In my opinion, 1991’s action/adventure film The Rocketeer is one of the most underrated movies of all time. Not only do you have a tale of Nazi intrigue amidst the backdrop of the Roaring Twenties culminating in a final battle on a rogue zepplin, but above all else the main character is a jet pack clad hero who takes to the skies as he dishes out good ol’ American justice. I’m one of those guys who is constantly wondering when he’s going to get a jet pack of his own so that he can avoid the traffic and travel via the wild blue yonder. That being said, upon hearing of Dark Void’s existence I immediately gathered as much info as I could on the project and eagerly awaited that day in which I could finally take to the skies and battle alien hordes within the confines of an inter-dimensional hole in the time/space continuum…cause that’s how I roll.

Capcom’s jet fueled third person action/adventure shooter is scheduled to be released on the 19th, so it’s only fitting that the developers at Airtight Games release a demo to get everybody’s joysticks all aflutter. As the tale goes, humanity used to serve under the heels of the advanced Watchers, an alien race that ruled through a combination of fear and highly advanced technology. At some point in our past, humanity rose up and defeated the Watchers by banishing them to the space between dimensions, known as the Void. Hundreds of years later, a lone cargo pilot and his female love interest soar straight through the Bermuda Triangle and crash land in the Void, where they meet a group of stranded humans lead by infamous scientist Nikola Tesla. Some dramatic plot development happens, and our pilot gets his hands on a modified alien jet pack and takes to the skies to rescue the humans from this hell and send the Watchers packing once and for all.

So, they have a pretty decent story, but what about gameplay? Dark Void is a blend between Gears of War styled ground gun play and the fast paced aerial dogfights of Crimson Skies. The demo has players donning the jet pack for the very first time, and firing the thing up will nearly knock players out of the skies before they have a chance to  save anybody. You can just barely control the device, which makes sense considering this will be your first time ever laying eyes on the thing. The control mechanisms take a little getting used to with the analogue sticks controlling your pitch and yaw while other buttons will slow you down, speed you up or initiate a hover mode. Pressing down on the sticks and turning them horizontal or vertical will initiate up/down barrel  rolls to reverse your direction or side-to-side rolls handy when dodging enemy fire. It’s all very intimidating at first, but after some practice you really start to feel like king of the skies.

You are issued some simple missions to destroy enemy communications towers and a lone turret before Watcher saucers (as in UFO’s) peal in to make your life a little bit more interesting. Now, you can choose to handle these baddies a few different ways. Thanks to Tesla, your jet pack is fitted with machine guns which you can fire via line-of-sight. Simply chase down your enemies, do some loop-de-loops and blow them out of the sky. If you manage to get close enough to the erratically whirling saucers you can also choose to initiate a hijack mini-game, wherein you clamp onto the ship and dodge enemy laser blasts as you sabotage systems to force the pilot out of the cockpit. This in turn triggers a tried and true quick time event where you waggle the control stick and proceed to viciously bash the enemy’s head in. Looks cool in practice, but the movements don’t really translate to the action on screen, leaving you with little sense of control or even satisfaction.

Players can then take over the UFO and shoot down the rest of the unfriendlies or ditch the ride and try the same tactic on the others. After all of the saucers are down, you are then ordered to switch to ground based combat in order to destroy a shield array. The jet pack is key to the instant transition from ground based warfare to high flying aerobatics, and that transition is seamless. Go into hover, pick off the enemies from above and then take out the stragglers on foot with cover-based combat. All of the foot stuff is pretty cut and dry, not nearly as addictive or engaging to me as the flight. Melees are sort of cool (quick times again though), while there was no tutorial explaining how to reload, swap weapons or use grenades which lead to some humorous deaths. I can see the terrain based combat getting kind of old after a while, but only because nothing really new comes into play. They do third person shooting really well, but there’s no creative flair to it when compared to all the options you have when flying.

This also leads me to my biggest qualm; polish. The visuals in Dark Void are good, but definitely no anything to write home about. The AI was suitably challenging but enemies got stuck in some walls while toggling the camera caused some frame and graphic issues to pop up occasionally. None of these were deal breakers for me, but I can only hope that the finished product has some more shine to it. One thing that really impressed me was the music, which shouldn’t be a shock since Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary is writing the score. There’s some great themes and battle music at play here, and this may be a soundtrack I’ll be picking up after playing through the story.

So, with a play through of the demo I think Dark Void is actually shaping up to be something pretty special. The aerial combat is a dream, and perhaps the developers have some nice surprised in store for the grounded stuff. I definitely encourage you to try out the demo and give it a whirl, if not for that first feeling of awe when you fire up the pack and just take off  in a whirl of limbs and flame.