The game is set against an alternate-history storyline during the American Civil War, except in this version of history, the war rages on for forty years without conclusion. The game's setting presents quite an intriguing premise as it meshes elements of the steampunk genre, with Civil War-era technology and futuristic elements mixed together, not to mention a smidgen of Native American spiritualism added in to the mix (the implication of which we'll touch on later).
Rourke and his steam bike present an interesting meshing of genres.
Damnation is built on the solid foundations of the Unreal 3 engine, something that the development team is familiar with as they won the Epic Games' Make Something Unreal contest with their prototype of the game - and that familiarity with the unreal engine shows. The title is running with a solid frame rate, although this may be at the expense of extended loading times, but we'll just have to wait and see how that pans out in the final version. Like Gears of War and other similar gritty shooters of the moment, Damnation's landscape sticks very closely to brown and grey hues, which makes the bright, green trees that crop up amongst the landscape even more eye-catching.
Thankfully, not everything in the world is brown.
Another thing that Damnation shares with Gears is the over-the-shoulder third-person viewpoint, which is highly beneficial as it gives you a wider viewing angle, allowing you to see the approaching enemies as they pop out of many different directions. Though for all of its similarities with Gears, the game also features some stark contrasts. The development team has promised to provided gamers with chaotic and fast paced gameplay, and from the current build of the game that we've played, it looks like they are well on their way to delivering on that promise. In lieu of the stop-and-pop gameplay that is becoming prevalent in many modern shooters, Damnation is going with old-school run-and-gun tactics, where the emphasis is on running hard at the enemy with all guns blazing. This emphasis was prevalent in the level that we played which saw Rourke and his AI companions make their way towards a bridge - with the objective of making it go boom - as wave after wave of enemies flooded out to stop us in our tracks. Thankfully, this section of the game also included a turret gun, as at the moment Rourke's AI companions don't provide much helpful assistance.
With such an emphasis on pacing, Rourke is provided with 'spirit vision' - a special power which ties in with the title's nod at Native American culture. This power allows him to see the glowing red auras of nearby living beings, a gameplay mechanic that will surely help those more tactically minded players contemplate their next move.
As well as being a shooter, Damnation pitches itself as an adventure game, with Rourke having a number of acrobatic moves that would make Tomb Raider's Lara Croft green with envy. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see how well this feature will integrate itself into the game as opportunities for acrobatics were few and far between in the level that we played, but the final build of the game is said to include large structures for Rourke to climb, giving him a variety of ways to progress through the level.
Damnation will see players scaling great heights.
From what we've seen of the game in play, Damnation looks like it has the potential to be a solid shooting experience and its one-two punch of fast-paced gameplay and an intriguing game setting has definitely piqued our curiosity. Although without being able to view any of the game's vehicles or the full scale of the acrobatic gameplay, there remains a very large question mark over how well the entire package will pull together.
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