Strategy Informer writes: "Dark Horizon is a third person arcade style space shooter set deep into the future. The galaxy is threatened to be overwhelmed by a dark force known as the Mirk. You take the role of a novice Guardian – an elite fighter pilot who, although infected with Mirk yourself, strives to give humanity and the other sentient races in the galaxy a chance to win against the enemy onslaught. The story picks up with the good guys having just discovered a way to defeat the Mirk by using a special weapon, The Light Core, but it's not ready yet so you and your squadron mates must defend the Light Core outpost while the work on the project is completed.
Does that sound like a lot of story? You haven't seen anything yet. Before each episode (which is further divided into missions) you start in your cabin on the carrier space ship. From here you have access to all sorts of dream analysis, records on Mirk, Guardian history, weapons, tactics, and other details. In fact the pre-game, new game, and in-game cut scenes also are heavy on the background and depth of the story. The story takes itself so seriously that I expected to find a very serious space combat simulator and was sadly disappointed when I discovered that the space combat game play has a simplistic arcade feel."
GamersInfo writes: "I'm a fan of space ships, lasers, "pew pew," and of course, explosions. What sort of science fiction fan would I be otherwise? Much to my sadness, the space simulator/shooter genre has been dying in recent years, so when I heard Dark Horizon was being released I couldn't wait to see how it turned out. Once installed I eagerly double clicked the icon, expecting to be launched into space and shooting down enemy ships faster than I could say, "I have you now." Instead, I was greeted with an error box telling me that my DirectX was messed up and I should reinstall the game. Several reinstalls later, said box was still plaguing my efforts to play, so I spent a little time on Google searching for a solution. A complete reinstall of DirectX, the game, and a reboot of my computer finally got me into the game."
AVault:
"Sadly, Dark Horizon is a disappointment in a lot of ways. Looking at the screenshots, you might be tempted to pick up a copy because the game is certainly pretty, but the frustrations that come with it are not worth the price. Fans searching for a game to come along and rescue the space fighter sim will have to keep looking."
GamePyre.com Writes:
"Disappointment is not a strong enough word to describe how I really feel about this game's gameplay and controls. Maybe this just happens to be one of those games that I just can't seem to do well in, but in all honesty I blame Paradox and not my flying skills.
The first thing that I want to point out is the fact that Dark Horizon is a space flight game but unfortunately for us joysticks do not work. There is an option for them, but after about an hour and a half of trying to get either one of my two joysticks to work I gave up. While the flight stick itself works, for some reason you can not bind any controls to the joystick; they are limited to keyboard and mouse only."
