Darkfall is the type of game that raises many issues for me as a blogger, writer, and as someone that is concerned for the disabled community being ignored.

I'll start off with a description of the game, and then I will try to make my points and list my observations. Hopefully it will make sense.

Review for DarkFall for PC

Imagine a real life pack of hungry animals, and imagine the carnage that could happen if one grew sick and fell. That is essentially how Darkfall is supposed to feel, and it does sometimes, but many times the PvP feels silly because of the way the victim can just pop back into life a few seconds later at a bind-stone.

In fact, a lot of Darkfall is full of these strange ironies, these small parts of simulated reality featured alongside glaringly unreal actions, like horrible player names and the ability to live eternally.

• The game does shadows beautifully. You can actually hide within the shadows, bushes and trees if you don’t have a large neon name floating above your head. Another player will only see you or your name if he looks right at you and hovers his mouse directly on top of your character. Yet, these shadows can be turned off, presumably to keep the system requirements lower. While you sneak around hiding from the light, another player simply turns your shadow off on his screen.
• Sound is an integral part of the game, and can actually give your position away if you are too loud or clumsy. While this is a nice game mechanic (not for deaf/hard of hearing, but we'll get to that) the sounds in the game are usually so loud or perfectly obnoxiously cliché that they can be heard from a greater distance than real life would ever allow.
• You must craft things by manually standing next to stone, wood or bushes to gather materials and you must turn those materials into other things to make other things. Yet the housing is as simple as finding a deed and clicking on the ground. Although you can make a door to "protect" your house, and while that door can be broken down by other players, nothing can be done to the items inside once that door is broken.

These are just some small examples of the odd choices the developers made. Sometimes it seems as though the game wants to punish you, (you get killed and all your gold is stolen) but the game doesn't want you to feel punished (you wake up a second later none the worse.)

As I tried to wrap my head around it, the only way to describe Darkfall now is this: take a beautiful PvE game with magnificent lighting effects and awesome scenery. Add in sand-box elements, allowing your character to become whatever he wants through a skill-based system.

Throw in amazing boat and ships, an incredible NPC AI, and smart NPC animals that respond to the noises you make just like in real life. Take that immersive experience, that beautiful and dark immersive experience, and shove a First Person Shooter into every orifice it has.

And this is where the confusion comes in for me. The game shouldn't be considered an only "hardcore" PvP game, even by the admittance of some of its greatest fans, but should be admired for the sandbox PvE that Aventurine has worked so hard to get into the game.

But everything you do in the game can simply be stepped on by another player. For example, I began to gather timber for my character to chop into wood, gaining skill the entire time. After a long time, he would gain the appropriate "level" in woodcutting to allow him to make a boat. When I hit level 25, I learned how to make a camp-fire. I was so excited that I ran out into the wilderness, carefully at night, and looked for a nice place to set it up.

Within 30 minutes I was dead, killed by another player. He took my camp-fire.

Now, this was no traumatic experience. I didn't "QQ" and I didn't get frustrated. I simply looked at the immersive experience I was about to have (setting up a glowing campfire in a dangerous land) and thought to myself that ”I can have this somewhere else, let's be honest, and without the trouble of a random player bothering me."

I logged out and came back the next day to cut some more wood, and to hopefully gain more levels towards making my boat.

While I cut some of the timber down into wood, slowly earning my way to that wonderful little boat that would take me away from the dreadful newbie area, I was attacked while crafting in town

Of course, the towers in town are trained to attack anyone that attacks anyone else while in the town, but the player lived long enough to hurt me pretty bad. I ran off and put the wood back into my bank. I came back hours later and the same thing happened. Since then I have logged in to chop some wood, but I cannot find the want or the need to stand there babysitting my woodcutting just in case someone decides to attack me.

It started to feel like a job, watching the time clock tick by slowly.

Having said all that, I understand that they are an independent company and are trying to make something unique. But why are they bothering to put systems in that just do not work as soon as someone else decides that his entertainment for the evening was going to include attacking you?

I just don't get it.

And that might be at the heart of the matter: I am too busy trying to play Darkfall for the amazing PvE that I know exists in the game. I mean, I am really giving it a chance. I try to role-play, to explore, and to play slowly enough to smell the pixels. But every so often a kid with a paint gun jumps into my role-playing and starts shooting. No harm done, no one peed their pants out of fright, but it just feels silly. Maybe I need to give it up, to let Darkfall continue to paint itself into such a tiny, tiny corner that it will eventually become just a circle of players killing each other, like a game of spin-the-bottle with swords?

And here we go, the question with the amazingly obvious answer: How disabled-friendly is Darkfall?

I'll wait and let the laughter subside.

The Game Review

For starters, Darkfall is a first person shooter. That means if you do not have control over both your left and right hands fully you cannot play this game at all without an assistive device. While there is some basic turn-left/right, look up/down control with your arrow keys, it reacts so slowly that it's almost as though they want you to feel stupid for choosing to use the arrow keys.

I don't expect a first person shooter to be able to be played by everyone. There is a cut-off point, there has to be. Any developer, especially an independent one, cannot program the game to fit for everyone.

So overall, would I recommend Darkfall?

Very much so, if you can play first person shooters. It is a daring, beautiful and creative game. It is trying something new with a very old system. It can aggravate you and thrill you. It reminds you of the worst behavior online and how magnificent it is when someone acts wonderfully while in those circumstances. But, if you are deaf (you need to literally "hear" enemies approaching), color blind (the classic "red is evil/damage/enemy player" syndrome) or have control issues (while other FPS's might have key-mapping to allow for different movement set-ups, Darkfall has only a few options), then no this is not for you.

Click here to see the breakdown of the reivew

Comments (2)

Carol Williams

February 19, 2010

Votes: +0

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I've not tested this game, but from the way it was described, it sounds like it would be a nightmare for someone who is cognitively impaired or someone with autism.

Gustavo A. Díaz G.

February 20, 2010

Votes: +0

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I'm highly disagree with this review, has a wrong approach. I do not question the part about accessibility issues, but everything else has a bad approach.

You can't go to a hardcore PvP FFA MMORPG and expect a peacefull experience making PvE or carfting, the same would be if you going into a game like WoW (in a PvE server of course)and complain about the lack of open world PvP.

While Darkfall does not provide PvE servers is naive to expect to have a pleasant PvE experience.

But I fear that this will not happen, Aventurine made a product for a niche market, not is for everyone, is for a very specific segment of players, and they know very well, players who enter the game should know this too.

Is a player versus player harcore game, expect a heavy dose of grief, harassment, be killed by foes (or friends) and in the process be prepared to handle lots frustration until you can defend yourself or kill. A good advice is be fast finding a nice guild who host and help you, or you will die alone and often, for long time.

Let judge things for what they are, is illogical to criticize apples for not taste like bananas, lets be crtical about the apple's nature, if are not enough red or sweet.

This game has many shortcomings but you can not accuse it of not being true to its original design and purpose.

The first part of this review can be summarized by saying "Darfall is a brutal and hard PvP FFA MMORPG, not expect more than this, a beautiful world full of possibilities but enclosed in a cruel war. And is an accessibility disaster, let's see why...".

My aim has been to make a constructive criticism and I hope my little contribution will be useful for all. Is my first comment in Ablegamer, my greetings and best wishes for all the community =)

P.D: Sorry for my bad english =P

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