Dark Years

I am kind of shocked that this game only has mixed reviews. Honestly this is one of the worst games I have ever played. It is amazingly bad. Nothing works right and voice acting is so bad it's almost a crime. Really, if you can think of a problem in a game this one has it. The controls and camera are so bad it's almost unplayable. Just getting the hero to move around the world is very hard and good luck trying to tame the camera. It just zooms around doing it's own thing (at lest when it doesn't get stuck on something). Also the game's frame rate drops into 5-10 fps for a good chunk of the game even on the lowest settings. I don't know why this happens because early on in the game it runs just fine and then towards the end it gets better. But even if all of that wasn't an issue. The graphics are awful and the game has about every single graphical bug and glitch you can think of. Windows shake, you can see through objects the world. Invisible walls, textures pop, you clip through everything. The models all have messed up proportions. Also for some odd reason at cretin points in the game the devs use filters on the screen that make the world look like it's in an awful light show. And on top of that the story is a poorly translated mess that honestly makes no kind of sense and features the worst voice acting in English I have ever heard. The plot is nonsensical because the letters that the game uses to tell the plot are written in really broken English. And even when you do understand what it is trying to tell you it somehow manages to mess up it's own narrative by breaking it's own continuity. It changes the dates of key events, first it switches between making the UK and USA the villain. Hell at some points the voice actor will say 'blah the Americans are doing something' while the thing he is reading from says: 'blah the English are doing something.' I just beat the game and I have next to no idea what happened in it. Something about Oil. And then we get to the puzzles. Basically to rub up against everything and hope a bottom prop pops up. Because that's how you find objects in this game. The is no thinking it's just rub on everything until something happens or until you are prompted to use something. It awful puzzle design and puzzles are just full of filler. Our hero is like hmm now that have this object I should go back to here. Oh now that I am here I should go back to where I was and look some more. So much pointless back and forth to fill out the run time. Which the dev claims is around 8 hours but I beat it in 3. And with out the of filler they maybe 30 mins of content in this game. And if you don't believe me here are some videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p7bIoLGv3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kamk8AWuTN4

Pros: It runs! It's somewhat playable Cons: Bad voice acting Bad controls Bad graphics - not the worse thing but still bad... Crashes randomly Bad FPS goes from 60 to 15 at times Bad Storyline No Interesting characters -My Quick look: https://youtu.be/47p0yZz1BRw

Without a doubt the best Iranian game I ever played! It features: -Bad graphic -Hilarious bad voice acting. (Even I could have written it better using my broken English) -Nonsensical puzzles -More bugs than a bethesda game on release -Quite nice hand drawn cut-scenes, which was obviously not made by the same people as the rest of this game, as the texts bobbles in these scenes features grammatically correctly written dialog, while the voice actors who are narrating the same scenes are still reading nonsensical dialog out loud. -Dreadful controls, which are barely tolerable while out in the open and nearly game breaking when moving in cramped spaces. -The music’s nice though. However I also laughed out load many times. Below is a list of some of my favorite moments of the game (Spoiler Warning): - A NPC advices one of the protagonists to disguise himself as a “British count” (according to the subtitles) which the voice actor pronounce as a “British ♥♥♥♥” - The London eye appearing in one on the cut scenes, even though the game takes place in 1953. - The ending. I kid you not, the game ends with the Shars wife literally burning one of the protagonist alive.

Детективная история, про сюжет которой я не могу сказать ничего существенного, так как в это играть невозможно из-за отвратительной оптимизации, багов, кривой камеры и дёргающейся картинки. Играть в такой продукт невозможно. А если у вас есть игра в библиотеке и вы решили выбить имеющиеся два достижения, то не тратьте времени. Ачивки сломаны.

