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Cowboys Meet Vampires and The Best Auto Save Feature EVER!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 22, 2005
Author: Amazon User

In Darkwatch you are Jericho Cross. A hybrid between vampire horror and Western shoot-em up. If you're looking for a first person shooter, Darkwatch is the game fore you.

Capcom offers intense gameplay and presents a original excellent presentation of new characters.

It's refreshing to see a first person shooter with a theme that isn't played out which makes it well worth checking out.

Jericho Cross hardly does the talking. Others speak for him while he jumps and robs trains.

By mistake you release the soul of Satan's son, Lazarus, who curses you to a vampire. He unleashes his undead minions to plague the old west.

The only organization that can stop him is a secret army called the Darkwatch. Cassidy, one of the army's "regulators" witnesses what you did on the train. You'll spend the beginning of the game by her side, as she leads you back to the safety of Darkwatch. You begin to understand the new powers you have as a vampire.

You'll of course have access to a variety of different weapons, ranging from pistols and rifles to my personal favorite the exploding crossbow and a rocket launcher.

Each gun offers different strengths and weaknesses, and each one is fun to use in its own way. Since the enemies in Darkwatch take location-based damage, it's possible to blow off the heads and limbs of most enemies with the more powerful guns.

Each gun also offers you a powerful melee attack, and the weaker enemies in the game will actually go down with just one satisfying strike.

The power of these attacks and pacing of the gameplay make melee a viable option, particularly in caves or other close-quarters areas. You'll also have access to dynamite that you can throw, which serves the same role as a grenade.

Stationary turrets are also sprinkled throughout the later levels. Cross can carry only two weapons at a time, so you'll often need to make important tactical decisions about which guns you want to pick up and drop as you make your way through each of the game's single-player missions.

It all adds up to fast-paced, eye catching gameplay that will keep you entertained throughout Darkwatch's single-player missions.

Your vampire powers will become the key to staying alive even though your undead. Which seems like a plot loop hole at first but once you realize that he quickly regenerates his health, I'm sure I won't find you complaing about this when 20 skeletons come running at you with TNT or butcher knives.

One of my personal favorate powers is the double-jump! You basically feel like you can fly and control your direction in midair, which is useful for getting up on rooftops or jumping from steep ledge to ledge. Don't worry, there isn't any real platforming neccessary in the game. Another vampire-related power is the blood shield, which acts more or less like the shield in Halo.

You'll love your blood shield and then get back behind cover and let it recharge before taking damage.

Blood vision is another Vamp Power that will allow you to see the weapon pick ups and power-ups by highlighting the screen.

Enemies leave behind blood clouds that not only increase your health and powers but follow you when you get near.

This makes the BEST Auto health restore and Save feature in any game I have seen to date. No only does it replenish your health but it also charges up a special power meter, which lets you unleash your special vampire powers once full.

There are eight total of these special powers in the game, four that are "good" and four that are "evil". These unlock throughout the campaign as you come across innocent victims who've been cursed by Lazarus.

One cool feature is that you choose to cleanse their souls "GOOD" or devour them for your own selfish pleasure "BAD".

As you make choices, you build a reputation as either good or evil. So you're encouraged to stick with one side until you've maxed out your powers then start choosing the other.

This aspect of the game probably sounds more interesting than it actually is, as the choices you make don't really affect the story, aside from one major choice you make toward the end that determines which one of the two different endings you'll see.

The single-player campaign of Darkwatch is varied, but definitely not lengthy. A single play-through shouldn't take more than 10 hours for most people (FIVE for me personally) and even if you went back to the mission that branches the storyline and replayed from there to see the second ending, it would only add about an hour or two more to your gameplay time. The good news is that while the game is short, it's pretty fun while it lasts. There's a good variety of monsters to fight against, ranging from scythe- and gun-wielding skeletons and zombies, to banshees that float around high in the air, to blood-spitting demons. These repeat throughout the game.

The endgame boss fights are also fairly challenging, but not overly frustrating, as the midpoint of each fight acts as a checkpoint.

