it honestly. I was introduced to this game by Zero Punctuation's video on it but still wanted to see it for myself. Playing stuff like this makes you appreciate good game design even more.

[@DaveOGames]

7:17 the VA sounds like that dude who was always trying to bone his GF on Family Guy "So I was about to bone my girlfriend down by the lake...but suddenly she yelled so I looked up and there was that Blooming sawing a guy into pieces..."

[@IanWatson]

I don't know if they fixed it for later releases (I don't see it in your gameplay here), but early gameplay shows "Vitae" in the corner. Inherent powers include "Auspex." Active powers include "Obfuscation," "Domination," "Presence" and "Celerity." Text in the gameplay trailer says "STEP INTO A WORLD OF BLOOD AND DARKNESS." They were clearly hoping they could do this as a licensed VTM game.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Oh man! I thought I was making a throwaway joke with that, but no, apparently it's real! I didn't see any of those connections in the game when I was playing it, so I had no idea those were it's roots. Man, that explains several things. Not all of them, but a few.

[@Eleven17Studios]

When Vampyr came to PS plus I was like "I think Shalashaskka has a review of that, I should go check that out before I play this." I can assure you, you're my go to when it comes to lovecrafty, occulty games

[@ghounna1585]

Another episode of Obscure games, with Shalashaskka.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

That's how I roll

[@markuswithak5084]

huh,that explains why I got this game for free on a disc in a comuter magazine

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

I'm surprised they still did that as late as 2013/14

[@markuswithak5084]

@@CultoftheCyberSkull same. I played it like a couple hours and was bored by the bland level designs and aggravated by always getting detected so I dropped it

[@ivanivanoff2759]

Interesting review. Its a shame, that developers released halfmade game. Some ideas looks great on paper, but their implementation far from perfect. Take vision and teleport for example. If combined they could be pretty much overpovered: slowing time and fast movement leaping from spot to spot, taking out several guards in matter of seconds. If implemented it should have some kind of negative effects to prevent abuse (losing humanity? long cooldown? limited number of uses? need to draw many enemies relatively close to each other to not waste ability etc.) And vision definitely needs better vision! Its too annoying and blury as it is.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

I entirely agree with everything you said. Too many cool ideas that translate terribly into a game, and the game suffers as a result. Thanks for watching!

[@Michealxlr]

Lmfao I was just thinking about this game. I stumbled across at a game shop by chance when it released and picked it up that day as it was pretty cheap and I had already bought a few more expensive games and had just enough of my allowance left for that game. I remember playing it for a week or so and finding the game extremely difficult and I lost the game disc somehow but I can’t recall. I thought about the game today (10 years later) and decided to check out this review and it’s exactly what I remember. I had been thinking maybe I just sucked at games then but looks like that’s not the case. This game is unnecessarily difficult. Now I was a kid (13) so I didn’t really understand story enough to care so I can’t say much on that but the difficulty was insane. Still great review. It was a fun watch.

[@thomaskirkness-little5809]

I watched a full playthrough of this game once. It's pretty painful in both gameplay and story.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Kudos to the guy who stuck with it all the way through, but I also can't imagine that it's a terribly interesting thing to watch lol

[@MattyStoked]

That's such a shame. On paper this game sounds excellent. Stealthy immersive sim with vampire powers? Awesome. Thanks for making this, now I know I can avoid the game 🤗

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Thank you for watching! :)

[@ScottsGameAsylum]

Even with the voice of Garret. Dark is brutally dull and i love the idea of the game in concept.

[@hideakiakio6698]

You mean geralt right? Garret is from thief.

[@lanceelopezz223]

I actually like this game. :) I finished it twice, and I finished its expansion once.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

You're way more dedicated than I am, my friend! lol

[@todomachii]

I was so excited for Dark when it was announced, and of course so disappointed when the reviews came out. At least I could "enjoy" viscerally with your video. ;) Now we can all be excited for the Masquerade 2 as there is no way in Vampire Hell that it wil bel just as disappointing, right? Right?!

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Thanks for watching! I mean...either way, a Bloodlines 2 video is going up on my channel. I'm just hoping it isn't a dumpster fire.

[@cesar9058]

Nice review of Deux Ex ;)

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Heh. Dark wishes it had even half the depth that Deus Ex did. Thanks for watching nevertheless! :)

[@Deadforge]

This was a game I always thought looked badass and continued to see bad reviews. This is a well done review and even though thebgane still looks cool I can see how it was an undercooked and half baked mess.

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback! And I agree: the game looked cool enough for me to try it out, but man, did it suck lol.

[@Deadforge]

@@CultoftheCyberSkull Which is sad because I went into this video hoping you'd have a well it os worth playing if you can get it for cheap but it's not perfect. I loved your honesty and the fact you're a big vampire fan makes it even more genuine when it turns out to be bad. Visually cool looking game bit poorly made. Thanks again for a great video and I'm excited to check out your next video tomorrow.

[@MyYodad]

I bought this game way back. Played it maybe for an hour before putting it down. I'm surprised you played it for 7 hours. Nice review by the way

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

I do what I gotta to create (what I hope is) an informative review. And thank you very much! :)

[@Stranger69in]

Lmao how u gonna create a review video without finishing the game...

[@CultoftheCyberSkull]

Watch the rest of the video and find out.