Jericho is cajoled into joining a secret order of righteous but slightly twisted good guys called the Darkwatch. Along the way, you'll have to display feats of blood-bathed carnage as the pace of this energetic FPS never ever lets up. I've already gone into detail about the game with the last preview GameSpy ran, so this time, I took a long harder look at some of the later levels and "brand" powers that the near-final build has in store. Oh and let's not forget a little two-player split screen co-op play either.
The first new level I checked out was called Deadfall which is towards the end of the game and is where Lazarus and his countless minions are hold up for the time being. At this point, I has access to all of the good and bad brand powers -- although gamers playing through for themselves will only have a selection of these based on the key choices they make from time to time.
The action kicks off with some of your fellow Darkwatch members shelling the undead town with train-mounted canons the size of elephants. This doesn't exactly make for a stealthy approach, so Jericho heads into the fray with his guns blazing. In fact, Darkwatch isn't about sneaky, slow maneuvering -- quite the opposite in fact. But there's a good reason for the adrenaline fueled madness. Firstly, it's fun and secondly, you need to collect as many blood-clouds as possible to keep that blood bar fully topped -- enabling you to bust out the brand powers.
There are four "good" and four "bad" brands. Each one is unique and ranges from providing one-shot kills, personal damage shields and the all-potent death-dealing Vindicator and Soul Stealer moves which essentially act like a supernatural smartbomb. Once you start stringing kills together with a constant supply of dropped blood-clouds and your impressive Darkwatch gun arsenal, you're really moving into some of the coolest non-stop action out there.
