Time travel and its manipulation are hardly the most innovative topics for video games -or any sort of interactive media, and coupled with a first-time developer and their equally-neoteric proprietary engine, it might easily spell critical and commercial armageddon. 8monkey Labs is situated in Cedar Falls, Iowa, home to the University of Northern Iowa and not much else; luckily, small towns and low populations mean little when it comes to great ideas and a captivating gaming experience. And that’s precisely what Darkest of Days is. While not without fault, the game’s quiet release, engaging firefights, and unique concepts mold together to form something well worth your money and time.

Darkest of Days debuts with its main character, Alexander Morris, fending off waves of Native American combatants from a hilltop perch. The game provides no background, instead commencing the action outright -a welcome alternative to a bombardment of dull and meaningless introductory cutscenes. It swiftly becomes evident the character is a soldier under General George Custer and this particular engagement is Little Bighorn. After several minutes of aimless gunplay, Morris is struck by a haphazardly-chucked and falls on his back, firing away until Custer [finally] dies (admittedly, this sequence attempts much more than it accomplishes -and it drags more than my explanation). At this point, the game really kicks off when an armor-coated and bemasked soldier, brandishing a powerful-looking machine gun, emerges from a glowing and pulsating balloon-shaped portal and drags Morris within, conveniently zipping him to the future before his untimely death.

Morris is confronted first by an intrusive analyzation machine (Assassin’s Creed? not quite) and subsequently introduced to a voice and set of eyeballs (hints of GLaDOS are strong). It is revealed that this organization, aptly titled KronoteK (8monkleys’ Inventive Naming Machine was clearly burnt out at this point), has discovered the ability to send agents back into history and reimagine certain events. After a brief and mostly-unnecessary tutorial, Mother -the eyeballs and voice- tasks you with seeking either Joseph Welsh or Captain Petrovich who are located in the midst of the American Civil War and the First World War respectively.

Unfortunately, Morris never questions his circumstances. He’s been yanked from the brink of death in the 1870s to an indistinct point in the future, surrounded by computers, machine guns, and time travel. At no point does he ask what any technology is (or does), nor do any of the scant characters provide background. Somehow, Morris is commando-proficient at sharpshooting, manning stationary cannon, and generally personifying Rambo on whichever enemies he’s unleashed against. Yet, if he were this good of a soldier, he wouldn’t have been close to death at Bighorn…. Alas, Darkest of Days is a first-person shooter, and the cliche that stories and complex thought are above this genre is once again reinforced.

Thankfully and unsurprisingly, the Civil War is Darkest of Days‘ strongest aspect and it’s here that every design choice and engine element is showcased to excellence. 8monkey Labs’ proprietary Marmoset engine was constructed from the ground up with the intention of animating and controlling hundreds of combatants on-screen simultaneously. What better arena to exhibit this ability than the pitched battlefields of Antietam. General military strategies of this time period commanded that each army line into formation opposite one another, aim, and in the words of Russell Crowe: “unleash Hell.” At first, Darkest of Days locks into this formation and only permits you to aim and fire single-shot rifles at the “greybacks” -which is an absolute joy to experience; no other game in personal memory has accurately portrayed the horrors and thrills of this variety of tactic-less warfare.

From the 1860s, Darkest of Days progresses to the Great War and the elements which previously upheld the game begin to teeter on the brink of shallowness. Quite simply, large-scale battles are gone and it’s just not as fun to shoot at Germans over and over again. That’s not to say these levels are bad -they aren’t. Obviously World War One has hardly been portrayed in video games, but for good reason: it isn’t that exciting. The tanks were slow, the aircraft were flimsy, the guns broke half the time, and trench warfare is more dull than watching the U.S. Open.

And then it’s on to World War Two, which features one excellent concept amidst a few traditional and trite go-arounds. Here, you are captured by the Nazis and tossed onto a train bound for a nameless concentration camp, replete with the stylish striped pajamas (ten points for the correct movie reference). One prison break later, and you’re whisked off again.

