Darkest of Days is currently abandonware. THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo/ It feels strange this doesn't have a medieval England or ancient Egypt level, but that might be Serious Sam being on the brain still.
Wow! This has to be the most pointless, morally bankrupt premise for a shooter I've ever seen. Literally just "shoot whoever is winning at the moment." I can't imagine how anyone who wasn't playing this to make a video could ever feel motivated to finish it. Time Splitters had a premise that was so much better.
@@MandaloreGaming Do you ever see planes in the WW2 setting? Idk if that dialogue happens after that, and it's obviously a stretch but that would help I guess?
"Personally, I tried not to blame any given people for the event; sandwiched between Kraft cheese commercials and television spots, there was a story playing out that could have easily been exploited to send the populace into a manipulable state of endless paranoia. In the end, I really feel bad for _all_ of us. That's the lesson of history, Morris." "Y'all craft cheese in the future?"
the line about dexter not knowing russian was probably just two different writers not checking with eachother and writing conflicting information, but the thought of him just making up stuff to you is way funnier
I thought it was something like Dexter actually did that mission before the one where he does understand. With all the time shenanigans he could have learned it in between those missions from his perspective and not done them in the same order as the player
@@georgedorpis4056 I can't speak or understand a word of german but I know what funny Austrian Painter man said in his speeches. I think it's like that, he knows what was said because it's an important time in history and was translated at some point, but he personally doesn't understand any Russian.
@@georgedorpis4056it’s probably a dated reference now, but that’s a fairly big plot point in Homestuck, certain characters start having conversations out of order with each other that leads to things where other characters seem to unlearn stuff from meeting to meeting
_Technically,_ the M61 Vulcan allows indirect fire (it's only got about a 1km/s muzzle velocity,) it's not the sort of thing anyone does on purpose with the solid slugs those typically fire. Tumbling bullets are a negative if you actually want to hit the target.
I didn't know where else to share this, but it's been in my brain for a while. During the civil war section where there is a pool of water you can just barely drown in, if you crouch down and look up while panning around you can clearly see the reflection of someones car in the water texture. I no longer wish to be the soul bearer of this knowledge. Haven't watched the video yet so I hope it shows up
@@cdru515 apparently there's a moment where you can clip through the floor in the concentration camp level and you can see the full skybox photo, complete with a car that was covered up with some level geometry
One thing I like about the final battle in Pompeii is how at first blush it makes sense; The Opposition is striking in full force because the whole area is going to be destroyed, so any evidence of their presence will be erased. Then you think about it a bit longer and realize the sheer scope of how much future technology and forensic evidence is being created is too much for the eruption to cover up, especially since Pompeii is iconic for preserving the things and people destroyed in the volcanic ash. Then it makes sense again when you learn The Opposition has given up on actually preserving the timeline to begin with.
To be fair to the writers, this is probably the most realistic depiction of a time traveling corporation - we all know Apple or General Dynamics would not only inadvertently alter the timeline, but spin up a competing division just to undo their "oopsies."
Imagine finding out that the timeline is irreparably broken because some dude went back in time to undo an event that caused Amazon share prices to drop by 5%
@@hollylucianta6711”Marketing determined that the launch of the iphone would be about 2% more profitable if Genghis Khan didn’t exist, take this grenade launcher and go wild.”
@@r0cketm00se3No. Muskets could do 3 to 6 rounds per minute, the distinction was important even then, 'cuz everyone was trying to keep up with British loading drills.
Gatling guns existed, the french mitreilleuse existed, repeating muskets have been around since the 1600s. Its not incomperhenaible to have an automatic weapon.
Yahtzee once described playing the Sniper in TF2 as being for people who like point-and-click adventure games, albeit ones where the only puzzle is "use Gun on Man".
Fun fact, There are hundreds of copies of this game in Texas Half-Price Books locations in/around the Dallas and Fort worth areas. You can, and may still be able to going on four years since I lived there- be able to find a copy of this game there still. No one ever bought them, the game cases were still sealed most of the time, and generally you wouldn't be paying anything more than like 5 dollars for a copy. c:
@@MandaloreGaming Nope! Just labled as a PC game and shunted off into their gaming section which is full of HOARDS of old stuff. I got a sealed copy of the orange box, some of the old collectors editions of the older rainbow six games.. Really it's just a pawn shop for nerd stuff that also sells books.
imagine exploring an old civil war battleground or something, finding the usual pieces of history, old guns, old ball bullets, and then you find a massive pile of 20th century casings that, by all accounts, should not have been there but according to dating ARE that old....
I actually don’t think they eject casings or shells. I couldn’t really see anything being ejected out of the weapons which means they use some type of caseless ammo. If so that’s a really nice detail.
To be fair if you’re a time travel organization any future guns you supplie will without a doubt use baseless ammunition and ammunition that will dissipate in some fashion so that future historians won’t find it, that’s how I thought of it anyway
Dexter's audio going from profesional to early Red vs Blue episodes in quality surely feels like a joke by the developers doing a cry for help after the flood.
This game will always have a space in my brain because I remember my high school Biology teacher proudly telling us that his son was working on this game. Keep in mind that I spent 2 years living in a small rural town in Iowa, with a population so small the junior high and high school were in one building. So the sheer bizarreness of that moment kept the memory of this game alive for me decades later despite me forgetting the majority of my time there. My teacher told us that he would give extra credit to anyone who bought the game. The one kid who did was the only other PC gamer in my tiny school. I hope the points he got was worth it.
@@QuintessentialWalrus that ain't as small town as you think. down in lee high we had a school for prek-12 in the same building plus a college right behind it. at least.... I think it was a college...
Adding to the bit about Kronotek being incompetant, the World War One levels have a lot of anachronisms (tanks and mustard gas being used in 1914, and Imperial German officers sporting the Nazi eagle on their sleeves and belt buckles) which made me think. On one hand, those could just be goofs on the developers' part, but I like to think it might be a subtle hint that the timeline is already messed up beyond repair, and the organization is either completely unaware (because their memory of the original timeline was replaced by this new reality) or they're just banking on their time-draftees not noticing.
This was something that came to mind. Like it very obviously was a goof on the developer’s part, complete with Russians shouting about “Stalin” when he is still a Georgian Communist Bank Robber, and they should be praising the Tsar, on top of the Germans having British Mark family tanks even before the British invented them. But it would have been cool to have some explanations of it.
You drop into an ancient Aztec battlefield, one of the most ferocious peoples of all history, so terrifying to their own neighbors that the Spanish and many local tribes have banded together to finish them off. A naked man wielding a Tepoztli dashes towards you, and he shouts, blood on his mouth and unholy purpose in his eyes, "HEY HEY PEOPLE, TEZCTLAN HERE"
Lol, Little Bighorn being depicted as a mountain region with forests is hilarious. Little Bighorn is a river area and the spot where Custer and his men died is literally just an open field with no cover.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who noticed that. Pretty sure Custer didn't even really have a "last stand" so much as his unit just sort of got overrun. It's like they just heard "Montana" and decided it had to be mountains.
@@DerLudwigVonZweihander usually people think of weird nutjob militia compounds with a beautiful view of the mountains when they think montana they don't realize thats the main part they show because thats the only part of such a massive state thats actually interesting to look at
Oh man I've always loved this game. One of the only single player campaigns that lets you fight with civil war weapons, which I actually thought led to some unique combat scenarios. One thing worth noting about Darkest of Days is that it was effectively an indie game, made on a custom engine (which at the time was a money-saving tactic, believe it or not), and is imo quite an impressive achievement and quite a unique and imaginative game, especially compared to other FPS at the time. IIRC one of the developers went on to make Brigador too, which is pretty neat.
it was basically a tech demo that got turned into a full game, apparently the editor didn't even have an undo function! one of the level designers was an artist with no level design experience. he did a GDC talk about it: ua-cam.com/video/CTBor4rhnQs/v-deo.html
The fun part about russian soldiers. They shout for stalin. So the developers fucked up bad with this. It shouldve beem something like "For tsar and the fatherland!" (За царя и отечество)
It would've been super confusing hearing Dexter's story if he went into details like driving, planes and most of all, hearing about towers. The MC would be like "Oh, I know what towers are," and then finding out it had 110 floors.
One should see Multiversal defense. Would be risky yet gnarly to see a covert aggressor squadron of Zaarin-design TIE Defenders protect the Boiling Isles from an invasion led by one Owlman, as an example.
Imagine if the last survivor of the platoon runs back to the base. "The entire platoon was wiped out Sir, I was the only one who escaped!" "What? I thought we had the numbers on our side?" "We did, but then this guy just showed up and.....and just had this ......cannon in his hands, which wiped out all out!" "Slow down son, what do you mean by 'cannon'?"
"No Latin mission" is an absolutely incredible line. I played this once as a kid but didnt get very far. Years later I was able to find a download for it, and I was surprised at how quickly the game ended after Pompeii. It felt like there should have been a lot more to it.
