When I first saw James Cameron's Dark Angel I was surprised at the flurry of action possibilities laying there right on the surface. I was taken aback by a game based on a cancelled TV show that showed this much vitality and potential. I was genuinely surprised -- most of all because being surprised doesn't happen too often. But just as so many games end up showing that glimmer of hope, that shining idea of possibility, there are a dozen that never reach that point of crystallization. They never get over the hump; never quite make it. Somewhere in development, the creators lose team members, are rushed to completion, or they lose sight of the initial goal; a million things can happen. And with Dark Angel, well, something like that did happen, though I'm not sure what exactly it was. Somewhere along the line the potentially interesting and dynamic action elements careened downhill into a muddy bog of repetition, lack of vision and general malaise, leaving gamers with a dummed-down, half-baked game that doesn't take them anywhere.
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