Max Solid Payne... !
It goes without saying that Dark Angel combines various elements that have been part of the heritage of classic action games for some years now. Stealth action, combined with fights where kung fu and firearms are the masters, all seasoned with the now famous Matrix-style slow-motion, an effect with which you can spectacularly slow down a certain action sequence.
The game takes place in Detroit, a metropolis which is subject to a severe curfew and for this reason closed in areas monitored by the police; the latter has the purpose of maintaining order but also of finding Max and his runaway "brothers".
With the help of Logan, a very experienced hacker, we will be guided in the various game areas, but it will be thanks to Max's super-soldier skills that we will have to complete the missions; in some cases we will have the possibility to choose whether to hit enemies by surprise, perhaps from behind, rather than lower ourselves from above and then break their neck with our legs, but it will also be possible to hit from a distance with electric shocks or look for alternative ways to avoid be tracked down. To access the subsequent areas we will then have to retrieve some cards, which in any case we will obtain only after having killed the soldier who owns them and in general we can say that the possibility of choosing how to proceed is very limited. In essence, in fact, the game is reduced to a scrolling fighting game, in which it will be necessary to eliminate all the enemies in the game area in order to continue.
At dawn? ... just a few hours!
It will not take long to complete Dark Angel, also because despite the over 20 missions, once you get into the game, you will find that the faster you are to eliminate the enemies, the faster you will advance. The variations in terms of gameplay are not many and are mostly limited to the possibility of making some new movements as you progress through the game missions; new movements which, however, will not be particularly useful for the continuation of the adventure, which will continue to go on between jumps, punches, kicks and some explosions, useful for opening passages within the playing areas. Furthermore, in combat, it will be possible to see one's strength further increase, thanks to a bar placed in the lower part of the screen which, as we are hit by the enemies, will signal the accumulated anger coefficient; once the bar is at its maximum, our shots will become even more lethal.
Basically we can say that playing Dark Angel consists only in clearing an area with blows and proceeding to the next one. This is because, even when you look for a more stealth approach, you will remain disarmed by the pre-Columbian AI of your enemies and then it will become inevitable to seek physical confrontation, in order not to make the gaming experience excessively soporific.
For a few more polygons.
To what has been said must be added a technical sector which, if at a very first approach seems to keep also thanks to the discreet polygonal model of Max, it turns out instead to be made sufficiently and devoid of those characterizations that should give to the sets, always too similar, that fascinatingly dark tone. typical of the tv series. The lighting effects are fairly well cared for, but everything returns to mediocrity when you start running and fighting; the animations are in fact approximate and poorly harmonized with each other, and the enemies, as already mentioned, are decidedly stupid. Only in some very rare cases does the game become more interesting, thanks to the fact that you can perform some stunts using the walls to give yourself the push and swoop down on the enemies with spectacular flying kicks, but everything returns to normal after a few seconds.
Finally, apart from some more inspired themes than others, the music is normal thanks to the fact that they are taken from scratch from the TV series. More generally we can say that the sound, unlike the game, is adequate for a videogame of this century, with a note of merit in the spoken word which, thanks to the use of the original voice actors, is very well made.
Definitely
Taking a cue from a television series that is already not exciting in itself, and turning it into an at least decent video game, would have been a more unique than rare undertaking, and with Dark Angel we are certainly not faced with the exception that confirms the rule. The Sierra title is good only in dubbing, and this is thanks to the voice actors. For the rest, the programmers of Radical Entertainment have tried to create a modern action game, introducing elements typical of the most current productions, but have ended up creating an approximate product, which is not convincing above all due to the lack of thickness and which in fact it boils down to a boring scrolling beat 'em up, bite-free and ultimately too easy.
- PRO
- Excellent dubbing
- Easy to perform combos
- Per i fans contains an interview with Jessica Alba
- Technically below average
- Flat gameplay like a mummy's encephalogram
AGAINST
Dark Angel is a television series coming from the USA, where it was suspended due to the low audience, which a few weeks ago landed in Spain. The creator is the well-known director James Cameron (Aliens, The Abbys, Terminator, Titanic, just to name a few) and the interpreter the beautiful Jessica Alba. The story takes shape around the year 2020, in a Detroit semi-destroyed due to an electromagnetic catastrophe, which sends computers and electronic equipment of all kinds into a tailspin.
The Great Pulsation, this is the name by which this catastrophe was called, prompted the army to seek out new biological weapons, and this is where genetics comes in. a group of scientists from the multinational Manticore, decided that the time had come to create super soldiers, mixing human DNA with the feline one.
Max, this is the name of the protagonist, is one of these genetic soldiers. She fled, still a child, from the prison-institution in which she was subjected to very hard training, now she tries to find the other ten boys who, like her, managed to escape. On their trail, however, the one who is in fact at the head of the whole experiment, his goal is to find all eleven fugitives and bring them back to the Manticore, if this is not possible we can proceed with the elimination.
