Tindalos Interactive has a decent cinematic eye
With the xenomorphs inches away, Kurtz unleashes a barrel of buckshot at point blank range. It doesn't kill the hulking Praetorian leading the charge, but it does stun it, giving Tekker MacDonald just enough time to Dark And Darker Gold crack the door code. My squad scrambles through the aperture, and I instruct Corporal Sainz to fill the corridor behind them with cleansing fire. Still the xenomorphs rush on, shrieking as they burn.
It's a miracle my marines survived the encounter. But they won't survive the next one. They're exhausted, acid-burned, running low on equipment, and so frightened they can barely shoot straight. I'm minutes away from completing the mission, but I give the order to retreat anyway. Tomorrow I'll return with fresh troops and finish the job. The xenomorphs will be stronger, too, but that's a risk I'll have to take.
Many games have tried to replicate the slow burning tension and chaotic action of Aliens, but Dark Descent is the first game since Monolith's AvP 2 to really nail it. Developer Tindalos Interactive has thought intensely about how to get the best out of James Cameron's film in a virtual context, and their solution is a scintillating real-time tactics game that blends stealth, strategy, and nail-biting gunfights.
Dark Descent plays its weakest card first, so let's do likewise and get it out of the way. The game takes place on Lethe, a xenomorph-infested moon owned by the OG tech-startup Weyland Yutani, and where the Colonial Marine frigate U.S.S Otago has had the misfortune to crash-land. The cause of the crash is detailed in an elaborate, story-driven prologue that doubles as a tutorial.
Tindalos Interactive has a decent cinematic eye, and Dark Descent captures the aesthetic and soundscape of both Scott and Cameron. But the script lacks the same wit and subtleties. A mess of forced conflicts and awkward dialogue, it's a draining parasite hidden in the game's chest, just waiting to burst out with a clanging line or an incongruous emotional outburst.
Once stranded on Lethe, however, the cheap Dark And Darker Gold stories you create more than compensate for the narrative shortcomings. Each mission of the linear-ish campaign sees you dispatch a four-person team of marines to locations around Lethe, either to improve your situation or investigate why the moon is overrun with bugs. The first of these takes you to a facsimile of Hadley's Hope named Dead Hills, a sprawling shake 'n' bake colony with numerous buildings laid out on multiple floors. There's a bar, an armoury, a clinic, a command centre, and underneath it all, a twisting warren of mining tunnels.
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