Rating: 46%

Platforms: PC (Microsoft Windows) and Nintendo GameCube

Genres: Shooter, Role-playing (RPG) and Adventure

Themes: Action

Keywords: magic, female protagonist, action-adventure, advergame, bink video, breaking the fourth wall, based on - brand and product placement

Perspective: Third person

Developer: Boston Animation

Publisher: Simon & Schuster;TDK Mediactive;Oxygen Games

Darkened Skye

Summary:

In the action-oriented 3D role-playing game Darkened Skye, the player takes the role of the title character and embarks on a quest to collect four prisms that may help bring the light of goodness back to the world. Skye of Lynlora was just a restless shepherd when she first came across the strange item that would change her life forever. Now she has opened a portal to another place and chaos has come forth. Only Skye can set things right once again. She will face an assortment of fantasy characters and creatures in her journeys as she makes her way through 30 missions set across five different game worlds. It is notable that, like some other releases from publisher Simon and Schuster (including the Boston Animation-developed M&M's: The Lost Formulas), this game features prominent product placement in the form of Skittles brand fruit-flavored candies. Indeed, it is the mystic power of Skittles that moves Skye through more than one threatening game situation. In spite of any potential incongruities of featuring a familiar consumer item in a fantasy world, Darkened Skye strives to provide the graphical competence, engrossing story, and state-of-the-art play that gamers expect from a major 2002 release. ~ T.J. Deci, All Game Guide