hen you think of the “old West,” images of vampires and demons probably aren’t the first things that pop into your mind.  After all, while the West was full of outlaws and other ruffians, you don’t hear many stories about the undead battling it out with the likes of Billy the Kid or Jesse James.  Sammy Studios is hoping to reshape what you think of the old West with their upcoming game Darkwatch, a unique horror FPS game that combines the world of cowboys with all things occult.  While it’s indeed an odd mix to tackle, the game seems to be coming along quite well.  Thanks to some intense action, unique combat powers, and a brooding and dark storyline, Darkwatch may just end up being “the” FPS to keep an eye out for.

Recently Sammy Studios made the trip out to our Minneapolis offices to show off the latest build of the game, which was mainly comprised of two playable levels.  But before we get into that, here’s a bit about the game’s story.  Darkwatch is the name given to a secret organization tasked with protecting humanity from the evils of the underworld since the dawn of time.  You see, monsters and demons do walk amongst us and its Darkwatch’s goal to make sure that the humans of the world are safe from evil.  Their newest (and deadliest) agent is Jericho Cross, a man who finds himself in quite a predicament having been attacked and left for dead by a vampire.  With vampire blood coursing through his veins, he needs to not only eradicate the forces of evil but also kill the vampire who bit him in order to save his eternal soul.

Jericho, however, has quite a few tricks up his sleeves.  The Darkwatch organization affords him the chance to acquire and utilize a host of deadly weapons, many of which are technologically updated versions of Western period firearms.  Besides his trusty revolver, which he can fire off fan-style to unleash a barrage of bullets, he can also get his hands on shotguns, sniper rifles, and more explosive devices such as TNT.  While weapons prove handy in the field, each one is also outfitted with some sort of a blade, and capable of being wielded melee style.  Jericho’s revolver has a deadly blade that runs along the handle and can reduce an enemy to dust in a just a couple of blows.  For those truly trying scenarios, Jericho can also jump behind things like Gatling gun turrets, which spit out firepower at an alarming rate and can decimate even the hardiest enemy in a matter of seconds.

Besides weapons, Jericho can also tap into some special vampire powers thanks to the evil blood running through his veins.  Blood Vision is similar to what you would expect from wearing thermal goggles, and shrouds the world in a reddish hue.  Any pick-up or enemy nearby gives off a distinct orange and yellow hue, making it much easier to find hidden pick-ups, keep track of enemy location, as well as place more pinpoint accurate shots at them. 

Blood vision comes complete with cool visual effects

Jericho can also unleash a special power called the Blood Frenzy Vampire Brand, which washes the screen in red and makes your attacks far more powerful.  There will be some other vampire powers in the game, but the Blood Frenzy was the only one available in the build that we sat down with.

Perhaps one of the neatest features of the game is the fact that as Jericho makes his way through the levels, he’ll be given multiple scenarios where he can either be good or evil.  The Boot Hill Cemetery level, for example, has you running into a poor woman who’s been bitten by a vampire.  You’re then given the choice to help her and extract the vampire blood to save her life or attack her and finish her off.  Depending on how you act, the game will change.  If you choose to save her life you may notice that townspeople will act friendly towards you down the line or you’ll receive helpful items.  If you choose to go the evil route and kill her, you’ll notice that you’ll face off against more enemies than usual and townsfolk may harbor hatred for you.  How you decide to play through the game is ultimately up to you, but the good and evil dichotomy really gives the game some new features that you usually don’t see in first person shooters.

The two levels in our build of the game were Boot Hill Cemetery and Iron Horse.  Boot Hill Cemetery, naturally, takes place in a decrepit cemetery filled with old tombstones and crypts.  Enemies make it a habit of popping out of fresh graves and the area is suitably strewn with death, such as in the bodies and skulls that hang from ropes in most of the branches of trees in the area.  Iron Horse, the neatest level so far, has Jericho riding his horse as he chases a train.  Not surprisingly, enemies are stationed on strategic parts of the train and try their best to kill off Jericho before he can clear them from their positions and board the train.

There's nothing like riding an undead horse

So far despite only having played through two levels of the game, they’re shaping up to be quite enjoyable.  Interactivity and physics seem to be the name of the game so far and you’ll notice that much of what’s around you can be interacted with or broken.  Tombstones can be crushed with bullets and melee attacks and even dead bodies can be rocketed into the air using explosives. 

These bodies will sway to and fro when shot

In fact, enemies are comprised of a number of different body part specific hit areas, so you can take off heads, arms, and even legs, each of which comes complete with unique animations.  If a scythe wielding skeleton is bearing down on your position and you blow off one of his legs, he’ll topple over in a realistic manner.  The same goes for arms and heads and the resulting animations are both humorous and realistic. 

Darkwatch is also sporting some impressive visuals, especially considering the game’s odd mix of the old West and gothic horror.  The aforementioned levels are full of detail, whether it is in the way skeletons hung in trees sway when you hit them or the way an enemy bursts into a fiery inferno when you defeat them.  The Blood Frenzy and Blood Vision effects are equally cool looking, thanks to some trippy effects that accompany each one.  Enemies are also looking quite deadly and evil, from the skeleton foes that make up the regular food to the larger and more deadly enemies that you’ll run across.  Each comes with their own animation sets and unique movements, so you can be sure to have a lot of fun taking on each one and learning their unique attacks and patterns. 

Enemies are nicely detailed and animated

While you never really get to see much of Jericho himself, since the game is an FPS, his hands and weapons are well rendered and feature some nice shadowing and response to lighting.  And, while the cutscenes we’ve so far are a bit rough, they seem to put out across another atmosphere and attitude to keep the game’s story going along at a nice clip. 

The area of the game we didn’t really get to delve deeper into was Darkwatch’s audio, but what we did hear was promising enough.  The game features a pretty moody soundtrack that alternates between minimalist ambient background noises to pumped up combat music at the drop of a hat, a nice touch considering that most of your combat scenarios are presented to you at breakneck speed.  Voiceover dialogue was pretty absent from our build of the game, but hopefully they’ll make the quality of the music and sound effects.

While our build of Darkwatch was most definitely limited in content, it really offered up a promising look at what’s to come for the game.  The unique enemies and robust level design really helps to make the game a blast to play and the intense action will satisfy any FPS junkie’s sick desire to blow things to bits.  Granted, we didn’t get a chance to try out the game’s multiplayer features, but the single player campaign is poised to make the old West cool again.  Heck, cowboys and vampires seem like a logical pairing to us, wouldn’t you agree?