Dark Horizon for PC Reviews by Gamers

In late 2007, the space action game Tarr Chronicles appeared out of nowhere and quickly garnered its fair share of apathy. Though it looked pretty good and offered enough zero-gravity excitement for some, it felt a little dated, a bit too arcade-like, and far from innovative. Perhaps more importantly, the game simply malfunctioned too many times on too many computers.



Now, in late 2008, the Russian developer of Tarr Chronicles is at it again. In Dark Horizon, Quazar Studio brings us the prequel to Tarr, thrusting us into an environment 100 years earlier, before the good people of the Enosta universe had developed a super-weapon to battle the mysterious yet oh-so-threatening presence referred to simply as "the Mirk."



There's a much larger story at work here that's ideally intended to take Dark Horizon beyond a mere shooter and into the realm of RPG. But as was the case in its predecessor, little of it really matters in the grand scheme of things because the game's much-ballyhooed RPG elements play a generally insignificant role once you're out there shooting stuff. Though we learn quite a bit through voice-over narration, intelligent but somewhat confusing conversations between fellow pilots, and interesting and imaginative text blurbs that deal with oddly ethereal matters, you could basically ignore most of it and still play the game quite capably.



Indeed, because Dark Horizon forces you to endure so many seemingly meaningless conversations and information overloads rather than plunking you immediately into battle mode, we wish Quazar had dropped the RPG concept entirely. We could take this one step further and say it should have devoted more development time on creating a stable game that didn't crash when exiting or ALT-TABbing. Or a manual that wasn't pockmarked with Russian. Or text overlays that weren't so frequently misspelled or mis-worded. But we digress.



Looking past all of the above, the game does the space action thing pretty well -- if you're fond of the one-courageous-pilot-versus-everyone-else school of intergalactic combat. Sure, it pretends to be more than it is by delivering several talkative wingmen in each mission and a wide variety of goals and objectives, but Dark Horizon ultimately boils down to traditional arcade space-dogfighting sensibilities, with a twist.



In order for a space or flight combat game to grab and hold the attention of its players, it must force them into a balancing act of sorts. To the credit of its development team, Dark Horizon does just that. By offering weapons that are effective but not perfect, engines that are fast but not ungodly, enemies that dart about like mosquitoes, and targeting and navigation systems that pack a few thrills but don't guarantee you can outmaneuver the opposition, the game compels you to constantly monitor your defensive as well as offensive posturing and generally keep wary of what's sneaking up behind you.



But Dark Horizon takes that battlefield balancing act one step further by introducing a nifty "mode" system. In "standard" mode, your ship is essentially in neutral -- its engine, weapons, and defensive system strengths are at 100%. However, by "cooling" your ship (pressing and holding the "J" keyboard key), you'll enter "shadow" mode. Once in shadow mode, your ship becomes invisible to the enemy and virtually impossible to attack. The drawback? The top speed decreases, the damage resistance dissipates, and the weapons are less effective. Moreover, Shadow mode is temporary, never lasting more than a half-minute or so.



The third and final mode, deemed "corter" and available only when you purposely heat up your ship (pressing and holding the "L" key), is intended for those times when all-out offense is paramount. In corter mode, your weapons fire at a faster rate of speed and pack a far more devastating punch. However, because corter mode deflects so much of your ship's energy to weaponry, you'll lose power elsewhere -- to your shields, for example. It is not the mode you want when being pursued by a dozen bogies.



Ultimately, the game works as well as it does in the cockpit because it keeps you constantly occupied deciding how best to balance your defensive and offensive options. Just learning all the available commands and understanding what they do will take some time.



Dark Horizon's AI enemies are challenging in that they move like butterflies, sting like bees, and aren't easy to "read." Unfortunately, they also have this rather annoying tendency of ramming into you. More than a tendency, they actually resort to such despicable techniques quite often. There's something seriously wrong when you engage in an artful dogfight with a formidable foe, only to have him give up on the whole code of conduct thing and bash his space jalopy into yours.



What's worse, there's so little fire and brimstone when he does it. You won't see nearly the same level of pyrotechnics when ships bump as you do with a few well-placed lasers or missiles. Moreover, the sound of said collisions is virtually negligible. Indeed, Dark Horizon audio is erratic throughout. The ongoing radio chatter of your wingmen is clearly front and center, and the game's orchestral musical strains smartly keep pace with the action. Yet the aural cataclysm of an exploding spaceship or the impact of incoming ordnance barely registers. Go figure.



Thankfully, the game is pretty. Quazar has drawn up a palette of colors that works well in what we perceive outer space to be, and obviously spared no expense in creating a legion of interesting space vehicles and assorted heavenly bodies. It has concocted two distinct viewer perspectives -- one from within the cockpit and the other from behind your ship -- that each offer a unique set of visual perks. We really dig the exaggerated movement effects you'll see from the chase cam. And as for explosions, which you'll see a lot, let's just say the white-hot heat might just melt your monitor.



Of much interest to closet tinkerers is the massive Dark Horizon shipbuilding facility. Here, you can tweak away to your heart's content, constructing the interstellar hot rod of your dreams from spare parts and whatever else happens to be hanging around. You can change out the hull, the armor, the engine, the shields, and, of course, the cannons and the missiles. You can even build your own unique devices and weapons, using resources that you'll gather during your missions. Make no mistake; constructing and modding new ships is a big part of the game, as evidenced by the fact that fully one-quarter of the manual is dedicated to it.



Sadly, none of the manual is dedicated to multiplayer gameplay, and for good reason -- Dark Horizon doesn't support it. Thusly, you'd best enjoy the single player experience because that's all you get.

©2008-09-29, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved