*Screens coming later today, Neo Steam tomorrow*

Damnation is a over the shoulder shooter/platformer set in an alternate history steampunk western United States during what I’d guess is the 1800’s or early 1900’s. I don’t think I ever saw a date. Now, I bought this game because I really enjoy steampunk and was hoping this would deliver on that — it does, in a sense. The style is a bit more ‘wild west’ meets steampunk and it works pretty well I think; the weapons and motorcycles are the best examples of steampunk for me.

This shouldn’t be considered a real review, or a full review at least for the PC version. I’ve got about 10 hours logged into the single-player campaign, and I haven’t had a chance to try the multiplayer or online co-op yet. (largely because none of my friends have the game… rather doubt they’ll get it) I feel I can make a pretty accurate judgment on the single player campaign and that judgment is — it’s pretty average, perhaps a bit under average. Reasons?

The game play is pretty solid for me. Running up and down buildings looking like a cowboy ninja is a little odd, but it does work. The shooting is fun; if you’ve played any over the shoulder shooter you’ll be familiar with it — nothing really new here.

I haven’t run into many different bugs, none game breaking, but the AI is pretty awful — friendly NPC AI especially it seems. Going through the campaign solo you’ll quickly learn that you can’t really rely on your NPC buddies — they often have little to no tactical ability and will be unresponsive much of the time. (in the sense that they’ll follow you, usually, but won’t really be much more than a tag along to provide a bit of extra firepower) It’s best to think of the single player campaign as just that, single player.

The game is not too terribly difficult as health is done in the ‘you can take so much damage at once’ style, with no set min/max numbers — just hold up under cover and you’ll recover, then go back to firing. That said, the game does pose some challenges at times — like the robots that can take a crap load of damage and have rocket launchers.

The most fun I’ve had in the game so far involves the motorcycles that you occasionally use — think of the warthog sections from Halo, you drive from point A to point B with some flashy explosives and stuff in between — mostly because of how the motorcycles look; I really want one in real life now.

The graphics were perfectly fine to me, the animations could probably use a bit of work. I’m thinking this part would be better on the consoles as the game seems to be made first for them, then ported over to the PC.

The sound was alright, seemed pretty normal to me.

The story is kinda meh. It follows one of those ‘rich, powerful, evil corporation is taking over the nation and/or world’ plots where your small cast of characters will have to go in and save the day. The biggest problem I have is the lack of background details or knowledge — this is an original IP (I think, yeah it should be) and I know nothing of the world — some details on what is going on before I hop into the middle of it would be nice. To give a bit of a spoiler here, there’s one character that your main is looking for — turns out to be his lover/girlfriend/wife (?) — and you get to face her as after she’s turned into a weird ass steampunkish cyborg killer. I didn’t even know who she was till I was fighting her, and that took any emotional response I might of had and strangled it. Original IPs need to give more story to draw the players into them, especially worlds that are fantastic and unlike our own. I like the world they have and it seems there’s plenty of potential for it, but the characters — and especially the dialogue — are quite average.

I can’t comment on the co-op or multiplayer game play, but I’m thinking — hoping — that they could fix or at least alleviate many of these problems. I’m thinking multiplayer death match could be a lot of fun with this game — if it is I hope the developers will support it in the future with more content.

I’m not really good with review ratings, but I think I’d give the single player campaign, thus far, a 5/10. It’s pretty average, to a bit under-average.

Who should get this game? Reasons to get this game?: If you like steampunk and have no other game featuring that theme, you might want to get it. Should the multiplayer prove worthwhile, that would be another reason. If you really don’t care about a game’s story or characters and just want to shoot something while jumping from building to building, this might work for you. Otherwise, I’d likely wait till the game goes on sale and pick it up on the cheap. If the developers pop some patches out and fix up the AI and bugs though… it could be worthwhile to get even before a price drop.

*Update: As promised, here’s some screens*

Shootout

Leaping...

Headshot!

Motorcycle

Trike