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Las Vegas, Nevada - This week at CES 2009 I had the pleasure to watch and play Capcom's third-person arial shooter Dark Void. First off I just want to say that Dark Void made the trip to Vegas this year completely worth it. Until CES it hadn't made its way onto my radar. Dark Void is a third-person shooter, with arial dog-fighting, and "vertical combat". 

During my sit-down with Capcom I met Morgan, Dark Void's Executive Producer. Morgan booted up the most recent, pre-alpha, build and I was instantly amazed.

The demo started off with the hero equipped with a rocket-pack flying through the sky on a mission to disable several shield generators so that the heros' allies could advance their assault.

For several minutes our hero rocketed through the air. He was agile, and looked slightly out of control, but in a good way. After we were done checking out the arial dynamics, we headed towards the first shield generator which was conveniently located inside a floating structure.

After landing on the platform leading into the floating structure our hero was surrounded by metallic crates, and half a dozen aliens in cybernetic suits. Faced with the alien threat our hero could run and take cover behind the crates. He could rocket towards them at blazing speed, hover, and blast his way past the immanent threat on his way on his way to smashing the shield generator's control console. But before taking out the console, he would have to navigate a vertical gauntlet past a dozen aliens.

This vertical gauntlet was called "Vertical Combat" by the Capcom guys. When our hero reached an an area where vertical combat was possible, the camera angle would switch to a new camera angle. While in vertical combat you would hop around various platforms. Our hero would pound and shoot his way to the bottom where he took out the shield generator console causing the floating platform to explode like a mini Death Star.

Once both generators were taken out the shield came down, and our hero was faced with a "baby boss" in the form of a giant walking tank. After a couple strafing runs the baby boss was damaged enough to jump on it's back and reveal the alien driver. All and all Dark Void was gorgeous from start to finish.

Later that night at the Capcom party at Planet Hollywood I had a couple minutes to play Dark Void myself for a few minutes. First off I want to say that the controls take a bit of getting used to at this stage of development. Now when I got the controls down, and stopped splating into walls, it was a complete blast. On the ground it felt a little like playing Gears of War, and in the air you had more freedom and control than any arial combat game I've played before.

I can't wait to get more time with Dark Void a little later in its development cycle, and I'll definitely be picking it up for myself when it's released some time this year (2009).