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File Damnation under "games that are so bad, they're kind of good."
That's because, despite a laundry list of faults and a well of untapped potential, Damnation's combination of third-person shooting and acrobatics provides trace levels of fun. It's part of a growing category of "B-Games," ostensibly bad games that appeal to a sliver of palettes, but will turn off the majority of players.
One thing's clear from the beginning: Damnation earns no points on presentation. The game's revisionist history — of a private industry that preyed on the Civil War and is turning America into a dictatorship — is only developed superficially. As an example, the villain W.D. Prescott broadcasts propaganda into PA systems throughout the game, but there are no bystander characters around to listen. It's as if the entire world packed up when Prescott Standard Industries came to town. A brief introduction is the only glimpse of this world gone awry, which is a shame because the story is intriguing on its face.
Any hope of further exposition is dashed by Damnation's characters and their trifling subplots. The main character, Hamilton Rourke, is trying to find his lover (Or wife? It's not entirely clear), and group's leader, Professor Winslow, is looking for his estranged daughter, whose name is Jack for some curious reason. The other two characters pick up a quarrel early in the game, without explanation, and the following dialogue occurs: "You are a hard woman," the man says. "Pain and death are hard," the woman replies. Listening to this with anyone else around is an embarrassment.
Then, there are the graphics, which have all the life of a last-generation title. Forget about dynamic lighting, smooth frame rates or any sort of style whatsoever. An occasional breathtaking view pops up now and then, but Damnation backloads them, saving the good stuff for the end, when everyone's already decided that this game looks terrible.
Damnation's saving grace is the idea of a "shooter gone vertical," as the marketers called it. They were spot-on in saying most shooters are corridor crawls. Damnation does away with the claustrophobia and presents each level as a wide-open playground through which the player should carve the path of least resistance. Desert towns, a palatial Native American citadel, and a dense city are among the traversable terrain.
Rourke, along with his fellow freedom fighters, have unexplained acrobatic prowess. They can kick off walls, hang from one banister and leap to another, swing across parallel bars, and dive from one platform to the next. Moving from one object to the next is simple enough, with the Xbox 360's A button controlling leaps of all kinds and the RB button causing Rourke to turn from any hanging position toward the next jumping point.
Each level is packed with structures for climbing, and often the challenge lies in finding the way to go. Depending on the player's perspective and natural sense of direction, this can either be a point of frustration or a puzzle waiting to be tackled. Taken the latter way, it's enjoyable to peer towards the goal, figuring out the entry points to higher or lower ground. At the start of each section, players are given an overview of where to go. While these distances seem staggering at a glimpse, Damnation's primary source of satisfaction comes from covering all the necessary ground with as little effort as possible.
The game is split somewhat distinctly between climbing segments and the actual combat, which on its own is a pedestrian affair. Standard weapons — pistols, an assault rifle, a shotgun, a sniper rifle and explosive rounds — are used to fight off swarms of humanoid enemies, brainwashed by a poison Prescott has forced upon them. It's a neat theory, but combat is simply a matter of trading gunfire with these foes and taking cover when the game's regenerating health system signals impending doom.
But give the enemies credit; they're not entirely stupid. They'll flee when fired upon and occasionally use the same acrobatics as the player. Then again, they have a tendency not to show up for entire chunks of a level, even up to the very end. It's as if Damnation's developers knew the action gets old fast, and left entire sections of the game completely empty to better focus on climbing around.
It's a shame that Damnation doesn't do a better job of marrying the shooting and the climbing. It's not impossible to do both in the same sitting, but it's rarely advantageous. Some of the game's best action moments come during frenzied attempts to climb or dive out of harm's way, but there aren't nearly enough of these events. Most segments of the game entail a bit of duck-and-cover shooting, followed by climbing to the next combat zone, repeated ad nauseam.
Occasionally, and for no good reason, Damnation has motorcycle segments. In a way, zooming through large chunks of level is fitting with the game's theme of covering wide swaths of ground, but there's little to do while driving aside from avoiding bottomless pits. The player's allies, riding in the backseat, will take potshots at enemies scattered here and there. Still, it's best to speed past any opposition and get to the next on-foot segment posthaste. Pointless, yes, but it beats 12 straight hours of climbing and shooting.
Damnation's multiplayer fares better in combining the game's disparate parts. Players are forced to keep their wits about them while clamoring around in deathmatch, but this has a downside: There's too much maneuvering and not enough action, especially when there are few players online to fill a match. So much time is spent finding opponents — both in the game and waiting in the lobby — that brief interludes of shotgun combat aren't fulfilling enough to keep playing.
It's hard to say what would save Damnation from, well, damnation. A sequel could theoretically preserve the game's open environments while streamlining the action and climbing into a cohesive whole. But even then, the game's half-baked plot and all-around lack of polish would require a bigger investment than any publisher would probably throw at such a bottom-shelf title.
Fun Factor: Jumping from building to building and traversing lots of territory is Damnation's strong point. Gunplay, not so much.
Game Length: A handful of two or three-hour sittings will take care of the single-player campaign.
Difficulty: The opening shootouts are harder than average, but the game gets easier from there. The final boss is Damnation's only point of frustration.
On the Negative Side: The saddest thing about Damnation is its wasted potential. Poor presentation and laughable dialogue hold back an otherwise interesting idea.
Bang for Your Buck: There are three difficulty levels and online co-op. Multiplayer may have an expiration date, since there are hardly enough players online already.
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