Updated 13 Feb, 2012, 6:30 pm IST

Damnation

09 Jun, 2009, 4:30 pm IST | Nikhil Singh | PC

The minute I saw the lame hat-clad cowboy-wannabe protagonist blasting his way like a clumsy jackass through the game's steampunk universe, I sensed the aura of fail around 'Damnation' instantly. It's one thing to make a game unplayable or downright terrible - Damnation's neither one of them. In spite of bearable platforming and marginally entertaining action, the game fails to deliver an experience that will keep you glued for more than a short while.

The cowboy-wannabe protagonist in question, is the game's lumbering tower of lameness - Hamilton Rourke - an ex-soldier who's taken it up on himself to destroy the evil Prescott Standard Industries with help from his band of rebels who are equally lame-induced. His sorry mates are an English professor who's sure to tick the crap-monkey out of you with his terribly irritating one-liners, and a Native American dame who has more guns than clothes, which is evident by the split-up, leather handkerchief she uses to hide her ample bosom. Ever heard of Kevlar, missy?

The game kicks off with a rather hurried, shabbily rendered cut scene showing you how the world's gone to hell and beyond since Prescott, New America's figurehead, has decided to take over the world using his Terminator-esque robot-skeleton army. That's about all there is to the plot, apart from your standard predictable twists such as betrayals and ultimate triumph of good over evil.

The blandness carries forward to the gameplay too. The best way to describe Damnation is as a cross between Gears of War and Tomb Raiders. It's an even balance of vertical platforming and gunplay. You hop around from pillar to pillar, hang on to and jump off ledges over-looking cliffs, and do all the stuff good ol' agile Lara Croft's been doing since decades, only with a clumsy cowboy in a world plagued by wardrobe-retardation (cowboy hat, breast-covering leather handkerchiefs etc.), rather than the graceful miss Croft.

Tags: Damnation , Codemasters

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