Darker

The Good
Darker takes place on a tidally locked planet, meaning one side is always turned towards its sun, the other is shrouded in eternal darkness. On the light side of the planet live the Halons in a mighty empire built upon solar energy. On the dark side, however, live the Delphi. Not only are they in an endless struggle to maintain their lives with the little power they can generate for themselves – now the Halon empire is invading the planet's dark side, too. The Delphi are near defenseless. As a last resort, they convert one of their Caero shuttles, usually used for transportation, into a fighter, so that you, the player, can actually confront the threat.

The story and atmosphere in this game are its absolute strong points – and it's not just window dressing, but it makes the game mechanics quite unique as well:

You fly over a big metropolis that's shrouded in (relative) darkness, only being faintly lit by streetlamp-like towers. And those are essential for flight as well, because your shuttle can't stay in flight for very long. It is vital for your survival to fly along those light towers, so you gain altitude. (This reminded me a lot of the hang glider sections in the Pilotwings games, where you need to fly over thermal columns to stay in the air.) Thankfully, your shuttle can also store five bursts of light energy – this way you can cross darker regions as well. Just hit the Enter key to get a life-saving engine thrust.

The world itself is very detailed and diverse as well. There are residential areas, factories, parks, mansions, power stations, fountains, commercial zones, mountain ridges, radio beacons, shuttle stations and more. Thank God the box of the game contains a big fold-out map poster which is divided into a grid – so you can orient yourself via the in-game radar and coordinates.

Enemies in the game consist of ground targets (moving vehicles on the streets) and air targets (shuttles and other craft). Fighting them is quite easy if you activate the standard weapon (by pressing the 1 key on the keyboard). Later in the game, there are also other weapons, but they have a serious downside (I'll explain below in the "The Bad" section).

Sound and music are used very sparsely. There is no music when you're in the game world, only your engine's hum and the noises made by the buildings in this world, like a church bell and the electric buzz of power stations. Also the vehicles' engines and weapons, of course. Music is only played in the intro, the menus, the briefing and debriefing and other cutscenes. (The game even supports Roland MT-32 though.) So why did I put this aspect in the "The Good" section? Easy: This is an absolute plus for the game! While reviews in gaming magazines back in the day ridiculed it, I do believe this perfectly accentuates the game's atmosphere. It makes the whole experience a lot more immersive.

The Bad
Reviewers back in the day universally panned this game. The German PC Player magazine gave the worst rating of all the magazines when Darker was released: a "whopping" 9/100. So why is that?

Well, apart from their negative opinion about the lack of in-game music, the low ratings can mostly be attributed to the game's overall presentation. The menus make Darker look like a low-budget shareware game, and so do its cutscenes. The developers went with an "almost FMV, but not quite" style: very short low-res videos alongside some text, and no voice acting. Worse though: The "actor" looks like someone's little brother, wearing a plain beige pullover, sitting at a desk in some badly-lit closet with some random boxes and papers in front of him. This doesn't exactly scream "You're on a strange planet".

And this in 1995? When Wing Commander 3 was all the rage? With top-notch FMVs starring Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys-Davies and Tom Wilson? In a time when Looking Glass Studios completely scrapped their previous work on Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri to turn all cutscenes into FMVs with real actors? And with Darker's retail price being the same as the "big ones" on the market? Yeah, Darker didn't stand a chance, that's for sure.

Add to this the quite challenging game mechanic of needing to fly close to lamps in order to maintain altitude, and this while battling enemy shuttles... that's just a recipe for a bad first impression.

There's one other thing that annoyed me. Later in the game you get a new weapon: a missile that can be controlled manually. In order to control that missile, you need to turn on the camera that follows the projectile to its target (by pressing the comma key on your keyboard; this is also possible with the standard weapon, though useless). The thing is though... when you fire it, the game switches to a full-screen view of the missile, which you then have to control with your shuttle's controls – while said controls ALSO steer your vehicle. Just for a short while, yes, but you're in real danger of crashing your shuttle, because all you see is the missile perspective. So I'd suggest sticking with the standard weapon, really.

Still... replaing this game nowadays is absolutely worth your time. And here's why:

The Bottom Line
Darker feels like the natural successor of Hoverforce (a.k.a. Resolution 101) and The Killing Cloud – but with that special twist of light and darkness. Roaming around this planet is really something special.

Replaying Darker today makes this game a whole lot better, because first of all, you don't have the steep retail price anymore. Second of all, it doesn't matter WHEN the game came out originally. When I replay old games nowadays, I don't care whether their graphics didn't hold up when the game was released. I don't care if Darker came out in 1995, 1999 or 1986. I just take it for what it is. Back in the day, it sure was important that a game in 1995 doesn't look like it's from 1990 or something. Today it doesn't matter anymore.

Darker is a game that really takes a bit of getting used to. Maneuvering your craft in this world is a challenge in and of itself, and you'll be well-advised to just fly a bit before taking on enemies. In later stages it can even be called what people call "Nintendo hard" these days. It's still a very enjoyable challenge though, and you do get better at it while playing.

So let me finish this review by quoting "The True Light" from the game's manual:

"The horizon's glow should not be envied. For in darkness is a lasting power, burning brighter with every generation. How weak is a light in a pale world – its glow is worthless. But the same light in blackness; how boldly it shines!"