PDC World Championship Darts Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 17th September 2008

Share:

Digg It

PDC World Championship Darts hits the Xbox 360.

PDC World Championship Darts 2008 Details:

Goto PDC World Championship Darts 2008 Game Page

	Sports
	PC/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii
	Oxygen
	Oxygen

12+

Out Now

1-2

When PDC Championship Darts was released on the PC and Nintendo Wii it received pretty bad reviews all over the Internet, so for the Xbox 360 version Oxygen promised to go back to the drawing board and to improve the game. We took a look at the game to see if they could improve things.

To me making a videogame of Darts seems a bit pointless, it’s cheaper and probably more fun to go out and buy a real darts board but obviously someone thought it would be a good idea. PDC Championship Darts lets you play as some of the biggest names in darts, Phil Taylor, Raymond van Barneveld, Peter Manley, Wayne Mardle, Dennis Priestley and Kevin Painter to name but a few.

The game features the same modes of play as in both the PC and Wii versions of the game, Exhibition, Tournament, Career and Party modes. The game does feature updated player rating and statistics that reflect the performances of the featured players since the Wii version of the game was released. The biggest new addition to the Xbox 360 version of the game is the addition of multiplayer matches over Xbox Live which includes the usual ranked matches and leaderboards that are on offer in most Live enabled sports games.

The games control system has been refined and comes with three difficulty settings that add to the games challenge. However, it’s pretty easy to get to grips with. The game uses the left analogue stick to aim and then the right to select your power and throw the dart. The left and right buttons are used to zoom in and out of the darts board. Getting the right amount of power can take a little getting use to but once you have it’s pretty easy to make accurate shots.

Matches themselves run at the same slow pace as the previous version, which was one of the biggest problems with the game and in the Xbox 360 version still is. You can’t help thinking it needs something to inject some life into the title, or maybe just an increase in pace.

One of the biggest improvements that Oxygen promised was improved graphics that would take advantage of the Xbox 360 greater power and whilst the game has improved in this area it’s hardly pushing the power of the console and some character models are still rather dodgy looking and all still have the same blank expressionless faces. Arenas are still bland looking and little details such as the score displays at the side of the darts board still remain at zero throughout the entire match which beggars the question why they are even there?

Sound in the game is pretty poor the game features highly annoying commentary from who Sid Waddell comes out with the most absurd phrases, and unlike in most games in which you can blank them out in PDC Championship Darts it’s impossible as he screams throughout, all though it’s hard to see what exactly he’s getting so excited about! Other sound effects included are pretty good, crowd cheers and score announcements by Darts referee Bruce Spendley which adds a level of authenticity to PDC Championship Darts, but other then that the games sound is largely forgettable.

To bring this title back from the dead for the Xbox 360 version Oxygen needed to be brave and in all honesty they simply haven’t. The game features the same modes of play, slightly improved graphics but yet the fundamental gameplay is still dull and slow as previous versions.