Damnation is a Steampunk shooter put out by Blue Omega. Damnation began life as a mod of the UnReal Tournament 2004 Engine. It took second place in Epic’s Make Something Unreal contest for Best Overall Conversion. For the home-schooled kids that have no idea what those sentences mean: Damnation started as a homemade video game, and then it won a contest. Now it’s a corporate video game.

I really wanted to love Damnation. Damnation is set in a Steampunk world, and Steampunk is a genre that is dear to me. Here is a primer on Steampunk (for those few people who never experienced pc games like Arcanum, or anime like Steamboy). Steampunk is an offshoot of the sci/fi counter-culture sub-genre Cyberpunk. Instead of using hyper-advanced science in the form of cybernetics, bionics and other sci/fi advances, Steam goes back to the height of the Victorian (era) with fantastical machines and advances all powered by steam. You are probably asking yourself, “Why the hell is it called Punk anyway? Is it like the Ramones or more like the Sex Pistols?”

Sorta. But not really.

The Punk writing movement is in reaction to the dominate Science Fiction philosophy that, in a nutshell, says science will save the day. Think Star Trek. Star Trek says that all problems come from man, and that all solutions are found in science. All you have to do is invent a gizmo or invert the proton flow and bing! the world was saved by science. Punk, on the other hand, says that science and industry will be the downfall of man. That it dehumanizes people, and makes them tools of the machine. Punk says the only way to save ourselves is to rebel against the machine. So, if Jordi LaForge existed in a Steam world his eyes would have been replaced by goggles, and he would have been driven insane by them, and stalked through the streets of White Chapel murdering prostitutes.

See the comparison? In traditional sci-fi, Star Trek Jordi is a nice guy that helps save the world with his genius. In a Steam world, his genius would have given him eyes to see again but at the cost of not only his sanity but the lives of innocent women.

I tell you this because it is relevant in understanding what Blue Omega was trying to do with Damnation. Damnation is set in the late 1800s during the American Civil War. A great inventor, Prescott, has manufactured great machines of war for both the Union and the Confederacy. He has turned men into automated armored monstrosities that kill anyone they come across. As a coupe de grace, Prescott is going to bring peace to the war torn nation by taking it over. Under his benevolent rule and his attempt to forge a new America, Prescott has leveled Chicago, Atlanta, and New York. He has turned more and more of the citizens of New American in to armored killers in his attempt to conquer new territory.

Guess who gets to stop him?

And, really, that’s about the end of where Damnation gets it right.

Now, instead of making a run of the mill shooter, Blue Omega elected to go vertical in their levels rather than the more traditional horizontal. Meaning, instead of running along a path to shoot a bunch of enemies, you have to do a lot of climbing and jumping to shoot a lot of enemies.

Which is a great idea, and it’s been done well by other games. The Prince of Persia series jumps to mind. But Damnation does not execute that idea well at all. Where PoP has well-planned vertical maps and the handy rewind time ability so you can go back to just before you jumped to your death, Damnation has poorly lit and poorly laid out maps and if you jump to your death (which happens A LOT) you have to restart at the last save point.

Which, more often than not, was a long way back.

Graphically speaking the game is mired in 2004. The cover system is a joke, you and the enemies can shoot through it. There are many minor issues of NPC’s getting stuck in a particular pose or unable to move around a piece of scenery. So many that these minor issues pile up to become a major disappointment. And, while I am on the subject of graphics- the character design. Now, from time to time I have a problem with the design choices made by the studios, but I usually let it slide. This is not one of those times.

For the most part, Damnation gets a passing grade on its look. Sure it’s still using a graphics engine from 5 years ago, and that makes things a little fuzzy and pixelated when you are at the wrong distance. But it tries to make up for that with a hodge-podge look of the struggling Wild West rebel walking through a war-torn and destroyed world. All that is okay. Except for one character. Her.

Now, that’s a sexy look, sure. But it’s wildly inappropriate to a world built in a Victorian age. I mean, she looks like the refugee from the far far future where they have oodles of rock-hard silicon breast implants and your closet sprays your cloths on you. To make it worse, no other woman in the game is dressed like this. If she even lifts her arms above the bottom of her rib cage, guess who’s coming out for dinner?

Yes, that’s right, her boobs.

That’s just crap design choice, from both an artistic choice and a design choice. And, that gets an epic WTF?!? from me.

Now, the game controls are actually pretty good. But you don’t notice the smooth aiming with great collision detection because you’ve jumped to your death one more time since that ledge wasn’t meant to be interacted with by a character after all.

And you were going the wrong direction anyway.

Don’t even get me started on the voice acting. It’s just terrible. Oh, and the Native Indian thing? No. Just stop. And the story itself? Well, it’s actually laid out well, told in snippets and back ground voice acting. That pushes the player to be engaged in the story. But.

Do the NPC’s in the game have to be so damn lazy?

You are the player of the game and meant to be the star of the story. But, damn, can’t any of the other characters do anything? There is sequence taking place on a bridge. You are supposed to lay down covering fire so another character can set the charges to blow the bridge. That goes well.

Except, after he’s done he tells you to pull the lever to set it all off. That sound innocuous, right? The player should be the one to set major events in motion in the story. Except the NPC that is calling for you to pull the lever, IS STANDING RIGHT NEXT THE LEVER!

Why can’t he do it? I mean, here I am up in this crow’s nest laying down covering fire with the steam powered Gatling gun, and you want me to climb down the tower, down the ramp, and cross without cover to pull a lever your standing next to?

Really?!?

How about I keep shooting those guys and you pull the lever? How about that? Lazy bastard.

Now, despite all that I want to give Blue Omega some props for taking some risks with this game. The vertical layout is a departure for the shooter genre. Setting this in a punk world was a risk as many players have trouble with steam-powered zeppelins and motorcycles. That may not seem like much, but when people start throwing millions around (how much did you think it takes to make a video game) they tend to get nervous when the words “risk” or “new” come up.

It’s too bad they screwed it up with crap level design, terrible dialog, and poor character design (but if you really really love Steampunk its worth a look).