Fun fact, the devs of this game are the same folks who develop and run the Marmoset toolbag, and even though they're more or less out of game development, they still find the time to answer questions regarding Darkest of Days and have said in forums and discussions that they wouldn't at all mind if someone remastered their game/made a sequel.
I think my jaw unhinged when I realized what historical event Dexter was vaguely alluding to in his backstory exposition dump. Bringing up 9/11 was VERBOTEN for years in most American media and its still a pretty touchy subject even now - Obama hadn't even been in office for a full year yet when this game came out.
Ah I remember this game, "Try not to fuck up the timeline....buuuuut y'know if you want to go ham with a futuristic shooty bang we'll clean it up later on"
I like to imagine the reason the timeline is so messed up in the first place is because they were very cavalier about the idea of "oh we'll just fix that up later" and it just snowballed from there.
That "god's holy rifle" monologue from when the civil war soldier finds the automatic future gun is something that i say to this day when i game. Was a really big fan of this game, especially its take on alt history.
9:48 Muskets aren't so much louder or deeper as they are *longer* They're a whole heartbeat of *boom* versus a split second of *bang* from modern guns, self-contained cartridges, and smokeless powder.
I still distinctly remember how, after beating the game, you got a level that was just a grave, where the devs celebrated finishing the game and thanked the player for buying it. IIRC that celebration/thanks was on the gravestone; and, holy shit the feels when the implication sunk in
16:59 Fun fact: during the battle of second Bull Run, some Confederate troops of the Stonewall brigade actually ran out of ammunition. Not wanting to give up the fire, they actually started throwing Rocks at the Union soldiers attacking them
Fun fact ancient Greek warfare (You can read about this as far as the Illiad) after your spear was cracked or you lost your sword ,it was common to just pick a big rock and throw it to the enemy , or cave his head in
the factoid of them putting in water assets because their studio flooded is hilarious, made me think of the phrase "Emotional Support Sewer Level", which Randy Pitchford would probably have.
Sewer, cave, mine and subway levels can get BENT. I'm playing Alan Wake 2 at the moment and one of the first levels takes place in a dark subway. BOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!
8:35 There's a game called Kingmakers that's basically trying this exact thing. Brutal Legend-style RTS but with a third-person controllable character set in medieval times, except you've got a pickup truck with a flux capacitor and all the guns you can carry. It looks like it's either going to be the best game ever made or a spiritual sequel to this.
That sounds like one of those russian isekais where a soldier timetravels into the body of Hitler, join forces with the Soviet Union and nukes America ...not as crazy as Original War still
@@LtAlguien In fairness, Original War was based on a book that was itself pretty crazy. Not quite as crazy as Original War, but they were starting from a pretty out-there place.
@@martinsriber7760 The implication is that the army recruiter in question is dating a girl that's still in high school. It's an eerily feasible scenario, considering army recruiters are by and large predatory scum.
This is maybe the first time I've heard a videogame minigun that _actually_ sounds realistic. A real minigun shoots SO fast you cannot perceive individual bullets, it's just a very loud buzz.
I went back to Desert Storm 2 recently and forgot how meaty the gun sounds are. The bass gets so loud on some weapons that it clips the audio and makes it sound even more crunchy.
@@BaneOfXistence4 Nice! I've not played it, but I love good audio design, esp. in a genre like shoosters where it has gone so overlooked or homogenized. Speaking of, I can't believe _I've_ overlooked the undisputed _king_ of shooster sound design, and the possessor of one of the only other accurate minigun sounds - *_Arma 3_*
I played this game on Xbox as an annoying middle schooler obsessed with history, and I bought it and replay it probably every other year on PC today. It's ridiculous, corny, but honestly I love the concept. The idea of a time-travelling corporation that can only use the missing and forgotten shadows of people from history has promise, and to this day I've still been looking in every few years to check on who owns the rights and how much they want for it. There's plot holes and writing inconsistencies-a-plenty, no doubt, but I still have dreams of taking a few thousand dollars from my savings and buying the IP to give it another try. Between friends in game development and a team of writers really wanting to reinvigorate the concept, I feel like this could be a micro-market darling of an indie title. Something that really dives hard into both the ridiculous nature but also the fascinating potential. Thanks for covering it, I'm amazed to see that anyone else still remembers this quirky, absurd, but fun little gem of abandonware.
This is the type of game that needs a remake, not old classics. This game has a lot of potential that wasn't realized at it's time and needs a second chance.
The topic of "Are tragic events in history worth preserving?" reminds me of something from my own wacky writing. I've been doing a small RP campaign (with just 1 or 2 other people) set in a multiverse in which many of the main characters _know that they are in a story,_ and in fact they regularly take advantage of the way storytelling differs from reality (doing things like setting up tone and scenarios to favor their actions, or at high levels, directly writing new things into the story for tactical advantages). However, this leads to a bit of an unusual conflict between two major factions. You see, a story cannot exist without an audience, and that audience wants to see _conflict._ They want to see turmoil, chaos, and _eventually_ triumph--but when triumph isn't temporary, the audience loses interest. At the end of the day, in a world ruled by the rules of fiction, there is one tyranny above all: There is no happily-ever-after, because once the audience reaches happily-ever-after, the story effectively ceases to exist. So the primary conflict I've been running with has been between Prometheus, who has started an interdimensional smuggling ring to try and destabilize the story to such a degree that the narrative framework itself collapses, and a sort of fiction-police agency that _primarily_ does disaster relief work in worlds that are suffering supernatural disasters or wars between good and evil, but which has put together a task force to deal with Prometheus's goons occasionally importing ICBMs into a fantasy setting or magic plagues into sci-fi settings.
Brings into mind the "For Want of a Nail" trope, the puzzle adventure endings of Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, and DC Comics' Flashpoint. There's the risk of creating better worlds by changing history, but there are times where saving lives by way of doing so ends up creating worser worlds due to breaking off a necessary balance.
“Did John Wilkes Booth hide the secret Nazi gold under the barn where he died? So that he can pay the aliens? The answer isn’t clear. This and much more absolute nonsense coming up next.”
>Its like an A-10 doing a strafing run I run your videos in the background while working so when it got to that moment, I had to pause and see the scene for myself because I genuinely thought you just overlaid the an Ace Combat A-10 replay or something Nope, it really sounds like an A-10 doing a strafing run.
@@Revan058 (shrug) it might be a lie, but it was sold as a gau-8 audio sample bank and it sounds like what you hear on soldiers recording with phones (only much clearer of course). There's audio banks for all sorts of stuff, even stuff like jars being opened.
@@gae_wead_dad_6914 No, the joke is that military recruiters tend to get a liiiiittle too personal in their relationships with high schoolers and often groom kids into relationships, despite being very firmly in the age bracket where you shouldn't be dating high schoolers
I love when you mention getting ahold of people from the original team for stories about the development. It’s cool to hear some of the background from people directly involved, and who we otherwise wouldn’t get to hear from. Probably also a great feeling for them to get to share with people today about what they worked on.
Sling rocks (these were actually called "bullets") can penetrate skulls at the right distance, maybe not go through but archaeologists could chalk it up as a weirdly small, elongate, and fast-moving rock.
@@sowpmactavish also there used to be a very primitive form of head surgery called Trepanning where they'd poke/drill a hole in the skull to treat illnesses/wounds.
To be fair, who knows what kind of genetic marker the virus latched onto. It could be "everyone related to George Washington himself " and that's simply how they spread out over the generations until 2300. Clearly the "European descent" thing is mostly over simplification
Yeah, like zero disrespect to Mandy for trying to engage on it or discuss on "will how couod this ending actually mean a single damn thing", but this game just ending by staring the player in the eye and going "The Middle Easy is Gonna Make The White Death, like the Bubonic Plague but for White People", is. A Choice, to put lightly
I actually emailed a developer on this game to ask him some behind the scenes questions. They were very kind to respond and clearly showed love for the game, the team, and ideas that they had for a sequel. Truly one of my core memory games, despite its charming jank.
Two minor things about the game which weren't mentioned: Sometimes gun upgrades change how a gun looks, and the cover of hard copies varies. I own a hard copy of Darkest of Days and the cover art is different from a hard copy you could buy today in the US.
Pretty standard just look at ace combat 4 the US, EU, JP cover art all are different even the sub title is different. heck some game even had multiple cover art for each region. I remmber a racing game that had a diffrent cover art (anything inside brackets share) for (sweden, finland) (germany, danmark) French (it was just the eiffel tower added in the background) and so on. yes a lot of the diferensial was just that them adding the contries famus landmark to the generic city in the background. that is if the background was not just a forest.
@@Zack_Wester It's standard in some spaces and not in others - with Darkest of Days I can at least tell that a significant amount of people I have encountered only knew of the US cover art... However, beyond if it's sth unique or not, I think it's just cool to have that variation generally speaking.
