You would think that defeating the nefarious plans of the god-like Ancients and saving Earth from their all-consuming evil would make you a hero or something. Instead, Mike Dawson is home on medical disability with his mother due to the nervous breakdown he suffered. We are not sure if his current mental instability is due to the horrific visions of the Darkworld haunting him, or just from his mother nagging him to death. Either way, it seems our hero went on a sociological killing rampage with a handy bladed weapon and 'axed' his girlfriend a question: "Excuse me, may I please see what color brain matter is?" At least that's what the town Sheriff thinks...
Cyberdreams, Inc. has done it again with this sequel to their award-winning game Darkseed (which makes this game Darkseed II, in case anyone is still using his or her fingers to count). The game immediately thrusts you as Mike Dawson ù average guy and planetary savior ù into the nightmarish mind of H.R. Giger. The only thing more terrifying than the 2-D artwork of Giger (designer of the creature for both the movie Alien and Species ) is the creation of a 3-D interactive world consumed by his macabre imagery.
You must travel back and forth between this world and the Darkworld in order to prove yourself innocent of murder. But are you innocent? You just don't seem to remember anything about last night except waking up to nightmares about the Darkworld...Oh, and of course you have to stop the diabolical plans of the Ancients to destroy all life on Earth. But hey! Do you know what they do to you in prison?!?! First things first.
The plot thickens as more and more clues come to light (or dark, as the case may be). The puzzles are difficult at times, easier at other times, but always challenging. You may find that the solutions to some of them are completely asinine (like a certain locked bedroom door, for example) but there are still many challenges here.
The location scenery and artwork are top-notch (as would be expected from a world renowned artist). The game complains at startup if you are not running at 640X480 resolution with 256 colors by displaying the Windows clause stating that there is no guarantee it will work. But it worked just fine for us at 1024X768 resolution with 16 million colors (even though it still takes up the whole screen).
Some of the best features of the game are the music and background effects. They really set the mood and create such a spooky feeling that you'll have to play the game with the lights on. Only real men and women play this game in the dark (even though having a 6 D-cell Mag-lite in hand could be useful ù just to be able to see in the dark in case you have to go to the bathroom or something ù yeah, that's the ticket).
The only real disappointment in the game was the digital speech. The speech was occasionally choppy and sometimes ended prematurely, thereby omitting vital clues or information. This infrequent problem can be easily overcome by choosing a game option which includes written text in addition to the audio speech.
The acting by the main characters is quite good for the most part. So if you think that a character is acting weird, then it's because they are weird. More than one person in this game is running a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but you will know them when you see them (hopefully). This only adds to the effect that something is horribly wrong in your little home town.
In your quest to prove your innocence, you travel from area to area via one of the handy maps. All you do is click on your destination and bingo! No unnecessary traveling through parts of town you could care less about. And once you find a way to the Darkworld, the portal appears on the map as well.
If you enjoyed the first Darkseed, this second iteration ought to please you as well. Giger fans and fans of the macabre in general also should be pleased. Now, as far as the location of the Darkworld portal is concerned, sorry, we're not telling where it is ù the last thing we Ancients want is to have someone other than the pizza guy knocking on our door.
