OXCGN:
"The Genesis Of Darkest Of Days:
Darkest of Days is the project Phantom EFX CEO Aaron Schurman wanted to make when he and a group of investors first started the company ten years ago.
The concept was born after Schurman played through the early levels of Medal of Honor, where players reenact the D-Day invasion of Normandy...
The idea of setting more games in history's "darkest of days" with players facing overwhelming numbers was intriguing to Schurman, but the technology to make it possible was out of reach."
When gamers think about first person shooter games, there’s a slew of titles that instantly come to mind. These games place the player in the action and they become immersed in the game with heart-pounding gameplay dynamics. Sure, there’s a ton of great first person shooter games out there, but there’s a lot of companies that have tried to cash in on first person shooters. In other words, for every good first person shooter game out there, there’s a bad first person shooter game. On this list, are the worst of the worst when it comes to first person shooters.
Backlog Quest is a month long special event on Clearance Bin Review featuring daily game reviews of the games that have sat on the shelf for simply too long; old and new.
From Day 17 – Darkest of Days, Tristan Rendo writes, "I’d be a bold face liar if I said I hadn’t ever though about time traveling back to the days of ancient Rome with an assault rifle. Where my advanced weaponry would make me king. Darkest of Days finally let me live out this brief, sociopathic fantasy if but for a fleeting moment; and that is all that counts right?
Well, not really, but it is still kind of cool."
Game Revolution writes: "If you're looking for a game that has you shooting Civil War survivors, WWI veterans, Roman infantry, and while we're at it, some Native Americans (which is half of my heritage... I shot my peoples!), then boy, do I have a game for you. Darkest of Days puts you in the shoes of a Civil War soldier that fought in the battle of Little Bighorn or Custard's Last Stand. At the last minute before your unfailing doom, you are rescued by a Spartan that pulls you into a womb-like object that sends you hurling through time and space. You reach your final destination in a waiting room from hell to be greeted by the stroke patient that is your supposed time partner and a visual user interface with creepy eyes and a fake pompous-ass British accent."
Interesting read actually, especially about how many said it could not be done on the 360, which he proved that it could . .nice interview.
"Even if you can get your game in the store, competing with the multimillion dollar marketing budgets of large publishers is another obstacle."
This and the fact that the budgets the big publishers have for their games is much higher tends to see independent games initially announced just disappear into vaporware.
I like to support the independent underdogs who are trying something unique instead of repeating sequels like most the biggies are doing.
Having said that, I'd love to see this game concept more fleshed out and polished than the current version. (I haven't yet played it as I'm in a PAL territory...except the demo but seen the reviews).
Games like Turning Point, Alone in the Dark, Legendary, and Damnation had great concepts and ideas that didn't translate into top quality titles, while we have repetitive uncreative unoriginal shooters that have better graphics and less glitches do well.
This game has a concept I'd love to see do well...time travel to different times using both new and old weapons and trying to protect and not kill people who 'should' stay alive.
And even if you can get the deals set so you are on store shelves, there're even more hurdles. I Went into my local GameStop last week, asking for DoD. Actually went to two GameStops. Neither had the game. The one guy told me they were supposed to but someone higher up said nobody was going to care about the game and that they didn't even do preorders. So he was vague about whether they ordered it and it was late, or what.
But bottom line, they kind of laughed when I mentioned the game (like they don't have dozens of worse games on their shelves already). Didn't sound like DoD was being taken seriously by the region managers.
So the challenges continue. If you can't get any respect because you're indie, you can't get the retail outlets to stock your games.
This is what happens when not only retail outlets, but also gamers place extremely high expectations on games, and almost demand that everyone one of them be a AAA block buster, or they are not interested.
It puts a holt to any hope of smaller developers even making in-roads into the world of gaming.
Gamers especially expect even greater things from every game that is released. If it doesn't have a Multiplayer aspect, it's almost forgetten about before it even has been thought of.
If the visual quality is not on par with a 30-40 mil dollar mega game, then it's then tagged as a rubbish game, even though the premise or execution may well be top-notch.
Then larger retailers are not run by gamers these days either, especially the bigger ones. Sure, some stores have game savvy staff, but the teams in head offices are simply doing a PR job more than anything else, and wouldn't know a good game from a bad one.
I was shocked when I went into a major gaming retailers head office a few months ago, and all the 20-something staffers working there barely played games at all, and were simply there 'working' at their cubicals making sure the sales went through, that store managers moved stock, pr was done etc etc.
It's hard for smaller indie game developers these days - on more fronts than a war zone.