I am so happy you looked at this game! This came out when I was still in high school, but I now work for the company that made it and work closely with a few of the people still left from that era that actually worked on this game. The lead sound person that did all of the sounds for this game still writes and composes the music and sounds for the mobile slot games we make now. Fun fact, the development of this game almost bankrupt the company when it came out, almost completely due to the marketing expenses. In the end, this is why they stepped away from making this type of game and shifted to the social casino landscape that was wide open at the time. That being said, I think they were on to something and could have made some amazing games if they had stuck to it. This was only the first attempt at a game from a small game studio in the middle of Iowa, so I still think the end result is pretty cool.
The owner of Phantom EFX kind of spun off 8 Monkey as a passion project that was supposed to be a civil war shooter and turned into DoD. He made his money with slot machine games before, and from the look of things keeps doing so now. But yes, the budget spent on marketing was something approaching what he paid us to collectively develop it.
@@AB-bg7os The "Present" in TimeSplitters was the far future, so parts of its "Past" were still sci-fi future. That said, many levels are set in the actual historical past - from World War I, Wild West, 1960's and even the 1990's.
"U.S. Patent Number 1" Is a board game about time travelers racing to be the first inventor of the time machine and set a timeline where no one else can ever invent it.
this intro remanded me that trailer for that new game where it's just a medieval sim until it switches to a pov of a guy mowing knights in his car like he's God's drunkest driver also a guy in civil war finds an full auto from the future and goes JESUS GAVE ME THIS GUN!!!!!
same I laughed for few minutes after seeing the part where the guy on top of the castle just headshots the fully armored enemy commander like "parry this fucking casual"
Dexter explaining 9/11 was already a hell of a twist, but a white genocide virus developed SPECIFICALLY by "Middle Eastern" scientists sent me into the stratosphere with how targeted it was
@@VoiceQuills Both specifically in the sense that you need to know it was developed in one of them thar terrorist countries, and nonspecifically in the sense that they don't care about which one it was in. Which makes it really easy to analyze that particular writing choice...
@@timothymclean Nothing to analyse. There is an old bedouin proverb, that is sort of taken as one of the fundamental rules of life in the muslim world, which is "Me against my brother, My brother and I against our cousin, My cousin, brother and I against the stranger." That is why politically the countries of the middle east fight between each other fairly viciously but functionally unite at the drop of a hat against "external" threats. So if a threat originates from one of them, it tends to originate from all of them, especially if the threat is clandestine, as they all offer shelter and support to each other.
fun fact : one of the skips in the speedrun of the game was found because while routing a Spanish speedrunner saw a dick drawn with triggers up in the skybox by the developer. Then Meliodas, the Russian speedrunner of this title, tried to find a good point of view to show us, the viewers on a marathon, the goodness of a blocky penis made before Minecraft by a gamedev. There was a good spot, for some reason there was a hut in the middle of nowhere slightly out of bounds of the level, reachable by an abuse of "tree-climbing" they've found earlier.He came to the hut and realized there is another trigger that can be reached and that starts up a scripted portion of a level. Probably was left there by devs for testing purposes. The hut climb cuts a long sequence of AI triggers and saves about 20 minutes time in the NG+ cata. Was found because of a dick in the sky. Thanks Mandy for bringing up a good memory.
I’m surprised how every review of this game I encounter, no one has ever mentioned Harry Turtledove’s book, “Guns of the South” Arguably his most famous work simply for the cover alone, which is Robert E. Lee holding an AK-47. The plot is about a bunch of time traveling South African terrorist go back to give the Confederate Army AK-47s, truly a bizarre but good read
Im more of a fan of his series after GOTS, Southern Victory, a more realistic alternate history about the Confederacy winning the Civil war. Would definitely recommend reading the first book at least
that reminds me of a strategy game i saw on steam for a while in early access that eventually got abandoned, of different factions going back to kit out both factions in the civil war with future weapons, its a shame it flopped because i still love the concept
How much of his tankie politics does he inject into guns of the south? I was thinking of reading it, having read his World-War and Homeward Bound series, but they had about the upper limit of commie propaganda I was able to stomach and just due to the subject matter I would suspect GotS would have even more.
@@irishempire9811 The first trilogy (covering an alternative early 20th century) is awesome. The second and third are grimdark doomerism which never seem to know which of their own moral stories they're supposed to be telling and spend an inordinate amount of time praising the moral fortitude of people both real and imagined who would belong in a collection of history's greatest monsters. (In a hark back to this video, Custer not only not getting last-standed but being the champion of and IIRC eponym of the alt-timeline M4 Sherman was one of its lesser problems.)
@@therealchriscunningham i havent read the other trilogies in the series, only How Few Remain and the Grear War trilogy, and those were awesome. Idk if I'll read the other books but im fine just reading those firsr 4 for now
Poland and other eastern european countries not being affected by the virus on the "outage map" at 28:10 made laugh so hard, I dont know why they did that but its hilarious
28:10 "This is the official european outage atlas" >Finland, Mongolia or Hungary not affected at all. [laughs in mongolian] What did they mean by this?
Considering that ALL OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA was colonized by the Spanish/Portuguese, it's abysmal that the virus didn't kill a single person there.
Honestly what drove me crazy in the good way about this was being in these massive battles and feeling like a soldier on the ground even if we then transition into being the army-stomper. like being brought into a line battle was AWESOME imo I wish more FPS games did that or made you feel like part of the army not just "one of 3 protagonists and thus nobody else will ever do anything"
I'm willing to bet money that disease bit the terrorists in the ass due to their own genes. 'Caucasian' is a pretty wide net that can encompass anyone from Arabs to Hispanics (seriously, Chile gets hit yet Andy. H and the Argentines are immune?).
I love hunt for this very reason, the weird inbetween of old and new concepts in weaponry at that time period clashing together is very fun to play around with
@@fordakacar Yes, I play a ton with one of my friends and while there are some cheating issues it's very fun. There is also a pretty massive update coming this month that adds importannt mechanics like bullet drop and expanded audio detail, as well as a new Wild Boss and new map. So if you are going to play it again this is probably the best time as that update is coming pretty soon.
@@fordakacar it's getting a huge update. I'm hoping they focus on polish after that, though. It's a flawed game, but it's one of my favorites for just the overall feel of it. Sometimes, I enjoy just skulking around a match, not really going for kills or objectives, but maybe engaging with someone opportunistically, and a lot of that is just because I love the atmosphere.
30:47 I've always been very miffed by how there are practically *no* games set in the Korean War. Almost feels like an industry-wide conspiracy at times. Fighting Russian T-34s with American Shermans and Pershings while early jets fly above would be really cool (even if I recognize that the main reason for its exclusion is probably that it's not distinct enough from either WW2 or Vietnam, sandwiched awkwardly in-between).
There's legal reasons for this; you can't sell any games that depict war in the Korean peninsula in brick and mortar South Korean stores. South Korea also happens to be a substantial video game market, so the Korean War is basically verboten as a setting unless you just don't want to, or don't need to, deal with that.
Gotta miss those games where you can fly the F-86 Sabre and the MIG-15. Anyways, any game where you clobber the PRC is a worthwhile game to me. They're basically the Nazi Germany of the now as of the writing.
What is about as bizzare is that Russian and Ukrainian devs in their heyday (0's and early 10's) were probably the largest contributor to the WWII games out there (RTSs like Blitzkrieg and Men of War, tactics like Silent Storm, sims like IL-2 Sturmovik...) and those had the Axis as a playable side despite the particular obsession with loudly denouncing anything and all even vaguely "Nazi" in Russia in particular. Whereas nowadays it seems like any plans to recreate a historical period impartially for (semi-) educational purposes are gonna get hounded to no end. I am honestly worried as to what Civ VII is gonna turn out like in this day and age.
Hey Mandy I can explain why older guns and modern ones sound different! Either way its a supersonic boom; but modern guns the powder burns slower and that boom occurs outside the barrel at the muzzle. Black powder detonates faster, so you are hearing that same boom but from inside the gun and directed down the barrel! Ultimately still a bang or a boom but with a different sound character because of the underlying physics.
Imagine if all those missions that you're going through are the result of fuck ups caused by all the other Agents running around the timeline, and the enemies from time bubbles are other agents from even further timeline are trying to kill you to prevent your fuck ups.
@@windwind3170 lmao i think its pretty stock time travel schenanigans. I can think of a few games where you go back and shoot yourself at start of the story
18:40 Oh look, the time police form the 2Xth century is policing the time police of the 22nd century :D This game is actually well thought-out, I like it.
Underused period in european history would be The Deluge and connected to it wars that shaped european history. But overall I'd say that you can point at any point of history of any nation in Asia and see it underrepresented. I don't recall any game or media that touches Indonesia or Malaysia at all for example.
I've been waiting for Mandi to cover this game since he started reviews. This is a genuine little gem, I had a knick for trying out obscure old titles back in my college laptop gaming days and the sandbox-like warfare was a fun experience.