My weakness is giving the games with mostly negative reviews a chance. Sometimes those reviews prove wrong, but not in this particular case. Well, it's definitely not a good game. The controls are wonky, the graphics are all blurry and flickering (though somelocations are intersting and with a lot of details), the protagonists are sometimes gliding through the air, sometimes dancing... There is even a car that you can drive, though it´s not too responsive as well. The is is just really stupid, with all those pedastrians running into the walls and cars crashing... There is also a loading screen between nearly each location on every single level, and also keep in mind that you may get stuck at the beginning of nearly every level. If this happens you have to restart the game from STEAM in order to continue. The puzzles are quite simple, but due to those wonky controls and the camera flying around you they sometimes get harder. Voice acting is pretty bad as well, dialogs are just uneasy to read. Also,some scenes were not tranlsated to English, making it a bit harder to understand, what's going on... As for the plot... Let's admit, there's definitely something going on. A few murders, an investigation, a planning of the coup, but it's hard to understand how they stick together. Also, you can definitely finish the game, and that's a plus. The one thing I liked though, is music. It´s pretty good. All in all, if polshed this game could ne good enough. In its current and forever ramaining state it's 3/10.

"Dark Years" ist ein historisches Third-Person Adventure. Als der demokratisch gewählte Präsident Irans Mossadegh im Jahre 1953 vom amerikanischen und vor allem britischen Geheimdienst gestürzt wurde, weil er es wagte, die Ölindustrie zu verstaatlichen und der brutale Diktator Reza Schah Pahlavi eingesetzt wurde, war das nicht nur eine der dunkelsten, antidemokratischten und verachtenswürdigsten Handlungen der westlichen Welt, sondern es war auch einer der Startpunkte für einen problematisch instabilen Nahen Osten, mit dessen Auswirkungen wir bis heute zu kämpfen haben. Durch den Putsch gegen eine Demokratie, die Einsetzung einer Diktatur und die folgende Revolution Khomenis geriet der Iran, eine Jahrtausende alte Kulturnation, in eine Abwärtsspirale, aus der sie sich bis heute nicht befreien konnte. Was der Westen immer wieder durch sein rein wirtschaftlich motiviertes Eingreifen an zivilisatorischem Fortschritt zerstört, wie skrupellos er dabei vorgeht und wie ausgeprägt dabei sein Doppelmoral zu Tage tritt, läßt sich an kaum einem anderen historischen Beispiel besser exemplifizieren (vielleicht noch die Ermordung des ebenfalls demokratisch gewählten Präsidenten Chiles Allende, ironischerweise am 11.September und die Einsetzung des verbrecherischen Diktators Pinochet, der Tausende verschwinden ließ, ist ein ebenso deutliches Beispiel). Ein grandioses Thema wäre es also für ein intelligentes, historisch-kritisches Adventure. Wir spielen abwechselnd zwei Charaktere. In Teheran sind wir Major Afshar eine Art Kriminalpolizist, in London sind wir ein iranischer Journalist. An beiden Orten kriegen wir direkt die Auswirkungen der Umsturzvorbereitungen mit. Politische Morde werden begangen, die, erschreckend brutal, den Weg in die Katastrophe vorzeichnen. Das Game kommt aus dem Iran und deswegen (man bedenke etwa die jahrelangen Sanktionen) kann man sicher keinen technisch ausgereiften AAA-Titel erwarten. Die Produktionsstudios im Iran sind in der Regel sehr klein, haben kaum Budget und oft auch gar nicht die neuesten technischen Möglichkeiten. Allerdings ist das Spiel hier technisch so derart hinter dem Mond, daß man kaum noch Verständnis haben kann. Es befindet sich nämlich nicht etwa auf einem Stand von vor zehn Jahren, was akzeptabel wäre, es befindet sich auf einem Stand von vor zehn Jahren und keiner der Programmierer hat auch nur einen Hauch von Ahnung wie man denn programmiert. Es hakelt und ruckelt ständig, die Umgebungen sind nicht nur leer, sondern auch grottenhäßlich, mechanisch funktioniert es nur, wenn es denn will. Eine Treppe hochzugehen kann zum Beispiel eine fast unlösbare Aufgabe sein, denn die Spielfigur weigert sich gerne mal die letzte Stufe zu nehmen. Besonders toll ist das, wenn man sich in einer Passage mit Zeitlimit befindet. Unsichtbare Wände stehen natürlich auch überall rum, was allerdings auch ganz sinnvoll sein mag, denn was man überhaupt als nächstes tun muß, bleibt gerne mal unklar. Überhaupt sind die Rätsel reichlich bemüht und haben auch oft nicht so richtig etwas mit der Tragweite der Geschichte zu tun. Das historische Setting ist hochspannend, das Game auch sicher ambitioniert. Es ist nur leider völlig überambitioniert und wird zu keinem Zeitpunkt dem, was es beschreibt, gerecht. Eine Ausnahme bilden die Cutscenes, die nicht in Spielgrafik gemacht wurden. In diesen comichaften Sequenzen blitzt Können hervor. Diese Qualität wird aber gleich darauf durch das meist lächerlich schlechte Voice-Acting konterkariert. Daß die Sprecher keine Profis sind, geschenkt. Daß sie aber übertheatral versuchen, Emotionen und Akzente zu imitieren, untergräbt denn doch selbst das niedrigste Amateur-Niveau. [h1]Wertung:[/h1] 5/10 Atmosphäre 5/10 Story 3/10 Grafik 2/10 Sound 1/10 Spielmechanik 2/10 Balancing 4/10 Spielspass [h1]Fazit:[/h1] Spannendes Thema, grottige Umsetzung. [h1][b]4/10 Gesamtwertung

