Just the other day I was playing the excellent Timesplitters 3 on my Cube. The Great Kingdom Of Iun was awash with the sounds of gunfire and the screams of the poor unfortunates that got in the way of the twin handguns of death. There was carnage everywhere. I finished the level in record time and made it to the next stage.

Wow, where did all the graphics go? From playing on a brightly lit train with the sun blazing in a yellow sky, I was now plunged into the merciless depths of darkness, where the only way to tell if there's an enemy is if you're already being shot by them or if the crosshairs turn red. It got me to thinking; why is black becoming the new... er... black in gaming?

Seriously; play virtually any action or FPS game this generation and you'll find extensive sections of total darkness that are impossible to see in. The worst offenders in recent memory are Halo 2 or Doom 3 �hilariously dubbed "Flashlight 3" by many internet wags. These games feature levels �if not entire chapters where you are bathed in the gloom and you can't even see the gun barrel waving in front of you. Now it seems that my favourite FPS franchise is doomed to the same fate as well.

The problem rests with an intangible quality in gaming called "atmosphere". It's not something you can pin down or nail to the wall, but the best games out there have it in bucketloads. Take for example Oddworld: Strangers Wrath, it combined an excellent and obliquely authentic Wild West theme by combining character accents and brilliantly set up landscapes and townships. Resident Evil 4 (will I ever stop loving this game?) manufactured an effective atmosphere of constant menace through feelings of helplessness due to low ammo and oppressive set-pieces. But now, for some unexplained reason, throwing pitch darkness into a game is supposed to give it atmosphere.

I don't think so.

Darkness combined with a feeling of unease through clever music, occasional flashing lights and echoing footsteps can evoke utter dread in the player. Pitch blackness where you can't see an enemy, but he's straight ahead of you and killing you is not fun; it's annoying.

It may not even be that the developer is trying to create any kind of atmosphere at all, but instead forgot to light up an area of the game properly: this is unforgivable, yet it does happen, surprisingly enough it does happen. Morrowind is one of the greatest RPG's this generation, and personally my favourite game ever, it's an oversight on the part of the developer, however, that you need to have a torch equipped all the time after 6pm game time, even when you're indoors. Torches take up a lot of weight in the inventory so therefore you have to learn to cast light spells pretty quickly or resign yourself to playing supposedly brightly lit areas with the aid of a sputtering flame in your shield hand.

Please don't misunderstand me, like I said earlier, darkness in games can be a very useful tool to get the blood pumping and the adrenaline flowing: darkness with suspect noises and brief glimpses of the creatures stalking you send a chill down the spine of the player. Total darkness on its own in the name of atmosphere is both a lazy and ineffective manner of creating a feeling of impending doom. The only real feeling that it engenders is a feeling of frustration on the part of the player as they are gunned down by some unseen menace in the liquid black that surrounds them. It's almost as if the developers are railing against the constant stream of criticism against the longevity of games by making sections that are as near as dammit impossible to complete. Nice try guys, now light it up and work on that level design, you've nearly got it right.

Still, thankfully for my favourite FPS, the periods of near-total blindness are well-compensated for in the design of the rest of the game. Now if only Halo 2 and Doom 3 could quite manage to glean the same accolade from this hard-nosed hack, then all would be right with the world.

[email protected]