Everything you play always looks so cool. Also, the first 5 seconds of the video reminded me of Black and White 2 Aztec's mision... I miss that game :(
as a history buff i really liked playing with the historic weapons. Fighting with muskets creates a certain tension in a fire fight. Plus the atmosphere was really good so you could just ignore the future stuff in your head cannon and pretend to be a soldier in that time
The multiplayer scene has been carrying the historical shooter genre hard lately with War of Rights, the WWI-series of games, and Holdfast. WWII games have finally broken out of COD since they absolutely refuse to make a spiritual successor to WaW, Post Scriptum (Squad 44) particularly is good. What I wish to see though is for devs to be more brave covering more obscure and semi-modern wars such as the Congo Crisis, Yugoslav wars, Soviet-Afghan war, or just more alt history.
I think the game was balanced around the historic weapons for the most part. That was one of the criticisms on release. Some people wanted to get weird and sci-fi but the game usually tried to stop you from doing that.
21:26 IC FIVMVS CARI DVO NOS SINE FINE SODALES NOMINA SI QVAERIS GAIVS ET AVLVS ERANT "Here we were, we dear pair, comrades without end. If you ask for names, they were Gaius and Aulus" -written above the entrance to a bar in Pompeii
@@Xenomorthian Yes. In fact, the pronunciation of the letter V as a "vvv" sound was introduced much later during the Middle Ages, and in classical Latin the letter V acted as both the letters U and W. In other words, it's pronounced "Weni, Widi, Wici", "Wersus" and "Werbum" (where we get the modern English "Word")
Darkest of Days is currently abandonware.
THE LIST - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_K3ziSxT9zcUUGCddS4sF1uNJTWHSbOwB1CQX2Rx4Uo/
It feels strange this doesn't have a medieval England or ancient Egypt level, but that might be Serious Sam being on the brain still.
this game is a certified hood rat classic
whats that song the one at 10 mins
Next: Turning Point Fall of Liberty
Then: Legendary the Box
End series with: Singularity
Bonus: Frontlines: Fuel of War
Wow! This has to be the most pointless, morally bankrupt premise for a shooter I've ever seen. Literally just "shoot whoever is winning at the moment."
I can't imagine how anyone who wasn't playing this to make a video could ever feel motivated to finish it. Time Splitters had a premise that was so much better.
Another great video as always!
"that fateful day, morris when those planes hit the towers.."
"what the fuck is a plane"
Dexter got so chill with him I think he legitimately forgot how far away his time period was.
@@MandaloreGaming Do you ever see planes in the WW2 setting? Idk if that dialogue happens after that, and it's obviously a stretch but that would help I guess?
"Personally, I tried not to blame any given people for the event; sandwiched between Kraft cheese commercials and television spots, there was a story playing out that could have easily been exploited to send the populace into a manipulable state of endless paranoia. In the end, I really feel bad for _all_ of us. That's the lesson of history, Morris."
"Y'all craft cheese in the future?"
Ironic non of these time travel gener's want too stop anything 9/11 the H C ecetera
@@Wolf_ManJack the darkest days equivalent of "shrimp fried this rice" i love it.
the line about dexter not knowing russian was probably just two different writers not checking with eachother and writing conflicting information, but the thought of him just making up stuff to you is way funnier
I thought it was something like Dexter actually did that mission before the one where he does understand. With all the time shenanigans he could have learned it in between those missions from his perspective and not done them in the same order as the player
@pedrox2006
I just took it to mean that he couldn't _speak it_ , but could understand it well enough to translate.
Dexter just operates on vibes. What a man.
@@georgedorpis4056 I can't speak or understand a word of german but I know what funny Austrian Painter man said in his speeches. I think it's like that, he knows what was said because it's an important time in history and was translated at some point, but he personally doesn't understand any Russian.
@@georgedorpis4056it’s probably a dated reference now, but that’s a fairly big plot point in Homestuck, certain characters start having conversations out of order with each other that leads to things where other characters seem to unlearn stuff from meeting to meeting
"Hey, uh, try not to mangle the timeline"
"Understood sir, switching the CIWS to direct fire mode."
_Technically,_ the M61 Vulcan allows indirect fire (it's only got about a 1km/s muzzle velocity,) it's not the sort of thing anyone does on purpose with the solid slugs those typically fire. Tumbling bullets are a negative if you actually want to hit the target.
Completely and mentally stable mode
...from fuller auto.
"Who did this damn 9-11 was it the apache!?" fucking KILLED me
Same, add that to the list of sentences I never expected to hear.
I mean, with how mangled the timeline could be…
I didn't know where else to share this, but it's been in my brain for a while. During the civil war section where there is a pool of water you can just barely drown in, if you crouch down and look up while panning around you can clearly see the reflection of someones car in the water texture. I no longer wish to be the soul bearer of this knowledge. Haven't watched the video yet so I hope it shows up
IIRC, the skyboxes (reflected in the water) are photos, and that's the photographer's car
@@cdru515 apparently there's a moment where you can clip through the floor in the concentration camp level and you can see the full skybox photo, complete with a car that was covered up with some level geometry
@@cdru515 it was kinda neat to see an out of place car in a time travel game
There was even an achievement for drowning in water if I recall.
Its like they wanted you to see the car.
Fly, my child, for thou art free.
One thing I like about the final battle in Pompeii is how at first blush it makes sense; The Opposition is striking in full force because the whole area is going to be destroyed, so any evidence of their presence will be erased. Then you think about it a bit longer and realize the sheer scope of how much future technology and forensic evidence is being created is too much for the eruption to cover up, especially since Pompeii is iconic for preserving the things and people destroyed in the volcanic ash. Then it makes sense again when you learn The Opposition has given up on actually preserving the timeline to begin with.
To be fair to the writers, this is probably the most realistic depiction of a time traveling corporation - we all know Apple or General Dynamics would not only inadvertently alter the timeline, but spin up a competing division just to undo their "oopsies."
Imagine finding out that the timeline is irreparably broken because some dude went back in time to undo an event that caused Amazon share prices to drop by 5%
Yeah until the random white genocide using stolen genocidaltech by middle eastern scientists, pretty insane point to end on.
@@hollylucianta6711 Amazon would absolutely unravel the fabric of reality for a minuscule increase in profits
@@hollylucianta6711”Marketing determined that the launch of the iphone would be about 2% more profitable if Genghis Khan didn’t exist, take this grenade launcher and go wild.”
with how oddly normal Zuckerberg is acting lately maybe he would create the time-repairing counter task force lmao
"Sir that man's musket is firing 300 rounds per minute"
"Just roll with it"
*roll
"What's 'rounds per minute?'"
Phuck it. We ball.
@@r0cketm00se3No.
Muskets could do 3 to 6 rounds per minute, the distinction was important even then, 'cuz everyone was trying to keep up with British loading drills.
Gatling guns existed, the french mitreilleuse existed, repeating muskets have been around since the 1600s. Its not incomperhenaible to have an automatic weapon.
“You click on the bad man to make him go away” is unironically the funniest way to explain a shooter
When you think about it, "click the bad guy to win" is the goal of many games.
I realized this like 3 years ago and now it just doesn't feel the same 💔
Yahtzee once described playing the Sniper in TF2 as being for people who like point-and-click adventure games, albeit ones where the only puzzle is "use Gun on Man".
It's like that Futurama joke on the episode with the penguins. "This here's your basic old fashioned gun, simple point and click interface."
13:04 “and then his backstory hit me like a plane”
God damn that’s a good one lol, that’s a joke I’ll… Never forget.
You could say it hit you right in the twin towers and that your thoughts are with the prayers.
@@Ohio.Gozaimasu Trying way too hard to be funny, kid 🙄
@@trustytrest Damn you destroyed him so hard something something controlled demolition
One thing that no person on the planet will forget 😶
Dexter calling in on his bluetooth headset to record his lines because the office is flooded.
Now I'm just imagining Dankpods telling his backstory instead
@@thatgreenfur6584 One time mate I was sent back in time to stop a confederate general who had a machine gun mate
His $10 Walmart microphone over dialup internet
Those were truly the darkest of days
@@thatgreenfur6584 Using a microphone from a headset of questionable quality and origins
Fun fact, There are hundreds of copies of this game in Texas Half-Price Books locations in/around the Dallas and Fort worth areas. You can, and may still be able to going on four years since I lived there- be able to find a copy of this game there still. No one ever bought them, the game cases were still sealed most of the time, and generally you wouldn't be paying anything more than like 5 dollars for a copy. c:
Are these being branded as educational games somehow? There was something similar where I grew up with Medal of Honor Allied Assault somehow.
Sounds like I should order like 100 of them and have them shiped to sweden for resell.
@@MandaloreGaming i got supreme commander in kindergarten from the scholastic book fair
I JUST SAW ONE LAST WEEKEND WHEN BROWSING
@@MandaloreGaming Nope! Just labled as a PC game and shunted off into their gaming section which is full of HOARDS of old stuff. I got a sealed copy of the orange box, some of the old collectors editions of the older rainbow six games.. Really it's just a pawn shop for nerd stuff that also sells books.
Okay but how many times did Dexter have to tell Morris "no we don't say that anymore." Or "no you can't call them that anymore."
