Damnation Updated Impressions
Cowboys and steampunk and upward traversal, oh my!
by Sam Bishop
February 20, 2009 - We've been following Damnation for a while now, and for almost a year, the discussion on the game has centered around just a handful of topics: the game's mélange of steampunk tendencies (which is great considering steampunk is all but dead in games these days) and its vaguely Old West setting for the characters. Maybe that's just the main character, because we don't remember many Louis L'Amour books featuring leather-clad girls sporting hints of underboob, but still, the aesthetic definitely has something of an old-timey feel.
Arguably the biggest area of focus, though, (the game's "message," if you will) has been the exploration of not just normal flat-plane clambering, but every level's vertical nature. Moving up (or down, as the case may be) is just as important to the game's traversal as going forward or back, which is why developer Blue Omega has taken pains to make sure that the platforming is as close to an if-it-looks-like-you-can-make-that-jump-you-can process as possible. If you walk off a ledge, your character (which can be one of three depending on whether you're playing the game with local split-screen or online co-op) will grab it instead of plummeting to their doom. Hop over a railing, hold a bumper/shoulder button and the dude/dudette will turn to look behind them, readying themselves for the jump.
And you thought we were kidding about the underboob...
The idea is that you'll spend less time sussing out how to get from Point A to Point B to Point C and just do it, pausing only to gun down some baddies with a charged-up rail spike driver (useful for pinning them to walls, of course) or a pistol or a sniper rifle or a shotgun or... well, you get the idea. Combat and platforming are meant to play on equal footing, although our latest peek at the game wasn't really all that different from what we've seen in the past.
That meant we were trying to clamber up the same mine shaft, used the same Spirit Vision to spot enemies and teammates (and revive them from afar if they got gunned down, which was rather handy), slid down ziplines (and went hand-over-hand to climb up them), shot a few bad guys along the way (including while hanging from the line, which meant we weren't totally defenseless) and generally just retraced our steps from earlier this month. If there was a major difference, we weren't seeing it.
Given that the game is scheduled to ship out in just a couple months, we were hoping that things would be a little more solid this time around. The framerate is still rather dodgy and the controls a bit lax in recognizing stuff like interactions with the environment, but we've seen games come together in less time in the past. We'll let you know the final verdict when the game arrives in late April.