Darkest of Days (2009)

This is one of the few PC games I've actually bought the physical disc of. The cover art of a Union soldier toting an assault rifle definitely caught my attention. Darkest of Days is a budget FPS from when every game was an FPS, the early 2000s. I'm not sure where 8monkey Games is located, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn it is based out of Eastern Europe. This game has a little of that Euro-jank feel.

To talk about the controls, they are pretty standard for an FPS, just point and shoot. You can only carry two weapons at a time. This isn't as huge a disadvantage as it was in a game like Bioshock Infinite because there's only about two or three guns in a level to pick from anyways, two rifles and a pistol. The aiming is a little touch'n'go, sometimes you can shoot enemies through the gaps in a wood fence, sometimes you can't. I also swear there were moments while ADS that I got a hit, but the game didn't register it.

Continuing on with the gameplay, the enemies are numerous and you can get overwhelmed easily. This does serve the feeling of being in grand battles well, but it means you often get shot at from every side. This is because, in a neat turn, levels are pseudo-open playgrounds, not linear corridors. I say pseudo because there is a little bit of coaxing to go certain directions. Lots of invisible walls, impassible fences, and sheer cliff faces. Still, there's lots of open spaces with objectives that you can approach from any direction. This also means you can get attacked from any direction. They also seem to have really great aim. Your health is of the regenerative variety, but it regens slowly and finding a good bit of cover to hide behind is hard because those enemies come from everywhere. After awhile, I had to knock it down to 'easy' because I keep getting overwhelmed. There was also a bug I encountered on the last level where after I died, trying to load the game made it soft crash.

The graphics for a 2009 game are fine. It's what you should expect from a budget title. The guns you handle look detailed and historically authentic. The character models are decent. I compare all these old games to The Movies. DoD models look like a bit grittier, better Movie characters. The worlds you are in look detailed as well, though the houses in the Rome level look a bit untextured. For a budget game, there is some good soundtrack moments, like a swelling score as Union soldiers storm a field.

Now, the story. The game is set around time travel. A subject that can get real screwy if you aren't careful. Luckily Darkest of Days makes it through the genre trappings relatively unscathed. There's actually a lot of neat twists DoD puts on time travel. You play as Alexander Morris, a cavalry man at the Battle of Little Bighorn (my favorite historic event in high school). Right before you bite the big one, a sci fi dude pops in and takes you through a time portal, depicted as a giant water bubble. You are dragged to the 22nd century and meet the company that invented time travel, Kronotek. You now work for them along with your new partner, Dexter. He is a NYC fireman during 9/11 where he almost died. That is an interesting fact, most games don't really touch 9/11, but it plays into why he's working for Kronotek. See, they take people from different points of history right before they are killed and declared MIA.

Dexter is a fun character, and another reason why I think this is a Euro-jank game. He is supposed to be from NYC, but he talks like he's from Texas, even wears a Western style hat. He's like the cliched version of a hard drinking, go-getting American that I could see someone from Kiev creating. Still, I kinda enjoy his little quips. My favorite, he wonders aloud if the boss will let him go camping in dinosaur times to hunt down a stegosaurus. Your character, Morris, is a silent protagonist. I've never been a huge supporter of silent player characters. I know it's to 'insert yourself into the story', but no one responds to your input. And seeing as Morris is a 'man out of time' it would've been great to have him voice acted. Having him come to grips with his new world and commenting about all the new stuff, like automatic pistols or bolt-action rifles.

As for the actual times you travel too, this game is a little light. You spend your time in two spots; the Civil War, more specifically the Battle of Antietam & WWI, more specifically the Battle of Tannenberg. This was the first game I played that had levels set in WWI. This was before Battlefield One made WWI a fashionable setting and most FPS back then always put you in the boots of a WWII GI. Really this game is a detailed playthrough of those two battles. I read that 8monkeys wanted to be historically authentic to the battles. You play through the bloody push & pull with the Union at Antietam and the hurried retreat of the Russians at Tannenberg. In both time periods you have to find men who, through timey-wimey stuff, have ended up in the wrong spot, like the Union supply clerk who finds himself on the frontlines.

There are two levels set in WWII, but they aren't the usuals you'd expect; the D-Day landing, Market Garden, or the such. The WWII levels are connected to the WWI levels. One is a sniper mission in a Nazi, snowy mountain outpost, the other is set in a German POW camp, that has a main gate that looks like you're in Auschwitz. If that's supposed to be the case, then again props for taking a risk in putting us in a unique location. You don't spend much time in either though. The last level has you running through Pompeii during it's famous destruction. It almost feels a bit odd because you've spent so much game time in two (relatively modern) wars, then you are back in antiquity times. Still seeing '09 graphics doing their best to depict the eruption of Vesuvius was pretty cool.

The first few levels in both main time periods usually see you fighting period enemies with period weapons, then the game delivers on the promise it's box art made. You get to fight period enemies with future weapons like smart guns and microwave ray guns. There's also this rival time travel agency that you fight, you fight them exclusively in Pompeii, including a bullet sponge enemy that's introduced. And 8monkey did their best to make this an air tight time travel story. You aren't trying to change history, just keep it balanced and discover the answers to mysteries. So, after all your tramping around the Civil War as a Union soldier, you go back as a Confederate to restore balance that your actions may've thrown outta whack. I'm sure if you look at it too close there's still issues, but at a surface level it makes since in a time travel sense.

All in all, I have a lot of love for the world this game creates. The time travel they describe seems like a down-to-earth, working man's time travel. You aren't causing hurricanes by stepping on butterflies. The fact you only have two periods you visit is likely a budget restraint. Had this been a bigger studio, the overarching plot that connects the Civil War & WWI would've been wrapped up sooner and we could've hit other eras. I love that this game is able to put you in Custer's Last Stand, Pompeii, and POW camp, historic events that don't show up all that often. If you are for playing a time travel game with some ideas that are strained by budget and don't mind a little bit of janky gameplay, I recommend this. I apologize all my reviews are long winded.