NEUTRAL RECOMMENDATION.
I really wish Steam has a neutral rating for games that fall somewhere b/t Not Recommended + Recommended.

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REVIEW:

DARK is a 3rd person stealth/action game focused around vampires. Taking some cues from many other games in certain ways (such as Dishonored & Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines), DARK also tries to bring its own spin on things here with vampires; especially since this game is primarily a stealth-orientated game. In some ways (such as atmosphere + art direction), it succeeds. In other ways (such as stilted writing), it doesn't succeed. For every hit (such as Doug Cockle doing a lot of voice-acting), there's also a miss (such as almost everybody else's voice-acting).

In this game, the player is Eric Bane - who has amnesia, recently got turned into a half-vampire, and must find a vampire's blood to try to become a flood-blooded vampire. If he doesn't, things get much worse i.e. he could turn into a wild vampire and lose total control of himself. This certainly isn't even the half of the story, but I don't want to really spoil too much here.

Two things this game gets right is the atmosphere + art direction. Sure, the art is not the best-looking art, on the technical side of things. But the cel-shaded look & vibrant use of colors makes up for a lot of that. A lot of the areas do have a good amount of textures in the game-world & the direction of them look quite good. The game is absolutely loaded with atmosphere, as an easy way to get lost into world.

The Sanctuary is one of the stand-outs of this game, as this is the nightclub Eric frequently visits, loaded with stuff happening: people on the dance floor (and yes, you can join in) and people are everywhere doing things (making-out, chatting, having dialogue, having drinks, etc etc). The club just oozes cool and it feels like you really are there. Even the music played there - and any other original music played throughout the game, for that matter - sounds great + fits this vampire-themed game.

Another thing this game gets right, it's having Doug Cockle on board here, who did the voice for Geralt in the Witcher series. Cockle does the voice-acting for Eric Bane and delivers. While most of the voice-acting is all over the place, Cockle is the glue that holds the game together - always making the player want to press forward, to see what he says next and what happens next. His voice, his delivery, and everything is the best part of the voice-acting in this game. Sure, while a few other characters do a decent job (i.e. the voice-actresses for Rose + The Angel) - that pretty much is the end of that. Most of the other voice-acting in the game is all over the place.

The writing often feels like its right out of the Spiders camp of games (i.e. think Mars: War Logs). The story, writing + dialogue one moment can be dead-on and surprise you, being actually quite good. At other times, it's completely stilted, odd, and just doesn't look + sound natural at all. At some times, the game actually delivers something that feels like it is its own and is quite good; yet at other times it feels like its out of The Book Of Predictable Plot Elements, Twists + Turns 101.

If you're going to play this game, it's going to be very stealthy. This is a full-on stealth game - or else, you will likely get slaughtered. Most of your attacks and moves, especially early-on, are going to be melee moves. Early on, you're going to be basically sneaking up behind enemies and knocking them out or feeding on them. Most attacks here are one-hit kills, by the way. You gain experience points (XP) in the game, which you can use to upgrade and unlock abilties of your choosing. Later on, you might learn a few distance stealth kills and other cool moves. You can do a teleport move, which feels like it was in Dishonored. You can feed on certain enemies, which can replish your abilities - which sounds right out of Vampire: Bloodlines. One cool move (Shadow Grip) is you can grab an enemy from a distance and then slam them to the ground.

One problem here is the save system + difficulty system, which pretty much go hand-in-hand. This game is not an easy game, by any means - especially early on, when you don't have many abilities. Players should know this: that even on Easy, the game's tough. On Easy, you also get extra XP per kill and for what you do in the game-world (finding data in the game-world, doing the very few side-quests in the game, getting kills without being noticed, etc etc). On Easy, you have an unlimited number of Saves. On Normal (which should've been labeled Hard), the game only gives you 2 Saves. At some points, though - you might generate back another Save, once when you reach a certain point. Though, auto-saves (which won't cost a Save on you) are spaced-out quite a bit. While I didn't touch Hard, it's said that you cannot manually save period.

Many players will likely start on Normal (like you should, in most games). But in this game - especially for a first-time run through, you're better off going with Easy. It's unfortunate that the terms of this game when selecting difficulty are not explained up-front and out-right, unlike say other stealth games like Hitman: Absolution. Luckily, you can change the difficulty while in-game, if need be. I spent around 17 hours with game, but it probably should've been anywhere from 7-10 hours - since I began on Normal, yet somewhere in the middle of the game switched over to Easy because what was a hard game was getting insanely hard.

When it's all said and done, DARK delivers an experience that is all over the place. Its execution isn't always the best at times, yet other times it's down-right great. Sometimes certain elements deliver, yet at other times that same element doesn't. DARK is a game that I wanted to utterly love because of its cool premise of a stealth-based game with vampires + its excellent atmosphere, but it would up as a disappointment because of other things (i.e. all over the place voice-acting; some stilted dialogue + writing; and some not-so-good voice-acting).

Its consistently great art direction, atmosphere + music are worth experiencing alone, if you can find the game on sale dirt-cheap somewhere. But as it stands at its $40 MSRP currently on Steam, I can't recommend DARK at that price.

