Darkstar: The Interactive Movie review [PC]

Posted January 25, 2012 by James Pickard.

Review: Surely the interactive movie is a relic of the past now? But ten years in the making, is there enough game hidden away DARKSTAR: THE INTERACTIVE MOVIE? Find out below…

Hold on a minute. Have we all travelled back to the ’90s? Surely there’s no other possible explanation for why a game like Darkstar: The Interactive Movie exists today? Nevermind, the date clearly reads January 2012. Supposedly, it’s been in development for a decade, though, so perhaps that’s why there are live actors surrounded by CGI sets, hours of pre-recorded video and that archaic subtitle.

Sadly, a lot has changed in its ten-year development cycle. Games have since found better ways to put you front and center in an all-action blockbuster – be it as the cocky Nathan Drake or galactic superhero Commander Shepard – and a bit of low resolution video footage now looks abysmal.

There’s a lot of it too: 13 hours’ worth, in fact, including exciting scenes in which a horrible-looking New York is submerged beneath rising seas as spaceships duel overhead to a wailing guitar solo. It’s the end of the world, ’90s style.

But your focus is not there, it’s 300 years later with John O’Neil, captain of the starship Westwick. He’s been left aboard in cryogenic sleep for the last three centuries and missed Earth’s demise. In that time a catastrophic event has also befallen his spacecraft, and for some reason now’s the time he’s been awoken.

However, since he’s been counting sheep for so long, he’s experienced that rather nasty side effect of losing his memory. Yes – it’s an amnesia story. So now you and John have to explore the ship to piece together exactly what happened before and during your extended nap, and how you’re going to get the ship operational again.

Can I play yet?

The Westwick is lifeless and bizarre, despite the eerie soundtrack’s desperate attempts to maintain any semblance of atmosphere. It’s clearly been constructed for the purpose of housing a terrible attempt at a game and not as a vessel to navigate outer space. You’ll wander it incredulous, as damaged engines are rebooted by filling in colour-coded maps of the ship and doors are unlocked by completing match-two games on a console. Others are solved more-or-less automatically, the only input needed is a few mouse clicks to keep the next video playing.

Elsewhere, navigation is horrible, unintuitive and exceptionally tedious, thanks to the game’s outdated tech. With an interface reminiscent of the Myst series, you move about the ship in first-person by clicking hotspots and panning around a series of static screens. Click. Pause. Wait. Action. Click. Pause. Wait. Action. It’s a continual, coma-inducing cycle, which means you spend more time idle than actually doing something involving.

Given that your goals are not well signposted either, you can be lost meandering around the glossy and gaudy Westwick for hours. Not to mention the frustration that arises when you have to click through countless scenes and transitions in order to return to one specific location you’ve visited previously.

Furthermore, all areas of interest are highlighted by the cursors change to an arrow, but click one and you’ll have no idea what the resultant action will be. It may range from simply pulling a lever to aggravating extremes which inadvertently cause your death.

You’ll find others which offer absolutely no useful feedback at all too. In one instance, John anxiously sits before a closed binder; he tentatively opens it, sees a coded message inside, and turns away. You cannot take the message out, try to decipher it yourself, nor extract any opinion on it from John. These apparently inconsequential actions are a common occurrence and very confusing until you uncover a select piece of information or new item.

As you eventually progress further, you’ll discover how important the titular Darkstar is to events with the aid of a series of videos. These shorts include some of the most enjoyable sequences in the game for a few cheap laughs at the poor dialogue. (“There’s another man sleeping with my wife tonight, and it’s me.”) You just wish you could see them more frequently, instead of being forced back to your drab wanderings with the empty-headed nonentity that is John.

Acting out

The leading man, Clive Robertson, brings little effort to the role, unless the extensive cryo sleep has done more damage than suggested. Still, it’s hard to lay the blame with him completely, as exactly what direction he was given must’ve been completely obscure. His expressions are regularly vacant and his responses often doltish, but the game does everything within its power to get his face in front of some reflective object.

Just to emphasise how little a game and how terrible a movie Darkstar is, at one stage John finds a long series of notes left by a missing crew member, and the game forgets the absolute golden rule of cinema by telling you lines of backstory through a voiceover. Meanwhile, you’re left to watch John’s sullen expression, resting on the palm of his hand – uninterested, like you. He even stops looking at the notes in the end as the narration continues.

Much later, when exploring John’s quarters, you find video footage of the exact same events told in the notes. The same voiceover track is used, but now it’s accompanied by an actual performance. So why isn’t this movie used initially, instead of forcing you to watch John sitting, pretending to read at a desk?

Darkstar is littered with such poor decisions from both design and storytelling standpoint, which the ancient tech only exacerbates. It’s a disappointment, considering the time which has been spent on the game. Although you could question that too, considering how many bugs and frequent crashes you’ll likely experience.

Whatever shred of curiosity piqued by the mystery of the Westwick and the Darkstar cannot overcome absolutely everything else that’s wrong. The movie is bogged down by the needs of the game, and what little game there is restricts the potential ironic enjoyment of the movie. When you compare it to today’s approach to cinematic games, it’s clear why Darkstar’s method has been forgotten: it’s not really a game at all, and there’s certainly nothing else going for it.

Darkstar is built from a long-discarded blueprint, one so outdated that it’s pure frustration to play through, and oh-so-painfully dull.

Darkstar: The Interactive Movie, from Parallax Studio and Lace Mamba Global, is available now for PC (reviewed) and Mac.