The Marmoset engine is certainly powerful enough to display an abundance of non-player characters fighting across vast battlefields, but from a purely-visual standpoint it falls well short of other, contemporary outings. Technical graphics are average, from lighting to PhysX usage and incorporating basic implementations of every standard bell and whistle. It is not a bad-looking game on any account, but it does nothing to set itself aside visually. The game does, however,  make terrific use of smoke effects. After shooting, a cloud of smoke bursts from the barrel of the weapon and obscures the view for a short period unless you move around; it doesn’t sound like much, but in the heat of battle it’s an impressive sight. Artistically, Darkest of Days‘ color palette is limited and relatively-flat. Then again, these are some of the worst conflicts in human history and it’s safe to assume that war-torn America and Europe weren’t precisely Nicolas Poussin paintings.

Aurally, this game is putrid. Rarely have I paused in the midst of play and remarked to myself something approximating: “please, no more!” followed by a quick jab of the “mute” button. The voice actors are the worst I’ve ever heard, and I’ve experienced thousands of video games and animated movies throughout my years; not one encounter is nearly as bad as those of the voices behind Mother and Dexter. I’m not sure if 8monkey’s funds expired prematurely or they honestly believed in the talent of these individuals. Even worse, what movies and dialogue interaction that are present are entirely unskippable. Good luck.

Weapons are another high point here. It’s positively impossible to imagine how a digital representation of one-shot muskets could be an invigorating affair, yet it is. Included future weapons are not very good at all, though, and consist of standard machine guns and automatic pistols. The final weapon, a so-called “FMG,” is a blast to wield (pun intended). It burns the skin from enemies in explicitly-macabre fashion while secondary fire is a sort of fire rocket which detonates on impact and eradicates even the hardiest of foes. Additionally, between each mission there is an opportunity to spend points to upgrade elements of either the pistol or rifle: accuracy, reload time, clip size, and rate of fire.

Given that time travel is an utterly-confusing topic (obviously; we haven’t figured it out yet), there are individuals throughout which emphatically may not be killed. Doing so would drastically alter the future and, given that Morris is theoretically a product of said future, he would die and KronoteK as a whole could cease to exist. In the missions proper, certain characters have a blue aura about them which signifies they will develop into a key figure. Shooting them in the legs, feet, or shoulders to incapacitate is one option; another is to toss these small grenades which seek out the beaura’d characters and knock them unconscious. If, by some masochistic flaw you eliminate one or two of these entities, you’ll lose upgrade points or, if more than one or two might perish, portals will open all around and a hit squad emerges to do its business and end the level.

Levels are designed in a strictly-linear fashion, so getting lost will be a Herculean challenge. In the same vein, artificial intelligence seems permanently suspended in third grade. While it’s understandable to stand motionless and shoot in the Civil War -after all, that’s what contemporary tactics dictated- it’s another issue altogether when Nazis forgo powerful ranged weaponry and engage in melee attacks. For good measure, enemies occasionally run a flanking maneuver to moderate success, but that sort of AI has been around since Medal of Honor -slightly more is to be expected. On a final downer note, Darkest of Days employs the hated checkpoint save system. It’s entirely unnecessary, especially since the game isn’t difficult by a long shot. Still, it’s insulting to be hindered by this feature in 2009 (I suppose I have the Xbox 360 version to thank for this).

I realize that to this point I’ve done little but repeatedly disparage the game for a laundry list of poor features. I’m sure you’re turned off and have no intention of caring what my final score might be. I implore you to reconsider. Darkest of Days accomplishes enough correctly to definitely be worth the asking price of forty bucks, and its portrayal of visceral Civil War action merits superb commendation.

Score: 7.5/10

• Pros:
  • 8monkey Labs tries something a little different with their first big game, and it works
  • The Civil War levels are outstanding
  • Use of smoke and sheer quantity of opponents to shoot makes for great fun
  • At ten-plus hours, it has good length
• Cons:
  • Its graphics are not up to par
  • The story -or lack thereof- is not good and detract from the overall experience
  • World War One, Two, and its final level don’t touch the level of entertainment or quality of Antietam
  • While some games leave the door open for a sequel, this one simply ends, abruptly and annoyingly
• Random Fact:
  • Publisher Phantom EFX is best known for their card and casino games for PC and Mac: Darkest of Days is their first mainstream title.

Darkest of Days was developed by 8monkey Labs  and was released on September 8, 2009.