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Introduction:
In Darkest of Days you play as a soldier who’s been recruited by KronoteK, a company that exists for the purpose of exploring the past and solving ‘history’s mysteries’. Since there is no clear record of your supposed death on the battlefield at Little Bighorn, you and others like you make perfect candidates for working with KronoteK.

Your main mission in the game involves Dr. Koell, the inventor of time travel, who’s gone missing in time. You must find Dr. Koell and correct some of the inconsistencies that have appeared in the timeline since his disappearance. Your work with KronoteK will take you to various battles through history, from the U.S. Civil War to World War I and World War II.

Gameplay:
Darkest of Days controls like your basic shooter. Right trigger fires, X reloads (using a timed reload system that can help decrease your reload time), and B throws grenades (only in the appropriate battle time periods). You can also crouch by clicking the left thumbstick and zoom in with your weapons using the left trigger.

The idea of taking part in some well known and historically-accurate battles across time sounds great on the surface and, as the game promises, you can battle hundreds of NPC enemies on-screen at once. Unfortunately, however, when the number of enemies on screen increases, the game’s frame rate suffers – badly. There were several instances where the frame rate caused gameplay issues.

Another annoying thing was that, despite having an in-game map you can pull up at any time; your tactics are often hindered by invisible barriers. I’m talking right in the middle of the road or down the middle of a field-type invisible barriers. You’d think the designers could have found strictly geographical ways to limit your movement, but the invisible barriers everywhere really became annoying quickly. On more than one occasion, I also hit invisible barriers that completely froze the game and my Xbox 360.

The AI of the NPC’s in the game also felt sub-par. They used no real tactics, and would often appear or disappear at random. In some of the game’s early battles, I was able to literally just run past groups of NPC’s to get to the next checkpoint. I did this as much as I could, to help alleviate some of the monotony I began to feel with the gameplay mechanics. Sure, you get the opportunity at times to use futuristic weapons during battles from the past, but it provides a minimal thrill that seemed to wear off pretty quickly for me.

You start and end each mission by entering what appears to be a sphere of liquid – your time travel portal to and from KronoteK. Each mission briefing and debriefing is conducted by ‘Mother’, Dr. Koell’s assistant – who appears to be a computer. Unfortunately, the mission briefings can get a bit tedious to listen to after a while, but the game provides no way to skip them. You just have to sit and listen until you’re released to head off on the mission.

The game also employ’s a limited weapons upgrade system, which allows you to upgrade the abilities of your rifles and handguns. You can upgrade abilities like reload speed, clip capacity, accuracy, etc. Between each mission, Mother will award you some upgrade points, which you can spend on upgrading your weapons on the weapons console.

During each mission, you’ll encounter NPC’s that glow with a blue aura. You must try your best to not kill these glowing characters. You can take them down by aiming for a leg, but they have been identified by KronoteK as people who should survive at that particular time in history. The fewer of them you kill, the more upgrade points you’ll be awarded after each mission. If you do happen to take out an enemy with a blue aura, you’ll have to battle off time ‘agents’ that appear and try to take you out if you disrupt time by killing someone with a blue aura.

When these agents appear, time stops around you. The battle you were involved in freezes in time and you are only battling the agents. This is good because often you will have weapons vastly inferior to those the agents carry. One plus, however, is that you can pick up an agent’s weapon after you kill him – and take it back with you when time resumes and you’re back in the original battle. Later in the game, agents start appearing at odd times to try and stop you. This is part of the mystery you must solve.

Extras:
Darkest of Days is strictly a single-player game. There is no multiplayer of any kind and no plans have been announced for any downloadable content.

Conclusion:
The concept behind Darkest of Days sounds pretty good. You get to escape your own death on the battlefield, travel through time to take part in several historical battles and use futuristic weapons to give you an edge and help you protect the continuity of history. Unfortunately, several flaws keep the game from living up to the potential the concept lays out.

The mission briefing system is shallow and un-necessary. The invisible barriers, game freezes and several other glitches highlight poor level design and insufficient testing. The graphics seem dated and can even be a bit fuzzy at times. Even the audio and voice acting are only passable. Darkest of Days feels like a freshman effort that had insufficient development time, insufficient funding or both. I can only recommend Darkest of Days for, at most, a rental. In a season crowded with many highly anticipated titles, this is one you can pass on.

Score: 3