Morris dropping the N-word with a hard R in the first meeting.
"But a Union soldier I saved gave me the pass"
"Wait. They're allowed to vote now?!"
Morris, probably.
@@somekindofgold8362"the **** and ***** I can't kinda understand, but women too?"
Bro asking the real questions here!
imagine exploring an old civil war battleground or something, finding the usual pieces of history, old guns, old ball bullets, and then you find a massive pile of 20th century casings that, by all accounts, should not have been there but according to dating ARE that old....
That's part of the plot for the novel (and movie) Timeline, by Crichton.
Also checkout “12 Monkeys” movie with Bruce Willis if you haven’t already.
I actually don’t think they eject casings or shells. I couldn’t really see anything being ejected out of the weapons which means they use some type of caseless ammo. If so that’s a really nice detail.
To be fair if you’re a time travel organization any future guns you supplie will without a doubt use baseless ammunition and ammunition that will dissipate in some fashion so that future historians won’t find it, that’s how I thought of it anyway
Sounds like a premise for an episode of Outer Limits.
Dexter's audio going from profesional to early Red vs Blue episodes in quality surely feels like a joke by the developers doing a cry for help after the flood.
Gotta miss Red vs. Blue though. Hope they don't suffer "Keep Circulating the Tapes".
This game will always have a space in my brain because I remember my high school Biology teacher proudly telling us that his son was working on this game. Keep in mind that I spent 2 years living in a small rural town in Iowa, with a population so small the junior high and high school were in one building. So the sheer bizarreness of that moment kept the memory of this game alive for me decades later despite me forgetting the majority of my time there.
My teacher told us that he would give extra credit to anyone who bought the game. The one kid who did was the only other PC gamer in my tiny school. I hope the points he got was worth it.
Easy there city boy, wait till you hear about the towns in Kansas that have all K-12 students plus preschool in a single building lol
@@QuintessentialWalruswait till he hears about homeschooling….
@@QuintessentialWalrus that ain't as small town as you think. down in lee high we had a school for prek-12 in the same building plus a college right behind it.
at least.... I think it was a college...
Do you mind saying where at in Iowa?
yeah honestly its crazy that anyone from iowa moves on from jerking off corn stocks to make a living
Adding to the bit about Kronotek being incompetant, the World War One levels have a lot of anachronisms (tanks and mustard gas being used in 1914, and Imperial German officers sporting the Nazi eagle on their sleeves and belt buckles) which made me think.
On one hand, those could just be goofs on the developers' part, but I like to think it might be a subtle hint that the timeline is already messed up beyond repair, and the organization is either completely unaware (because their memory of the original timeline was replaced by this new reality) or they're just banking on their time-draftees not noticing.
This was something that came to mind. Like it very obviously was a goof on the developer’s part, complete with Russians shouting about “Stalin” when he is still a Georgian Communist Bank Robber, and they should be praising the Tsar, on top of the Germans having British Mark family tanks even before the British invented them. But it would have been cool to have some explanations of it.
You drop into an ancient Aztec battlefield, one of the most ferocious peoples of all history, so terrifying to their own neighbors that the Spanish and many local tribes have banded together to finish them off. A naked man wielding a Tepoztli dashes towards you, and he shouts, blood on his mouth and unholy purpose in his eyes,
"HEY HEY PEOPLE, TEZCTLAN HERE"
It's also possible they took a wrong turn at the Roaring 20's. Which would be a much funnier kind of incompetence.
"The timeline isn't able to be changed! Now go save President Disney from his assassin, Frank Sinatra!"
@@Wolf_ManJack🔥✍️🔥✍️🔥✍️🔥✍️
Lol, Little Bighorn being depicted as a mountain region with forests is hilarious. Little Bighorn is a river area and the spot where Custer and his men died is literally just an open field with no cover.
Now, all it needed was a horse being the only survivor on the American side.
Time Travelers went back in time and butterflied events so badly even geological features were altered.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who noticed that. Pretty sure Custer didn't even really have a "last stand" so much as his unit just sort of got overrun. It's like they just heard "Montana" and decided it had to be mountains.
@@DerLudwigVonZweihander usually people think of weird nutjob militia compounds with a beautiful view of the mountains when they think montana
they don't realize thats the main part they show because thats the only part of such a massive state thats actually interesting to look at
The native's also had better guns then them which is interesting but also ruins the image.
Oh man I've always loved this game. One of the only single player campaigns that lets you fight with civil war weapons, which I actually thought led to some unique combat scenarios.
One thing worth noting about Darkest of Days is that it was effectively an indie game, made on a custom engine (which at the time was a money-saving tactic, believe it or not), and is imo quite an impressive achievement and quite a unique and imaginative game, especially compared to other FPS at the time. IIRC one of the developers went on to make Brigador too, which is pretty neat.
it was basically a tech demo that got turned into a full game, apparently the editor didn't even have an undo function! one of the level designers was an artist with no level design experience. he did a GDC talk about it: ua-cam.com/video/CTBor4rhnQs/v-deo.html
Hello David
The fun part about russian soldiers. They shout for stalin. So the developers fucked up bad with this. It shouldve beem something like "For tsar and the fatherland!"
(За царя и отечество)
It would've been super confusing hearing Dexter's story if he went into details like driving, planes and most of all, hearing about towers. The MC would be like "Oh, I know what towers are," and then finding out it had 110 floors.
"Protect the past. Don't let anybody know about our existence."
Proceeds to eradicate an urban cohort with a futuristic shotgun.
I mean... Malfeas stealth exists. A.k.a. nobody will know I was here if nobody gets out of here alive
Which would be true, except other people still exist to walk over and dig up all the stuff you left behind.
One should see Multiversal defense. Would be risky yet gnarly to see a covert aggressor squadron of Zaarin-design TIE Defenders protect the Boiling Isles from an invasion led by one Owlman, as an example.
No witnesses 🤫
Imagine if the last survivor of the platoon runs back to the base.
"The entire platoon was wiped out Sir, I was the only one who escaped!"
"What? I thought we had the numbers on our side?"
"We did, but then this guy just showed up and.....and just had this ......cannon in his hands, which wiped out all out!"
"Slow down son, what do you mean by 'cannon'?"
"No Latin mission" is an absolutely incredible line.
I played this once as a kid but didnt get very far. Years later I was able to find a download for it, and I was surprised at how quickly the game ended after Pompeii. It felt like there should have been a lot more to it.
Fun fact, the devs of this game are the same folks who develop and run the Marmoset toolbag, and even though they're more or less out of game development, they still find the time to answer questions regarding Darkest of Days and have said in forums and discussions that they wouldn't at all mind if someone remastered their game/made a sequel.
Did anyone ask them if they're actual white supremacists or did they just roll with the times on that twist?
@@IWantThatKey hol up what now
@@IWantThatKey Bait.
@@IWantThatKey I'm sorry...I'm alergic to your bait.
@@Kingcole6 fuck are you talking about
I think my jaw unhinged when I realized what historical event Dexter was vaguely alluding to in his backstory exposition dump. Bringing up 9/11 was VERBOTEN for years in most American media and its still a pretty touchy subject even now - Obama hadn't even been in office for a full year yet when this game came out.
Dudes added a death camp level. They didn't give a shit lmao
Hadn't expected the title 'Darkest of Days' to actually be about the gamma.
Ah I remember this game, "Try not to fuck up the timeline....buuuuut y'know if you want to go ham with a futuristic shooty bang we'll clean it up later on"
Oh a lesson on not changin history from the guys that is his own granpa
I like to imagine the reason the timeline is so messed up in the first place is because they were very cavalier about the idea of "oh we'll just fix that up later" and it just snowballed from there.
That "god's holy rifle" monologue from when the civil war soldier finds the automatic future gun is something that i say to this day when i game. Was a really big fan of this game, especially its take on alt history.
17:44 for Harry getting electocuted sound. Quality work as always Mandy.
9:48 Muskets aren't so much louder or deeper as they are *longer*
They're a whole heartbeat of *boom* versus a split second of *bang* from modern guns, self-contained cartridges, and smokeless powder.
I swear Mandi has got a chip or something in my brain to upload a video as soon as I start to wonder where he’s been.
Same LOL I was going to go rewatch a video cause I was missing his voice
@@davyx12 i miss his gentle caress of my innermost thigh
exactly, he always uploads at the exact time when you thing "it's been awhile since he uploaded..."
Haha. Same. I was thinking last night while trying to sleep...I hope Mandy is alright. He's not uploaded in a while.
Next day. BAM. ❤
Literally just happened to me right now
Someone saw that Civilization meme about legionnaires getting out of a Chinook, and thought that there must be a way to make that into a shooter.
I still distinctly remember how, after beating the game, you got a level that was just a grave, where the devs celebrated finishing the game and thanked the player for buying it. IIRC that celebration/thanks was on the gravestone; and, holy shit the feels when the implication sunk in
I'm tired. Implications for what?