Darkwatch's enemies offer no rest for the weary.
Speaking of checkpoints, Darkwatch's missions include a liberal amount of them, which is good as it helps keep the action flowing. The designers also did a good job of keeping the actual missions varied. A couple of missions have you fighting on horseback, including one where you must eventually try to jump onto a train. Another mission has you driving a heavily armed buggy, which lets you run over lots of skeletons, a la Army of Darkness. Yet another is set in daylight, where your vampire powers are useless. This is a particularly intense level, as you desperately fight from shadow to shadow in order to maintain your shield and other abilities.

Darkwatch's presentation values match the excellence of its gameplay. The graphical style has a very comic book feel to it, with the slightly exaggerated proportions of Cross and the other Darkwatch team members. The other character models in the game are well detailed and animate nicely. Perhaps one of the nicest touches is the location-based damage. There's nothing in the game quite as satisfying as seeing the bad guys literally come apart from the limbs. That is, unless you prefer the fun rag-doll effects from dynamite and TNT explosions. The generous number of cutscenes advances the story between most of the missions, and as for any graphical differences between the two versions of the game, there really aren't any. Both the PS2 and Xbox games look near-on identical, so you're not missing much graphically if you go with one version or the other. The game's sound quality is also very good, with kitschy Western tunes as the soundtrack, and impactful sound effects punctuating every explosion and gunshot. Though Cross oddly never utters a single word throughout the game, the extensive voice work for the other characters is noteworthy. Video game veteran Jennifer Hale voices your guide, Cassidy, and Charmed vixen Rose McGowan lends her voice to Tala, who plays your sultry sidekick later in the game.

The game's visuals offer up a delightfully dark atmosphere.
Unfortunately, it seems that the work that went into creating such a compelling single- player campaign in Darkwatch was not matched for the multiplayer aspect. The game offers online competitive play for up to 16 players over Xbox Live, as well as split-screen action for offline play (which is the only multiplayer you can get on the PlayStation 2). There is a solid selection of maps, based on levels from the single-player game, as well as original ones designed specifically for multiplayer. Only a small handful of game modes are offered, which include your usual deathmatch, team deathmatch, and capture the flag, rendering the multiplayer aspect of the game much like any other first person shooter. You're pretty much just running about looking for the best weapons to blow away your other enemies who are also running down the weapon spawns. The only unique game mode is something called soul hunter, where players run about the map collecting blood in order to fill their blood meter before the other players do. None of these modes are especially great, so if you are looking for a game specifically for the multiplayer action, you may want to give pause before you consider Darkwatch.

Despite the lack of satisfying multiplayer, Darkwatch's enjoyable single-player campaign and satisfying run-and-gun action make it an appealing shooter that's easy to recommend. The game's excellent presentation and unique style should also make it attractive for action fans seeking a shooter that doesn't rely on one of the tried-and-true settings, but still offers excellent action.

Adds style and panache to a genre that's been shot to death

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I first saw Darkwatch at an electronics convention in New York City and immediately fell in love.

After completing the single-player campaign in Halo 2, I shifted gears to Darkwatch. Where Halo is basically every military science fiction trope (Starship Troopers, Aliens, Predator, Space: Above and Beyond, and Battlestar Galactica to name a few), Darkwatch sets out to create its own genre. And that genre is Wild West Horror.

Darkwatch draws on two sources for inspiration: Deadlands, the pen-and-paper role-playing game, and Pale Rider, a Clint Eastwood Western. Deadlands first combined Victorian gothic horror with Wild West sensibilities, creating a wacky combination of gore and grit. Pale Rider established the notion of a supernatural hero in a Wild West setting. The Darkwatch is a secret organization similar to the one depicted in Van Helsing with access to advanced technology dedicated to keeping supernatural villains under control.

Darkwatch follows the twisted life and death of Jericho Cross, a train robber who decides to rob the wrong train. He unwittingly unleashes Lazarus, an ancient vampire, and thus brings about hell on Earth. For reasons we don't ever fully understand, Lazarus turns Jericho into a vampire. And thus, Jericho has all the cool traits of a vampire, from drinking blood to "blood vision" that allows him to pick out living auras.

