Earlier this week, I posted a blog lamenting the lack of playable game demos of recent PC games. Almost as if to answer my call to action, the very next day I was on gamershell.com searching for any game demos that looked interesting, and i came across 8monkey Labs’ creation “Darkest of Days.” The game is published by Phantom EFX, and was released September 8th, 2009. After downloading the demo (a 783mb zip file for those curious) from gamershell, I installed and played through it today, and I was impressed. Needless to say, after playing the game demo, I now know for sure what I’m spending my writing money on :). Without the demo; however, I doubt I would have purchased the game. Now that I’ve played through the demo, and gained a better understanding of how the game plays (I do have some issues with small aspects), and been hooked by the story (what happens!? No… wait, I want to find out for myself! :) ) I’m buying it :).
This makes me wonder what other opportunities and good games I’ve missed out on due to the lack of a (PC) demo.
(Which, brings me to an aside… if we PC gamers are getting the short end of the stick with many PC games being console ports, I think the least we deserve for having to put up with the spawn from the lowest-common-denominator-in-gaming-good-ness is a demo :P lol)
But back to what i was saying (I do apologize, I’ll try to stay on topic from here on out :P)
On the other hand, I’m willing to bet only a handful of titles (if that) would have been worth the money while most of the games I’ve looked at and passed up (due to lack of a demo) would have been “duds.”
Now, would those few titles be worth wading through the not-worthwhile games ideally? Yes, but unfortunately, I’m not made of money :P.
Darkest of Days is available on steam for 10% off, as well as the official demo, which I encourage you to check out :). The instructions for those PC newbies (I say that in a friendly manner, the PC gaming arena, in my opinion, should be welcoming any newcomers :) ) on how to get Steam games can be found here. Simply search for Darkest of Days instead of Left4Dead in the search box :). (Disclaimer: That is an article written by me.) If there is truly a need for a new article on that specific game, I will write one; however, it truly is simple enough to substitute the new search term :).
The demo starts off with your character being in a battle against Native Americans. You follow your NPC buddy to a large hill where you and your fellow soldiers make a “last stand” of sorts. Your position begins to be overrun. Suddenly a huge ball of… well it’s a “big honkin’ time bubble” (lol) as my friend Dylan would say if we were back in that century… appears out of nowhere, and you are “rescued” (I use parentheses because it’s a rather lose definition of the word, you're being put to work as soon as you step out of the time bubble by some mysterious futuristic woman who apparently doesn’t take “no thanks” for an answer ;P).
After this “rescue” (lol), you are put through a typical training course (typical in that many games employ such a scenario), where you learn to use various weaponry.
Speaking of which, If anyone is able to get the artillery gun to aim correctly, I’d be interested in knowing how :p :).
The Artillery gun in the Darkest of Days Training
But using the guns of the current century is not the only, nor the greatest, aspect of the game! Rather, being able to bring futuristic weapons (from that century's perspective) to bear against the “primitive” people of the past brings out a certain evil glee from this writer and gamer :P.
I kid, but seriously, it’s a “unique strategic advantage” to say the least ;P.
Something tells me this is not going to end well… for them anyways :P
Case In Point:
Single shot musket versus automatic assalt rifle…
Sometimes, sheer enemy numbers do outweigh the weapon advantage of your character.
You field of vision is reduced as you are wounded.
Let’s just say they got lucky (and I was not helped by the fact that I was trying to multitask at the time :P).
The game then takes a drastic turn. I won’t ruin it for you; however, let’s just say you are not the only one with advanced weaponry and a “big honkin’ time bubble!”
I mentioned there were a couple small issues I have with the game. The first issue, I alluded to above. The artillery gun in the training mission is buggy, and I was unable to hit the target (it was either over-shoot or under-shoot the target even thou i barely moved the mouse). I would guess this is a bug, and will be patched out. Therefore, moving on to the next issue. I am unsure (yet) whether this was simply a demo aspect, or if the behavior will be replicated in the full game; however, during the first real mission (the mission after the training course in the demo), when your character is moving through the cornfield the player controls are taken over. Your character has to move forward with the compliment of soldiers. Mouse look is still enabled, as well as your weapon; however, your movement is out of your control. I did not like feeling out of control in the literal sense. I would have rather been in control, it would have built up more suspense (imo) if I had been the one pressing onward towards the enemy. That it was forced, took away the fun for me. The last issue is the graphics, which are somewhat dated, and some gamers may find this a major issue. I bring it up now to prepare these gamers not to have too high of expectations for this game. That is not to say that the graphics are bad. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm simply stating that this game isn't Crysis, and in many ways that's even a good thing :).
Now that you've heard my take on the game, I’m off to buy it from steam. I encourage you to check out the demo for yourself!
Props to 8monkeylabs and Phantom EFX for releasing a demo! Keep up the good work!
I’d like to revisit what I was saying earlier, and to wrap this blog post up. I think it’s obvious that I am a hands-on sort of person, and I like it when I’m given a game demo to help sell me on the game. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. So take note game developers and publishers: game demos work! The plot twist used by many writers… where “what we never knew we always wanted was right in front of us the whole time” is quite fitting here. I think game publishers need to come to this realization quickly. They (game developers and publishers) want the cure to piracy, yet more and more they are not realizing that the cure is right in front of them, and has been the whole time. Game demos are your cure to piracy!
There was still piracy when many game publishers released demos years ago, and there still will be. However, those relatively few cases shouldn’t be considered “lost sales” as it is (unfortunately) obvious that small number of gamers were never going to buy the game, regardless. But, there are a lot of lost sales to indecisive consumers like myself who are missing out on good games!
So, PC gaming industry, wake up, start focusing on your roots, and your most-loyal consumer market, produce innovate games, don’t abandon PC exclusives completely, and, please, release demos! :)
Okay, that wraps this post up. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comment field below. Thanks for reading!
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