The implication that the dev studio was going bankrupt.
I never saw that level.
Oh yeah the secret final mission that only unlocks if you click hold on the door in the final cutscene. Very very odd.
"It's a prequel to Custer's Revenge" oh boy this'll be a good vid
I wish I surprised that one of the earliest sex games was about Custer SAing an Indigenous woman.
I'm reminded by the 'ol mandy line 'It's like having a machine gun in the boxer rebellion'.
Finally, a game that lets me live out that fantasy.
Which video
16:59 Fun fact: during the battle of second Bull Run, some Confederate troops of the Stonewall brigade actually ran out of ammunition. Not wanting to give up the fire, they actually started throwing Rocks at the Union soldiers attacking them
its all fun and games till u get ur temple caved in by johnny reb with a big rock
@@JR-zi9vj *laughs in sherman burning half the south down*
oh it was still fun and games.
Fun fact ancient Greek warfare (You can read about this as far as the Illiad) after your spear was cracked or you lost your sword ,it was common to just pick a big rock and throw it to the enemy , or cave his head in
@@unyieldingsarcasm2505 oh man…he’s seething
@@unyieldingsarcasm2505 pov: you are a native American child about to get bodied by sherman’s great crusade
the factoid of them putting in water assets because their studio flooded is hilarious, made me think of the phrase "Emotional Support Sewer Level", which Randy Pitchford would probably have.
_counter goes up by one_
Now we know why Miyazaki keeps putting poison swamps in his games.
@@DoveAlexa *groOoan*
@@solidjb *70s computer noises*
Sewer, cave, mine and subway levels can get BENT. I'm playing Alan Wake 2 at the moment and one of the first levels takes place in a dark subway. BOOOOOOOOORIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!
8:35 There's a game called Kingmakers that's basically trying this exact thing. Brutal Legend-style RTS but with a third-person controllable character set in medieval times, except you've got a pickup truck with a flux capacitor and all the guns you can carry. It looks like it's either going to be the best game ever made or a spiritual sequel to this.
That sounds like the book 1632 meets Back to the Future: the Game.
That sounds like one of those russian isekais where a soldier timetravels into the body of Hitler, join forces with the Soviet Union and nukes America
...not as crazy as Original War still
@@LtAlguien In fairness, Original War was based on a book that was itself pretty crazy. Not quite as crazy as Original War, but they were starting from a pretty out-there place.
I love how every time the "time sardaukar" appear on screen Mandalore adds the Sardaukar chant.
"Word is, the recruiter's girlfriend goes here too"
fuck that's a strong line
What does it mean?
@@martinsriber7760 Recruiter's a pedo
@@martinsriber7760 The implication is that the army recruiter in question is dating a girl that's still in high school. It's an eerily feasible scenario, considering army recruiters are by and large predatory scum.
@@martinsriber7760 implies the recruiter is dating an underage high school student. recruiters are not known for their sound moral compasses
@@hollylucianta6711 I see. We don't have those here. Thanks for the explanation.
I'll admit, the hardest difficulty being labeled "With Chest Hair" is really funny
This is maybe the first time I've heard a videogame minigun that _actually_ sounds realistic. A real minigun shoots SO fast you cannot perceive individual bullets, it's just a very loud buzz.
I went back to Desert Storm 2 recently and forgot how meaty the gun sounds are. The bass gets so loud on some weapons that it clips the audio and makes it sound even more crunchy.
@@BaneOfXistence4 Nice! I've not played it, but I love good audio design, esp. in a genre like shoosters where it has gone so overlooked or homogenized.
Speaking of, I can't believe _I've_ overlooked the undisputed _king_ of shooster sound design, and the possessor of one of the only other accurate minigun sounds - *_Arma 3_*
@@Just.KiddingHunt:Showdown also has immaculate sound design.
As someone from Brazil I can say, that South American european genetic heritage map is lacking a loooot of red dots.
I played this game on Xbox as an annoying middle schooler obsessed with history, and I bought it and replay it probably every other year on PC today. It's ridiculous, corny, but honestly I love the concept. The idea of a time-travelling corporation that can only use the missing and forgotten shadows of people from history has promise, and to this day I've still been looking in every few years to check on who owns the rights and how much they want for it. There's plot holes and writing inconsistencies-a-plenty, no doubt, but I still have dreams of taking a few thousand dollars from my savings and buying the IP to give it another try. Between friends in game development and a team of writers really wanting to reinvigorate the concept, I feel like this could be a micro-market darling of an indie title. Something that really dives hard into both the ridiculous nature but also the fascinating potential. Thanks for covering it, I'm amazed to see that anyone else still remembers this quirky, absurd, but fun little gem of abandonware.
Never played DoD, but I'll always know it as the game that gave you 100 gamerscore for punching a horse in the face.
I laughed so loud at "WHO DID THIS 9/11?!" in the southern drawl that my neighbours came around to see if I was ok.
please let that be a joke in the sequal that probably won't happen
If ever there was a bad game that needed a remaster, a remake, and a sequel, this is it
This is the type of game that needs a remake, not old classics. This game has a lot of potential that wasn't realized at it's time and needs a second chance.
I'm just scared that if they remake it, they might not have the funny white race map
@@Steven-cf1ty More likely than not considering the current political climate.
there's Kingmakers
instead you will get another the last of us remaster and you WILL like it.
“I was a firefighter in New York City”
I audibly went “UH OH”
The topic of "Are tragic events in history worth preserving?" reminds me of something from my own wacky writing. I've been doing a small RP campaign (with just 1 or 2 other people) set in a multiverse in which many of the main characters _know that they are in a story,_ and in fact they regularly take advantage of the way storytelling differs from reality (doing things like setting up tone and scenarios to favor their actions, or at high levels, directly writing new things into the story for tactical advantages).
However, this leads to a bit of an unusual conflict between two major factions. You see, a story cannot exist without an audience, and that audience wants to see _conflict._ They want to see turmoil, chaos, and _eventually_ triumph--but when triumph isn't temporary, the audience loses interest. At the end of the day, in a world ruled by the rules of fiction, there is one tyranny above all: There is no happily-ever-after, because once the audience reaches happily-ever-after, the story effectively ceases to exist.
So the primary conflict I've been running with has been between Prometheus, who has started an interdimensional smuggling ring to try and destabilize the story to such a degree that the narrative framework itself collapses, and a sort of fiction-police agency that _primarily_ does disaster relief work in worlds that are suffering supernatural disasters or wars between good and evil, but which has put together a task force to deal with Prometheus's goons occasionally importing ICBMs into a fantasy setting or magic plagues into sci-fi settings.
Brings into mind the "For Want of a Nail" trope, the puzzle adventure endings of Titanic: Adventure Out of Time, and DC Comics' Flashpoint. There's the risk of creating better worlds by changing history, but there are times where saving lives by way of doing so ends up creating worser worlds due to breaking off a necessary balance.
Really cool idea for a campaign!
This is the plot of a future Deadpool movie
sounds like one helluva clusterfuck
Put this into a readable format. This is an order.
The History channel at 3 AM again
“On tonight’s episode of ‘Alternate History’, what if the union army had a nuke?”
"we cant say if the cosmic visitors didnt give the Vandal's access to Automatic Weaponry"
“Did John Wilkes Booth hide the secret Nazi gold under the barn where he died? So that he can pay the aliens? The answer isn’t clear. This and much more absolute nonsense coming up next.”
What if the vesuvius was an ancient superweapon to cover up The Conspiracy?
Funnily enough, they had some licensed Civil War FPS games on shelves around the time this came out. My father was a fan of all of them.
>Its like an A-10 doing a strafing run
I run your videos in the background while working so when it got to that moment, I had to pause and see the scene for myself because I genuinely thought you just overlaid the an Ace Combat A-10 replay or something
Nope, it really sounds like an A-10 doing a strafing run.
It is, I checked my audio sample library. Definitely a GAU-8.
Silence pay pig
@@JohnDoe-vm5rbWild AF.
@@Revan058 (shrug) it might be a lie, but it was sold as a gau-8 audio sample bank and it sounds like what you hear on soldiers recording with phones (only much clearer of course). There's audio banks for all sorts of stuff, even stuff like jars being opened.
@@JohnDoe-vm5rb No, I absolutely believe you. It's just funny as hell they used it.
"Word on the street is that the recruiters girlfriend goes here too." It took a second then I laughed so loud.
Yeah, I had to rewind to make sure I heard that right
...I don't get it. Is this an American thing where recruiters are 19 years old or something?
@@gae_wead_dad_6914 Army recruiters are predatory in American in more ways than one.
@@gae_wead_dad_6914 No, the joke is that military recruiters tend to get a liiiiittle too personal in their relationships with high schoolers and often groom kids into relationships, despite being very firmly in the age bracket where you shouldn't be dating high schoolers
@@johnthomason9980 And that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SA in the military.
"House Corrino DoorDash" - what a cursed string of words!
Thank you!
