{"id":3853,"date":"2010-01-30T00:01:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T06:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=3853"},"modified":"2010-01-30T00:01:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T06:01:52","slug":"dark-void-zero-dsiware","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/30\/dark-void-zero-dsiware\/","title":{"rendered":"Dark Void Zero (DSiWare)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dark Void is a recently released Capcom game for the big consoles, and to drum up interest for it, they did something incredibly clever: promote the game with an 8-bit DSiWare download called Dark Void Zero. I don\u2019t have any interest in the main Dark Void game, but I\u2019d have to say that Dark Void Zero is probably more fun, especially if you\u2019re a classic Capcom NES fan!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, the \u201chistory\u201d behind Dark Void Zero is that it was supposedly a scrapped 8-bit game from Capcom that was \u2018lost\u2019 in the vaults. It was going to be used in Nintendo\u2019s PlayChoice 10 arcade cabinets to use the dual screen. But as 8-bit gave way to 16-bit, the project was scrapped. But now, the idea behind the game has been redone in a new 3-D action game, and they\u2019ve \u2018re-released\u2019 the classic game on DSiWare.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a YouTube video link that shows the \u2018history\u2019 of Dark Void Zero.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

OK, I do have to say that while this story is really cool, I\u2019m 99 percent sure it\u2019s fabricated. First of all, the Nintendo PlayChoice 10 made money because it was an arcade machine that let you play a selection of existing NES games for a limited time that you could normally play at home (except I did play SMB3 a couple of months early on a PlayChoice 10 before it was released on NES). Just goes to show you how powerful the NES grip on gamers were back then. So why make a game just for the PlayChoice only? Doesn\u2019t make any sense, economically. Also, you\u2019d think an internet savvy researcher would\u2019ve uncovered a scrapped game like Dark Void Zero by now. Have you seen some of the articles at the Lost Levels Web site? Surely one of them would\u2019ve found out.<\/p>\n

At any rate, while I think the whole history is a marketing ploy (and if it is real, then the joke\u2019s on me), Dark Void Zero is still a really fun classic-styled 2-D action game! It\u2019s kind of a mix between Mega Man, Bionic Commando, NES Strider, and The Rocketeer (because you have a rocketpack). And it really does FEEL like a classic Capcom game. It has catchy 8-bit music and they even use the classic pinwheel Yashichi as one of the items. When you first turn on the game, they show a picture of the \u201cNES cartridge\u201d and the only way to start the game is to \u2018blow\u2019 into the cartridge by breathing into the DSi microphone! It\u2019s like a finale game in a Retro Game Challenge sequel or something!<\/p>\n

\"DARKVOID\"<\/p>\n

Anyway, Dark Void Zero is only 500 points (about five bucks). It\u2019s challenging in a classic way (even on Easy mode), but it\u2019s also very fun. The only quibble I have about it is while you can save when you complete one of the three Metroid-ish maze levels, you also save your life count. So if you lost all your lives in stage 1 and save, you\u2019ll have to beat level 2 with no lives. But that\u2019s only a minor complaint. Like a classic NES game, it\u2019s fun to play over and over again to bear your best score and find all the secrets. I highly recommend it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dark Void is a recently released Capcom game for the big consoles, and to drum up interest for it, they did something incredibly clever: promote the game with an 8-bit DSiWare download called Dark Void Zero. I don\u2019t have any interest in the main Dark Void game, but I\u2019d have to say that Dark Void […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}