"Not great, but a lot of Fun"

Dark Summit is a game that attempts to meld a story based action game with a snow-boarding genre. It succeeds in the latter, but the former is easy to ignore.

Graphics 6/10
The graphics are best described as solid. The graphics look reasonably nice, but never spectacular. The frame rate is solid, and I never experienced any slow-down at any time. The FMV is fair; they look almost as if they are in-game instead. Basically the graphics never negatively affect the game, but they don't push the cube at all.

Sound 7/10
The music was alright, it didn't get annoying but wasn't memorable either. It fits the game fairly well, though after hearing every song a few times I found myself listening to my stereo while I was playing. The sound effects are suitable. However I felt the dialogue that was repeated often like the ones when you fall over got very repetitive.

Storyline 6/10
The storyline is very tongue-in-cheek. While, actually the whole game is, but whets important is the fact the game doesn't take itself too seriously. You don't actually find out most of the storyline to near the end of the game, and while it is good for a laugh you won't be playing on just to find out what happens next.

Gameplay 8/10
This game was surprisingly fun to play. The gameplay consisted of completing challenges and finding bombs. It is not very difficult, and I feel this suited the type of game, as redoing the challenges could have got tedious, but it was possible to complete them within the first few tries. You complete tricks to get equipment points and these unlock uniforms and boards. When you complete the game you can play as some new characters, but these feel tacked on as they have no unlockables like the main character. The trick system is not very complicated, but it plays smoothly.

Replayability 5/10
There is a mulitplayer component, but this feels like it was thrown in at the last moment, as you can only use one track for each mode. You'll try it a couple of times, but it lacks any real depth. You'll unlock all the unlockables throughout the period of the game without even trying. New characters become available once you finish the game the first time, so you might want to play through with a couple of these, but there is no incentive to do so.

Conclusion
There is definitely some fun to be had with this game. If you can pick this up cheap it might be worth a buy if you are a fan of the genre. If not it is definitely worth a rent for those looking for a fun, short game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/14/05