The fucking apache 9/11 joke about fucking killed me, holy shit
"What squad are you from?" "Time Squad, sir. Time Squad."
Man i miss the show.
The intro theme for that show was so bloody awesome!
Thought I was reading Exo-Squad.
I love when you mention getting ahold of people from the original team for stories about the development. It’s cool to hear some of the background from people directly involved, and who we otherwise wouldn’t get to hear from.
Probably also a great feeling for them to get to share with people today about what they worked on.
I am always surprised and pleased to see anyone even remembering this game exists - I was one of the two level designers for it.
The archeologist who finds a roman skeleton with a 9mm wound on their skull: 🤨
Sling rocks (these were actually called "bullets") can penetrate skulls at the right distance, maybe not go through but archaeologists could chalk it up as a weirdly small, elongate, and fast-moving rock.
@@sowpmactavish It's great that you're here to give logical answers to humorous comments.
@@sowpmactavish also there used to be a very primitive form of head surgery called Trepanning where they'd poke/drill a hole in the skull to treat illnesses/wounds.
@@RootVegetabIe I mean its a fun fact it's not like I'm ruining the joke
said archeologist would shortly find himself with a similar wound, if this game is to be believed.
"a prequel to Custer's Revenge"
I hate that I understood that.
Ah, another bearer of the cursed knowledge.
I am a champion in any% "please god find any other weapon other than a springfield rifle." In the civil war missions.
The JDPON supervirus not coming for Belarus and half of Poland is.... interesting.
Also apparently no one in the Spanish empire was of "European Descent".
To be fair, who knows what kind of genetic marker the virus latched onto.
It could be "everyone related to George Washington himself " and that's simply how they spread out over the generations until 2300. Clearly the "European descent" thing is mostly over simplification
Not to mention Ireland and Scotland being excluded, as well as New Zealand and western Australia. 😅 guess i'm safe!
Yeah, like zero disrespect to Mandy for trying to engage on it or discuss on "will how couod this ending actually mean a single damn thing", but this game just ending by staring the player in the eye and going "The Middle Easy is Gonna Make The White Death, like the Bubonic Plague but for White People", is.
A Choice, to put lightly
Hans Goering head writer had no comment when asked this
I actually emailed a developer on this game to ask him some behind the scenes questions. They were very kind to respond and clearly showed love for the game, the team, and ideas that they had for a sequel. Truly one of my core memory games, despite its charming jank.
What were the ideas for sequels?
I used to be a Fed until I took an arrow to the groin
The fate all feds deserve
Arrow to the D
I wasn't fast enough for the singularity video :(
Apache 9/11 sounds like a bad Turtledove book.
Or an awesome one
I like to think even Turtledove would go, no. I can do a decade long Confederacy wins series, but not that.
It would somehow result in the confederates independently banning slavery and building a hyper advanced utopia by 1920
Two minor things about the game which weren't mentioned: Sometimes gun upgrades change how a gun looks, and the cover of hard copies varies. I own a hard copy of Darkest of Days and the cover art is different from a hard copy you could buy today in the US.
Pretty standard just look at ace combat 4 the US, EU, JP cover art all are different even the sub title is different.
heck some game even had multiple cover art for each region.
I remmber a racing game that had a diffrent cover art (anything inside brackets share) for (sweden, finland) (germany, danmark) French (it was just the eiffel tower added in the background) and so on. yes a lot of the diferensial was just that them adding the contries famus landmark to the generic city in the background.
that is if the background was not just a forest.
@@Zack_Wester It's standard in some spaces and not in others - with Darkest of Days I can at least tell that a significant amount of people I have encountered only knew of the US cover art... However, beyond if it's sth unique or not, I think it's just cool to have that variation generally speaking.
I am so happy you looked at this game! This came out when I was still in high school, but I now work for the company that made it and work closely with a few of the people still left from that era that actually worked on this game. The lead sound person that did all of the sounds for this game still writes and composes the music and sounds for the mobile slot games we make now. Fun fact, the development of this game almost bankrupt the company when it came out, almost completely due to the marketing expenses. In the end, this is why they stepped away from making this type of game and shifted to the social casino landscape that was wide open at the time. That being said, I think they were on to something and could have made some amazing games if they had stuck to it. This was only the first attempt at a game from a small game studio in the middle of Iowa, so I still think the end result is pretty cool.
The owner of Phantom EFX kind of spun off 8 Monkey as a passion project that was supposed to be a civil war shooter and turned into DoD. He made his money with slot machine games before, and from the look of things keeps doing so now.
But yes, the budget spent on marketing was something approaching what he paid us to collectively develop it.
Man I wish some devs would create a spiritual successor, but this time it focuses on time travelers fighting each other in the past
Isn't that just TimeSplitters?
@@KSignalEingangwasnt the past in timesplitters sci fi as well? I never played them
@@AB-bg7os The "Present" in TimeSplitters was the far future, so parts of its "Past" were still sci-fi future. That said, many levels are set in the actual historical past - from World War I, Wild West, 1960's and even the 1990's.
"U.S. Patent Number 1" Is a board game about time travelers racing to be the first inventor of the time machine and set a timeline where no one else can ever invent it.
@@AB-bg7os Ah yes, temporal proxy wars.
this intro remanded me that trailer for that new game where it's just a medieval sim until it switches to a pov of a guy mowing knights in his car like he's God's drunkest driver also a guy in civil war finds an full auto from the future and goes JESUS GAVE ME THIS GUN!!!!!
Ah yes, Kingmakers! Hope that game turn out well!
same I laughed for few minutes after seeing the part where the guy on top of the castle just headshots the fully armored enemy commander like "parry this fucking casual"
Dexter explaining 9/11 was already a hell of a twist, but a white genocide virus developed SPECIFICALLY by "Middle Eastern" scientists sent me into the stratosphere with how targeted it was
Yeah this game brought you by the CIA for sure
At least they got better when they moved on to call of duty
and that somehow only killed white people on NATO countries but skipped the white people everywhere else
@@VoiceQuills Both specifically in the sense that you need to know it was developed in one of them thar terrorist countries, and nonspecifically in the sense that they don't care about which one it was in. Which makes it really easy to analyze that particular writing choice...
@@timothymclean Nothing to analyse. There is an old bedouin proverb, that is sort of taken as one of the fundamental rules of life in the muslim world, which is
"Me against my brother,
My brother and I against our cousin,
My cousin, brother and I against the stranger."
That is why politically the countries of the middle east fight between each other fairly viciously but functionally unite at the drop of a hat against "external" threats. So if a threat originates from one of them, it tends to originate from all of them, especially if the threat is clandestine, as they all offer shelter and support to each other.
fun fact : one of the skips in the speedrun of the game was found because while routing a Spanish speedrunner saw a dick drawn with triggers up in the skybox by the developer. Then Meliodas, the Russian speedrunner of this title, tried to find a good point of view to show us, the viewers on a marathon, the goodness of a blocky penis made before Minecraft by a gamedev. There was a good spot, for some reason there was a hut in the middle of nowhere slightly out of bounds of the level, reachable by an abuse of "tree-climbing" they've found earlier.He came to the hut and realized there is another trigger that can be reached and that starts up a scripted portion of a level. Probably was left there by devs for testing purposes. The hut climb cuts a long sequence of AI triggers and saves about 20 minutes time in the NG+ cata.
Was found because of a dick in the sky.
Thanks Mandy for bringing up a good memory.
I’ve never been this early to a Mandalore Gaming review- is that a fucking assault rifle in Ancient rome??
Welcome to Darkest Days. The game that was a badass concept but kinda really jank. I kinda wish someone would try to make a similar concept game
So early you landed in ancient Rome
Well...about that...look up a game called kingmakers, it might be what you're referring to. @@BestCupid
You got here so early it broke the space-time continuum.
I’m surprised how every review of this game I encounter, no one has ever mentioned Harry Turtledove’s book, “Guns of the South” Arguably his most famous work simply for the cover alone, which is Robert E. Lee holding an AK-47. The plot is about a bunch of time traveling South African terrorist go back to give the Confederate Army AK-47s, truly a bizarre but good read
Im more of a fan of his series after GOTS, Southern Victory, a more realistic alternate history about the Confederacy winning the Civil war. Would definitely recommend reading the first book at least
that reminds me of a strategy game i saw on steam for a while in early access that eventually got abandoned, of different factions going back to kit out both factions in the civil war with future weapons, its a shame it flopped because i still love the concept
How much of his tankie politics does he inject into guns of the south? I was thinking of reading it, having read his World-War and Homeward Bound series, but they had about the upper limit of commie propaganda I was able to stomach and just due to the subject matter I would suspect GotS would have even more.
@@irishempire9811 The first trilogy (covering an alternative early 20th century) is awesome. The second and third are grimdark doomerism which never seem to know which of their own moral stories they're supposed to be telling and spend an inordinate amount of time praising the moral fortitude of people both real and imagined who would belong in a collection of history's greatest monsters. (In a hark back to this video, Custer not only not getting last-standed but being the champion of and IIRC eponym of the alt-timeline M4 Sherman was one of its lesser problems.)
