Awesome sci-fi (definitely not SyFy) blog i09 dug up a link to concept artist Mitchell Mohrhauser's blog that immediately attracted my attention for the piece above. It's obvious that Nikolai Tesla's lab was inspiration of this piece. Tesla, of course, is the de facto leader of the human resistance attempting to stop the Watchers' invasion of Earth in Dark Void. 

In reality, Tesla was a slightly crazed eastern European scientist who worked with Edison until their opposing views on electricity drove them apart (turned out, Tesla was more right than Edison). As the years went by, Tesla became more and more wacky, eventually becoming convinced that he could tap into an invisible energy source to power his "Teleforce," a weapon that the press quickly dubbed a "death ray." In 1934. For reals.

In the game world of Dark Void, Tesla has been using his supergenius to build the Ark for the human survivors, and has also created the jetpack that he straps on Our Hero Will as soon as he shows up. Will fortunately doesn't seem to have too many issues with being used as an experimental human torpedo, much to the inevitable delight of you, the player.

Mohrhauser is clearly channeling a lot of the same creative energies that the boys at Air Tight were grokking when they came up with Dark Void. Crossing fingers that Dark Void is a hit, we should get this guy involved with production design for the sequel.

True story: at one point, the early version of the game that would eventually become Dark Void featured motorcycles, Egyptian temples and giant clanky robots. Fortunately, the game has gotten much, much better since then. However, when someone sent me a link to these crazy F131 Hellcat motorcycles, I had two immediate thoughts upon viewing:

Thought #1: Man, these bikes would totally fit in Dark Void.

Thought #2: I wonder if I could get Confederate Motor Company to send me one for free so I could paint the Dark Void logo on the side and ride around. Good advertising for us both!

I am the ideal American Consumer, because my brain immediately and automatically changes states from "Neat!" to "Want!" with no actualy phase transition. Evidently, I am the Schrodinger's Cat of impulse buying. Or schmoozing free stuff, whatevs.

If you've got big piles of money and the urge to look all Steampunk-y on two wheels, I'd suggest contacting these dudes to figure out how you can get your mits on one of the of these limited-run F131 Hellcats. More than 150 pounds of torque and over 149 horsepower with a hand-milled and TIG-welded chasis? Suddenly my 2002 V-Star 650 Classic doesn't look so hot...

Jose (designer at Airtight) and Shana (producer at Capcom) rock Dark Void for Ryan Mac at Gamespot. Basically, Capcom owned the first two hours of the show on Gamespot Live since we are so awesome! Jose made the game look frakkin' great -- which isn't too hard -- while Shana provided all the talky-talk. Admit it: you want to play this game.

DLC for Dark Void? Coming! Multiplayer? Not gonna happen! Gameplay? Rad. Joystiq editor Kevin Kelly caught the latest Dark Void demo and then chatted with Morgan, producer on the game. We're slowly turning up the volume on Dark Void, and I hope you're listening; this game is turning out to be really, really strong and is not to be missed.