NOTE: Despite my lambasting of this particular game in this review, similar content / characters / and setting is better done in a more recent point-and-click style / adventure game from the same developers, located here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/630170/Murder_In_Tehrans_Alleys_1933/ The presentation of the story there is much better suited to that genre of game, and the voice acting is far more consistent. That being said, on with Dark Years... I thought the setting of this game seemed interesting and I am a big fan of detective / noir / pulp style storylines, so I was incredibly disappointed to see just how low quality this game is. I can handle and even admire a low quality game if it's rough around the edges but still fun to play but the translation on this game and some of the voiceacting is downright comedic in how bad it is. Although the voice acting in the trailer on Steam sounds fine enough let me assure you the actual game's voice acting is BAAAAAAD. One of the early characters you encounter (who looks like a gruff, 50-60 year old male hobo) sounds like a 5 year old girl explaining something to you and the translation is so terrible that what they are saying doesn't even make sense. While this is funny to see, I was also simultaneously weeping that I had paid money to experience it. The voice acting and overall pace of the game may pick up later after you slog through the garbage introductory sequence, but for myself I couldn't even be bothered to sift through it too much. From what I remember the game uses a checkpoint save system as well, so if you find yourself stuck on a particularly annoying sequence but happen to exit before a checkpoint good luck accomplishing the same tasks again. I would only recommend this game to the most hardcore of fans of detective type storylines but be warned the product itself is very unpolished.

This has got to be most likely the worst game I have ever played. - The Graphics are terrible. - NPC interaction; They don't even look at you while speaking - Voice acting at its worst: You could almost swear the main character is voiced by Tommy Wiseau - Controls are really bad: I was 'directed' to go down an alley. The camera panned through the wall and I couldn't even see where the hell it was, not to mention there is no controller support - Environment has ridiculous things such as fire hydrants in the middle of the street - Notes stay on the screen until a button is pressed. If you miss your opportunity they stack up and never go away - Game crashed Not sure how much I paid for this but I'm sure I could have went for something a bit more polished in alpha stages. This game is not enjoyable whatsoever and being that I purchased from a third party I can't get a refund. I don't do gameplay videos but for the first time ever I have considered it just to show people how horrible this game is. $15 is the usual price!? Now THAT is ridiculous. $0.49 cents seems like a decent price.

Bought on sale for 1.50 on fanatical. Voice acting is terrible. Controls are badly implented. GRaphics are nothing special and the game is confusing. I wasn't sure what is going on until reading the walkthrough. The worst part for me is the camera it constantly spins around when moving the mouse even slightly making me feel motion sick.

a messy and ugly game which is basically a propaganda media for the Islamic regime that rules with iron fist!