When someone says they're making a futuristic shooter with power-armor clad soldiers versus horrific creatures, the first thing that always springs to my mind is Space Hulk. This is more indicative of the era I grew up in though and while I salute the fine work of Games Workshop, titles like Dead Space have done a lot to move things forward. D.A.R.K by Gamelab and Chillingo has aspirations of joining these elite works, but ultimately it's yet another twin-stick shooter.

After awakening from a crash your bulky armored hero quickly discovers that he doesn't have much time to escape the infested ship he's on, so he'll have to make a sprint for the escape pods. What follows is a string of unique arenas that, aside from the occasional need to track back and forth to a switch, often pits your hero against wave after wave of zombies, robots and monsters. Experience points will eventually earn you skill points to go towards the basic statistics of speed, health, regeneration and damage, while cash earned from kills can be spent on new weapons and armor to make life a little easier.

Unfortunately most additional weapons provide little more benefit than the default rifle when it comes to clearing out basic waves of enemies, making them a strictly 'for boss and giggles' affair. This is a shame as the repetitious gameplay sets in early even despite the variety of backdrops you're placed in. Some effort has gone towards creating cinematic effects with the game engine, but any tension that's built up is quickly deflated by the combat that follows soon thereafter.

Initially D.A.R.K has the feel of titles like Space Siege or Alien Breed Evolution, but instead of a challenging and tense shooter players are left with a standard testosterone fueled shooter, minus a lot of the challenge. Worth checking out if you want at least a bit of story motivation for your twin-stick antics.