What ensues is a visceral shoot-em-up. You can shoot enemies heads off their bodies with a six-gun (called a Redeemer), blow off their limbs with shotguns, and even mow them down with Gatling guns. You can also use a scope rifle similar to the one used in Halo. Did I mention the "rail rocket" AKA bazooka? The game even has a Coyote, similar to the Warthog from Halo. Unfortunately, I didn't read the instructions closely enough; there's a "chieftain" setting on the controller to make Darkwatch's controls match up with Halo's. Which would have helped, as my subsequent Halo games have suffered from playing Darkwatch so much!

Need more parallels to Halo? Instead of the artificial intelligence known as Cortana we have Cassidy Sharp whispering ghostly advice. Jericho has a "blood shield" just like the energy shield in Halo that slowly replenishes. And instead of fragmentation grenades, Jericho throws dynamite...with predictable results. There are even dual pistols that fire in a glorious cacophony at close-range enemies. You can also elbow critters with your ranged weapons, although they're considerably more deadly since in Darkwatch every gun has a blade on the handle. Just `cause it looks cool.

Darkwatch is all about shooting things up. Bottles explode. Bad guys snipe at you from everywhere. And you can fan your pistol, firing at ridiculous speeds. You run and jump across cactus-studded canyons, burning towns, dripping caverns, moving trains, and on horseback. Even the music is reminiscent of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. In short, Darkwatch is most definitely a homage, if a twisted homage, to the Wild West genre it riffs on.

Being a veteran Halo player, I decided to play Darkwatch on the harder setting (Shootist) and I'm glad I did. The game goes by quickly. In addition, the bad guys are repetitive; it suffers from the Diablo-esque tactic of reusing the same enemy model by tweaking it slightly: they're not just evil skeletons, they're SHIMMERY evil skeletons, with twice the EVILNESS! Still, that doesn't keep the aforementioned Reapers from being alternately scary and hilarious. Blowing Reapers' heads off causes them to stumble around in confusion looking for their heads; throwing dynamite causes Reapers to cover their heads and running screaming. And since Reapers lack a lower jaw, they're pretty freaky critters.

Then there are the screaming Banshees that are fond of taunting you. "Run!" they whisper as you run away, or "Dynamite!" when you throw dynamite or my most favorite quote of all, "MY ARM!" after blowing off one of their arms.

In theory, there's a bit of a role-playing element as Jericho whether he wants to reject his vampire/criminal heritage or embrace it. Poor souls, sometimes dead and sometimes living, give Jericho an opportunity to prove his moral character. These choices provide access to good or evil powers, neither of which have a very significant impact on the game.

The single-player storyline is barely coherent and surprisingly adult. There's a video titled Prom Night that will undoubtedly get a lot of replay by male players (my wife thought it was ridiculous). The ending is very abrupt, but I've gotten used to that with games these days.

The multiplayer is excellent; the blood vision power becomes much more important when picking out an intelligent enemy from a distance. The ability to jump really far changes game play, even more than it does in Halo. The multiplayer games can be played with vampire powers turned off, turning it into a traditional Wild West shootout.

Darkwatch doesn't break any new ground as a first-person shooter, but it definitely adds style and panache to a genre that's been shot to death. Playing on hard, I felt I got my money's worth.

capcom comes out with another great game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: August 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Darkwatch is an unbelievable game. The game is so good, I hope they defenitley come out with another one in the future. The first thing I'm gunna tell you about is the story line.....
Welcome to the Wild West, circa 1876. You are Jericho Cross, seasoned outlaw. Looking for a big score, you raid a secret treasure train. Unknown to you, this train belongs to the Darkwatch, an ancient organization committed to defeating supernatural evils. The cargo of this train is not money or jewels, but a captured vampire lord being transported to the Darkwatch citadel for interrogation. You blow open what you think is the treasure vault on the train, only to release the oldest and most powerful creature of its kind. Perhaps from perverse gratitude, this vampire doesn't kill you. He just bites you, so you slowly turn into a vampire yourself. With growing supernatural powers, you hunt Lazuras , the vampire that bit you. If you gun him down before the curse overcomes you completely, you might win back your soul. If you fail, you will be damned to walk the earth as a vampire, having condemned the West to despair under the rule of evil incarnate.