@@therealchriscunningham i havent read the other trilogies in the series, only How Few Remain and the Grear War trilogy, and those were awesome. Idk if I'll read the other books but im fine just reading those firsr 4 for now
Poland and other eastern european countries not being affected by the virus on the "outage map" at 28:10 made laugh so hard, I dont know why they did that but its hilarious
Any country where people argue about who’s more white wasn’t considered white enough by the virus
The plot turning out to be "9/11 Hero stops the arabic pandemic" is a surprisingly true-to-form early 2000s game, tbh
Civil War bum and 9/11 victim travel through time to stop The Future Arabening
02:48 the mysteries of the druids, they got such a time-travelling attitude.
28:10 "This is the official european outage atlas"
>Finland, Mongolia or Hungary not affected at all.
[laughs in mongolian]
What did they mean by this?
Iceland seems pretty chill as well
Considering that ALL OF SOUTH AND CENTRAL AMERICA was colonized by the Spanish/Portuguese, it's abysmal that the virus didn't kill a single person there.
TOTAL TURANIC VICTORY
Russia is also mostly okay
Scratch that: what about Ireland and Scotland?
"Who did this 9/11, was it the Apache?!" BRRRT BRRRT XD
my favorite mando line ever
17:04 Well that explains veteran difficulty in World At War.
And S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky.
every military shooter wishes they could catch the lightning in a bottle that is the battlefield 1942 theme even battlefield
Honestly what drove me crazy in the good way about this was being in these massive battles and feeling like a soldier on the ground even if we then transition into being the army-stomper.
like being brought into a line battle was AWESOME imo
I wish more FPS games did that or made you feel like part of the army not just "one of 3 protagonists and thus nobody else will ever do anything"
I love how the dewhiteyfication virus seems to have ignored Finland. Yay for weird Uralic genes?
Torilla tavataan
I'll count the Argentinians as white long before I recognize any Finnish sound as language
I'm willing to bet money that disease bit the terrorists in the ass due to their own genes. 'Caucasian' is a pretty wide net that can encompass anyone from Arabs to Hispanics (seriously, Chile gets hit yet Andy. H and the Argentines are immune?).
Finland is not beating the Mongolian ancestry allegations
mämmi ja sauna
For the curious, the game featured at 6:41 is Hunt: Showdown. An extraction shooter featuring guns from just after the American Civil War!
I love hunt for this very reason, the weird inbetween of old and new concepts in weaponry at that time period clashing together is very fun to play around with
is this game still alive at all? i had a ton of fun with it over covid
@@fordakacar its about to get a big update running on the new engine
@@fordakacar Yes, I play a ton with one of my friends and while there are some cheating issues it's very fun. There is also a pretty massive update coming this month that adds importannt mechanics like bullet drop and expanded audio detail, as well as a new Wild Boss and new map. So if you are going to play it again this is probably the best time as that update is coming pretty soon.
@@fordakacar it's getting a huge update. I'm hoping they focus on polish after that, though. It's a flawed game, but it's one of my favorites for just the overall feel of it. Sometimes, I enjoy just skulking around a match, not really going for kills or objectives, but maybe engaging with someone opportunistically, and a lot of that is just because I love the atmosphere.
30:47 I've always been very miffed by how there are practically *no* games set in the Korean War. Almost feels like an industry-wide conspiracy at times. Fighting Russian T-34s with American Shermans and Pershings while early jets fly above would be really cool (even if I recognize that the main reason for its exclusion is probably that it's not distinct enough from either WW2 or Vietnam, sandwiched awkwardly in-between).
There's legal reasons for this; you can't sell any games that depict war in the Korean peninsula in brick and mortar South Korean stores. South Korea also happens to be a substantial video game market, so the Korean War is basically verboten as a setting unless you just don't want to, or don't need to, deal with that.
@@Digolgrinthere’s also the fact that the US was primarily fighting the Chinese during that conflict and big companies love the Chinese market.
@@boblately5402 That too, of course. That's the biggest reason today but it's largely what I've known.
Gotta miss those games where you can fly the F-86 Sabre and the MIG-15.
Anyways, any game where you clobber the PRC is a worthwhile game to me. They're basically the Nazi Germany of the now as of the writing.
What is about as bizzare is that Russian and Ukrainian devs in their heyday (0's and early 10's) were probably the largest contributor to the WWII games out there (RTSs like Blitzkrieg and Men of War, tactics like Silent Storm, sims like IL-2 Sturmovik...) and those had the Axis as a playable side despite the particular obsession with loudly denouncing anything and all even vaguely "Nazi" in Russia in particular.
Whereas nowadays it seems like any plans to recreate a historical period impartially for (semi-) educational purposes are gonna get hounded to no end. I am honestly worried as to what Civ VII is gonna turn out like in this day and age.
Hey Mandy I can explain why older guns and modern ones sound different!
Either way its a supersonic boom; but modern guns the powder burns slower and that boom occurs outside the barrel at the muzzle.
Black powder detonates faster, so you are hearing that same boom but from inside the gun and directed down the barrel!
Ultimately still a bang or a boom but with a different sound character because of the underlying physics.
my mandalore senses are tingling, a new upload is soon upon us
just went back to this video to see if other people are getting the feeling as well lol, im so excited for the upcoming halloween magic
you were a few weeks off
but *SOON*
@@heresy8384 dark forces beyond my control prevented it from being released as predicted, it’s very unfortunate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Imagine if all those missions that you're going through are the result of fuck ups caused by all the other Agents running around the timeline, and the enemies from time bubbles are other agents from even further timeline are trying to kill you to prevent your fuck ups.
Wait... that's exactly what happened... Am I so uncreative that people from a decade ago come up with that idea?
@@windwind3170 lmao i think its pretty stock time travel schenanigans. I can think of a few games where you go back and shoot yourself at start of the story
I was not expecting a Jackie Chan Adventures reference, but every so often Mandy reminds me that he's kinda cool.
Here's to hoping Mandy will also reference Teen Titans (no, not Go) and The Batman 2004 someday. Maybe even Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
He should put The Batman 2004 theme in a video someday
These folks making Marmoset Toolbag is a bigger twist than the ending of the game.
18:40 Oh look, the time police form the 2Xth century is policing the time police of the 22nd century :D
This game is actually well thought-out, I like it.
Underused period in european history would be The Deluge and connected to it wars that shaped european history.
But overall I'd say that you can point at any point of history of any nation in Asia and see it underrepresented. I don't recall any game or media that touches Indonesia or Malaysia at all for example.
I've been waiting for Mandi to cover this game since he started reviews. This is a genuine little gem, I had a knick for trying out obscure old titles back in my college laptop gaming days and the sandbox-like warfare was a fun experience.
Mandalore as a mandalore logo is sick
I thought you were hinting at a Singularity video, this is even better
Everything you play always looks so cool.
Also, the first 5 seconds of the video reminded me of Black and White 2 Aztec's mision... I miss that game :(
Bros grinding that Space Marines 2 and has to really be sure about everything for the review. It's gonna be a treat!
as a history buff i really liked playing with the historic weapons. Fighting with muskets creates a certain tension in a fire fight. Plus the atmosphere was really good so you could just ignore the future stuff in your head cannon and pretend to be a soldier in that time
It would probably sell terribly, but I'd love a single player game like that. Set it during the Franco-Prussian war or something.
There are games featuring muskets in first person. Mount & Blade: Warband - Napoleonic Wars, Holdfast: Nations At War...
The multiplayer scene has been carrying the historical shooter genre hard lately with War of Rights, the WWI-series of games, and Holdfast. WWII games have finally broken out of COD since they absolutely refuse to make a spiritual successor to WaW, Post Scriptum (Squad 44) particularly is good.
What I wish to see though is for devs to be more brave covering more obscure and semi-modern wars such as the Congo Crisis, Yugoslav wars, Soviet-Afghan war, or just more alt history.
I think the game was balanced around the historic weapons for the most part. That was one of the criticisms on release. Some people wanted to get weird and sci-fi but the game usually tried to stop you from doing that.
15:08 Goku? Is that you powering up again?
21:26
IC FIVMVS CARI DVO NOS SINE FINE SODALES NOMINA SI QVAERIS GAIVS ET AVLVS ERANT
"Here we were, we dear pair, comrades without end. If you ask for names, they were Gaius and Aulus"
-written above the entrance to a bar in Pompeii
I'm glad someone caught it
did the romans write U's with V's were they stvpid?
@@Xenomorthianthey did
@@Xenomorthian Yes. In fact, the pronunciation of the letter V as a "vvv" sound was introduced much later during the Middle Ages, and in classical Latin the letter V acted as both the letters U and W.
In other words, it's pronounced "Weni, Widi, Wici", "Wersus" and "Werbum" (where we get the modern English "Word")
@@MandaloreGaming honestly learning about that specific piece of Roman graffiti has changed forever how I view history and life in general
Wtf happened to Singularity