Final Grade = C-.

NEUTRAL RECOMMENDATION. I really wish Steam has a neutral rating for games that fall somewhere b/t Not Recommended + Recommended. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REVIEW: DARK is a 3rd person stealth/action game focused around vampires. Taking some cues from many other games in certain ways (such as Dishonored & Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines), DARK also tries to bring its own spin on things here with vampires; especially since this game is primarily a stealth-orientated game. In some ways (such as atmosphere + art direction), it succeeds. In other ways (such as stilted writing), it doesn't succeed. For every hit (such as Doug Cockle doing a lot of voice-acting), there's also a miss (such as almost everybody else's voice-acting). In this game, the player is Eric Bane - who has amnesia, recently got turned into a half-vampire, and must find a vampire's blood to try to become a flood-blooded vampire. If he doesn't, things get much worse i.e. he could turn into a wild vampire and lose total control of himself. This certainly isn't even the half of the story, but I don't want to really spoil too much here. Two things this game gets right is the atmosphere + art direction. Sure, the art is not the best-looking art, on the technical side of things. But the cel-shaded look & vibrant use of colors makes up for a lot of that. A lot of the areas do have a good amount of textures in the game-world & the direction of them look quite good. The game is absolutely loaded with atmosphere, as an easy way to get lost into world. The Sanctuary is one of the stand-outs of this game, as this is the nightclub Eric frequently visits, loaded with stuff happening: people on the dance floor (and yes, you can join in) and people are everywhere doing things (making-out, chatting, having dialogue, having drinks, etc etc). The club just oozes cool and it feels like you really are there. Even the music played there - and any other original music played throughout the game, for that matter - sounds great + fits this vampire-themed game. Another thing this game gets right, it's having Doug Cockle on board here, who did the voice for Geralt in the Witcher series. Cockle does the voice-acting for Eric Bane and delivers. While most of the voice-acting is all over the place, Cockle is the glue that holds the game together - always making the player want to press forward, to see what he says next and what happens next. His voice, his delivery, and everything is the best part of the voice-acting in this game. Sure, while a few other characters do a decent job (i.e. the voice-actresses for Rose + The Angel) - that pretty much is the end of that. Most of the other voice-acting in the game is all over the place. The writing often feels like its right out of the Spiders camp of games (i.e. think Mars: War Logs). The story, writing + dialogue one moment can be dead-on and surprise you, being actually quite good. At other times, it's completely stilted, odd, and just doesn't look + sound natural at all. At some times, the game actually delivers something that feels like it is its own and is quite good; yet at other times it feels like its out of The Book Of Predictable Plot Elements, Twists + Turns 101. If you're going to play this game, it's going to be very stealthy. This is a full-on stealth game - or else, you will likely get slaughtered. Most of your attacks and moves, especially early-on, are going to be melee moves. Early on, you're going to be basically sneaking up behind enemies and knocking them out or feeding on them. Most attacks here are one-hit kills, by the way. You gain experience points (XP) in the game, which you can use to upgrade and unlock abilties of your choosing. Later on, you might learn a few distance stealth kills and other cool moves. You can do a teleport move, which feels like it was in Dishonored. You can feed on certain enemies, which can replish your abilities - which sounds right out of Vampire: Bloodlines. One cool move (Shadow Grip) is you can grab an enemy from a distance and then slam them to the ground. One problem here is the save system + difficulty system, which pretty much go hand-in-hand. This game is not an easy game, by any means - especially early on, when you don't have many abilities. Players should know this: that even on Easy, the game's tough. On Easy, you also get extra XP per kill and for what you do in the game-world (finding data in the game-world, doing the very few side-quests in the game, getting kills without being noticed, etc etc). On Easy, you have an unlimited number of Saves. On Normal (which should've been labeled Hard), the game only gives you 2 Saves. At some points, though - you might generate back another Save, once when you reach a certain point. Though, auto-saves (which won't cost a Save on you) are spaced-out quite a bit. While I didn't touch Hard, it's said that you cannot manually save period. Many players will likely start on Normal (like you should, in most games). But in this game - especially for a first-time run through, you're better off going with Easy. It's unfortunate that the terms of this game when selecting difficulty are not explained up-front and out-right, unlike say other stealth games like Hitman: Absolution. Luckily, you can change the difficulty while in-game, if need be. I spent around 17 hours with game, but it probably should've been anywhere from 7-10 hours - since I began on Normal, yet somewhere in the middle of the game switched over to Easy because what was a hard game was getting insanely hard. When it's all said and done, DARK delivers an experience that is all over the place. Its execution isn't always the best at times, yet other times it's down-right great. Sometimes certain elements deliver, yet at other times that same element doesn't. DARK is a game that I wanted to utterly love because of its cool premise of a stealth-based game with vampires + its excellent atmosphere, but it would up as a disappointment because of other things (i.e. all over the place voice-acting; some stilted dialogue + writing; and some not-so-good voice-acting). Its consistently great art direction, atmosphere + music are worth experiencing alone, if you can find the game on sale dirt-cheap somewhere. But as it stands at its $40 MSRP currently on Steam, I can't recommend DARK at that price. Final Grade = C-.