Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)You may notice that Overdos3 gives a lot of 2's and 3's from our 3 star scale. This is because we are average consumers whom are not given games to play for free, therefore we tend to buy games, DVDs and see movies that we are pretty sure we will like. It is a nice surprise, then, when a windfall trade in of older games from our parents house allows us to try out something we hope would be good, but would never buy with our hard earned cash in a million years.
With hope in my heart that the reviews were wrong, I bought a copy of Damnation.
They are not.
On paper Damnation could be a great game. It seeks to marry Gears of War style cover based third-person shooting with Tomb Raider's platforming. I am pretty sure a good game could have come out of the Damnation design document, but ham filled voice work, stiff control, some of the worst AI in recent memory and weak visuals drag this game down to the depths of hell.
While most of these aspects can be chalked up to a low budget, the art failing is probably the area that is saddest to me because the cool steampunk syle art is completely lost in the low resolution mess that ended up on the screen.
The control works, but never feels fluid or natural, and the button placement is more than a bit awkward. To make matters worse the control gets complicated by the developers seeming to be 100% unwilling to use context sensitivity to stream line their control scheme. Add into this movement which allows for very little finesse, and you will find yourself constantly thinking about the controller and button placement rather than just having fun and playing the game
You could criticize the story of Damnation, but any shooter can get by with a weak story if the voice acting is bombastic yet believable enough to enjoy. The voice work in Damnation sounds like it is sample tracks created by the developers and then left in the game once the budget had dried to a point past being able to hire professional voice actors.
What makes Damnation even that much more frustrating is that the path finding can be so broken. There are times where the game is pretty clear about where you need to go, but then others where indicators of your destination are sparse or simply not there, and this adds an element of frustration that is the final straw which earns this game it's 1 star.
I might have never bought Damnation if it wasn't for a pile of NES accessories and games from my parents house, but after playing it I almost feel like I would have been better holding onto a junk heap rather than taking this waste of a few hours home with me.
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Bringing dramatic third-person shooter action to huge, steampunk-inspired environments, Damnation for Xbox 360 puts a range of unique weapons in your hands and lets you test the limits of the human body by performing acrobatic stunts to move through vertical levels. Set in an early 20th century world where the Civil War never ended, this game will have you climbing walls, commanding killer vehicles, and seeking out ways to stop industrialists with a thirst for totalitarian power.
An Alternate History: the Peacemakers and the PSI You'll follow an ensemble cast including the hero Rourke -- a veteran of the war that ripped the country into pieces and member of a guerilla army called the Peacemakers. These rough fighters are up against the PSI led by William Dean Prescott, a powerful and manipulative man angling to become the dictator of an industrialized empire. As the complicated, multi-faceted story unfolds around Rourke and his cohort, you'll find that he is still looking for his son and fiancee, who went MIA during the war.
The cast of characters includes native healers and seers with unique abilities. And fighters can employ a special spirit vision ability to see enemies through walls or from far away, making it impossible for anyone to stay hidden for long.
Rich, Innovative Vertical Environments Featuring rugged, detailed environments that have been designed to maximize the impact of vertical space, Damnation follows the action as it moves though deep canyons, up shear cliff faces, into secret caverns, around towering skyscrapers, and toward PSI's factory fortress, which sprawls across the tundra. Each location offers miles of horizontal ground and thousands of vertical feet for players to explore and exploit.
This means you're movement isn't just limited to running, ducking, and driving a burly motorbike. If you want to survive, you'll have to master shooting while in the middle of climbing scaffolding, sliding down ropes, and using vehicles to jump huge chasms. And, of course, the developer's emphasis on vertical movement adds a whole new dimension to the concept of holding the high ground in a firefight, since attacks really can come from just about anywhere.
Rounding out your experience, a combination of dynamic 3D graphics and tough, steampunk aesthetics brings an iconic look and feel to the game's ten distinctive weapons, edgy playable vehicles, and bold industrial structures.
Epic Single-Player Missions and Multiplayer Modes Damnation offers options to keep play interesting, from campaigning on your own through a series of levels that each offer up to three hours of playing time to competing with friends in four distinct multiplayer modes and support for up to eight players on each map. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill, and Capture the Flag each offer distinct possibilities for you and your friends to battle each other and compete for superiority.