The gameplay is great. It is a first person shooter and there are great weapons. Ther is the redeemer revolver which has a knife on the bottom of the handle. On all the weapons is a melee weapon that you can use. There are the warmaker pistols which have blades on the handles. There is the blackfish carbine which is like a rifle, it is probly one of my favorites, just seeing the monsters blow back when u pell the trigger. There is the carson range rifle which is a sniper rifle and you can zoom in two times with it. It has a crzy sword on the edge of it. The game also has the shotgun, the FOUR BARREL SHOTGUN. it is so powerful close up and it also has a curved knife. There is also a crossbow which when u shoot an arrow into a monster is blows up, there is dinamite on each of the arrows. There are two swords that come out of the front which you can upercut people. There is also the rocket launcher and it is intense and it has a big hammer on one side of it. You can also get dinamite to throw and sometimes in the game you get to use the scepter which is a sword croiss thing. There is also turrets you can use. The game also has vehicles, there is a darkwatch vehicle which has a gun turret on tope and you use it for various missions, there is also your vampire hporse which you bit during the train incident. The character you are, Jericho Cross, is so cool, if you havn't seen him you have to see him. There is also a whole bunch of enemies in the game so you wont be bored of killeing the same things. After you do some levels you get to join the Darkwatch and then you get to have guys come with you to help you do the missions and you get to choose missions that the darkwatch need to do and you can get guns and ammo from the darkwatch before you start the mission. There is also multiplayer and xbox live where you can verse other people in a gun battle. You can create games and levels to battle in.
Darkwatch is one of the best games I have played this year. I defenitley recommend you getting it. [...] So get this game.

Excellent Multiplayer

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Id recommend this game for anybody with an xbox live account but if you dont have xbox live you might want to think about renting it first. How about you come up with your own review instead of ripping it off from gamespot only to change a word or two here and there and taking all the credit for it though S. Areias "secretbuyer"?? There's a word for what you just did and it's called plagiarism.

duh

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 7
Date: September 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

why are you people all harping on the fact that this game is for mature people? A LOT OF GAMES ARE FOR MATURE PEOPLE! evil dead. mortal kombat. GTA. halo. breakdown. about 75 % 0f all video games are intended for adults! it is stupid to note a specific game as being for mature gamers just because it involves decapitation. a lot of them do!

Wow! Originality Like You Read About!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

What a simply tremendous FPS with a completely original take on the genre. I don't need to explain the backstory, it's well explained in the game. The weapons are very satisfying, explosions are great too. The act of "flying" is seamless and enjoyable. The "scary" parts of the game are legitimate pants-wetters. 5 stars top to bottom. If you're tired of other FPS's, give this original one a try. Great game at a great price now. Environments are truly spectacular and immersive and the hard-working music score complements gameplay nicely. Even though this game was released awhile ago, it holds up great and is worth return trips to this addictive universe! Plus, any game that gives Rose McGowan any voice-over work is high on my list anyways!
My only problem is that the multiplayer maps are freakin enormous and not really playable as a 2-to-4 player deathmatch. Other that that, this is a true keeper for the XBox FPS enthusiast!

Dark Watch Rocks!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: August 31, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Darkwatch is a Vampire Western. This game is not for everyone. In particular it is not for young children. However, if you are an adult who like First Person shooters then you should seriously consider this game.
The game is a little dark and edgy...but in my opinion this is a good thing. There is a great battle of good and evil and some cool weapons and powers. It is a Vampire-Western which to me is an awesome concept and I hope it spawns a sequel and possible other variations (time periods).
Controls: The controls are very Halo-like. If you like the controls in Halo you will like these. Enough said.
Graphics: The imagery is in one word awesome. They really did a good job. However the graphics in the end are not quite what they should have been. Don't get me wrong.... They are good, but they are not pushing the limits. I really expected this game to push things forward NOTE: This is my main negative on the game.. which should tell you that this is an awesome game.
Good vs. Evil: There are decisions to be made which lean you either good or evil. However, this really did not work out to enhance the game in my opinion. If there was more of an impact in the game play then it might have worked out. In the end this didn't seem to have a good or bad impact on my impression of the game. If there is a sequel I either would like it removed or enhanced.
Xbox vs PS2: The versions are different. XBOX by far has better graphics then PS2. Each has there own bonus material. PS2 has a War Train level and Xbox has some added Live capability.
Length: The game was a little shorter than expected.... However I had a blast playing it.
Recommendation: If you are an adult then check Dark Watch out! You will either Love it or Hate it! You can probably tell by the cover. If you like First Person shooters then you will probably love it. If you don't then you will probably hate it. I

Something a little different for me

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 19, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I liked the game when my husband bought it home for me to play i was a bit iffy at first but the more i play and got into it was the more i liked it, it was sort of different for me because of the transportation in most shooting games you always have a car put sometimes riding the horse and shooting was a bit fun for me don't know about any body else.

So by playing this game i went out and bought "GUN" and i like that game also so i mean over all i like the graphics, the storyline and the concept of Dark Watch good game to add to your collection....

Nice job capcom

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 04, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Darkwatch is a game that capcom came out with and can lean on the same way that bungi can relate to halo and halo 2. I first started playing darkwatch and found the controlls similar to that of halo and halo 2 except the meelee and the reload have swapped for this game. Very good story line to run on, cool characters, nice meelee stles with certain weapons. My favorite gun would have to be the redeemer with the shotgun as a back up weapon for when you got no more ammo. I found the hardest creatures to kill are the banshees and the fat samarai guys that spit out mudd like stuff. Fun game to play if you like halo and halo 2. I will give my score. I do score on a lot of things.

Pros:
Easy controls to learn
Fun game to play
Sweet meelee

Cons:
Too short
graphics are dissapointing for the xbox

Thats all that I got. Now the game scores that I will give

Story layout 9/10
graphics 7/10
weapons 8/10
sound 10/10 Nice job capcom
Look and feel of the game 10/10 Nice job again
Game length 6/10 Hope Darkwatch 2 will be a lot longer.
Mini mission's 9/10
Artilary vehicles 8/10
Multiplayer map size 12/10 Excellent job. Map is nice and big.
Difficulty matching gameplay 9/10
Character looks 10/10 Looks and moves like their real.

Overall score on game 9/10

very unique

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 20, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I must admit i was surprized at how good this game was. From all the prievews i saw and all the hype i figured it was just another over rated fps and the grahpics and enemies looked lame. But now that i rented this game and gave it a shot im very happy with it, they improved the grahpics and they are very good and also the enemies look uniqe and scary. This also has a very good story line with a fresh feel.The story is prety simple but good , you are an outlaw cowboy who robs trains in the west and you are very good at it until you make one big mistake and jack the wrong train,you end up releasing the original vampire and the most powerfull of them all he can resurect the dead and control them all. The only thing that saved humanity from the undead was the dark whatch for years but when Jericho releases lazarus from a train caried by dark whatch he unleashes hell on earth and he also becomes half vampire after being biten by lazarus himself.SO its your job to save the world and kill lazarus which will bring down all the other undead with him. But you will need the help of the dark whatch and also become an agent for them which is when the fun realy starts and you realy look like a bad ass. A very fun feature was the choice of good and evil for some things such as saving souls and drinking human blood, i chose mostly all the evil ways because it was funner and the evil side has beter powers to unlock through the game. SO this is just no average fps its very fun unique and has many good features and game play and also very fun online play which was a surprize. This game is not perfect tho it tends to get a litle boring at times when wave after wave of vampires come but it makes up for it later .Think of this game as a mix of red dead revolver and blade.This game is great and one of the best games to come out in a while seeing how this is a very bad time for games . So my advice rent it and have fun i wouldnt say its worth the 50 big bucks so rent it or wait a lil while till its cheaper but try it out soon because its very fun and something difrent instead of the same old fps's . TRY IT OUT NOW!!

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