DarkBASIC Professional review:3 stars (Great expectations leads to disappointment) - I'm an Artist / Animator not a programmer.
I tried learning C++, Java, Unreal Script. No matter how hard I try, I just can't learn it. When I heard there was a 3D game engine around which uses a derivitave of BASIC as the core language, I can't tell you how psyched I was.
So I went to the DarkBasic website and they have DarkBasic, which is cheap, and DarkBasic Professional, which is a bit more, so I figured I'd check out the basic package and start simple.
First thing you find is that there is no real How To Use This Product. There is a help feature of sorts, but code examples are of the cribnote variety: they are not actual working code examples but syntactical representations of code. A college professor with knowledge of basic computer science could decipher it. But if no one has taken the time to explain to you what an X and Y coordinate is, for instance, how are you going to know that X and Y means insert numbers here?
Fortunately I did know a bit about BASIC from my old Commodore 64 days, but even so, couldn't make anything happen till going to the homepage for tutorials. There are a couple on the main page. If you follow the first tutorial, you can toss together a few basic elements into a rudimentary first person shooter game. However I didn't want to make yet another of way too many first person shooter games. I have other game ideas.
So I go in search of more tutorials and there is a mere smattering of unfinished references around. Fortunately, a friend of mine loans me the 750 page book: Beginner's Guide to DarkBasic Programming. Unfortunately, if you took away all the author's attempts to impress you with his knowledge of computer science, it boils down to maybe 20 pages of actual content. (On page 48 they're still explaining how to install the software.)
After getting my hands on what useless tidbit's I could find about as far as documentation, I was starting to get the understanding of how it worked, but still needed fuel for the fire. I marched down to the library and checked out every book on Liberty Basic, GWBasic, Microsoft Basic, etc, and starting translating the beginner's examples into DB. Now I was finally able to make some headway! Before long I was manipulating 3D game content around like I'd been doing it all my life.
I started finding a few bugs here and there, then come to find out, they are no longer doing any updates to DarkBasic 1. It's obsolete. So I got the DarkBasic Professional Demo.
First of all there are some problems with the Editor. It's incomplete. Apparently the guy who was working on that part left the company due to "personal differences" and left them without the source code, so any problems there cannot be fixed.
I saw on their website that they were looking for tutorial writers and as everyone here has said, they desperately need documentation, so I wrote them an offer to exchange tutorial writing for software. To my surprise, they offered me a paid position and asked me to name my price. I told them $20 hr and they immediately accepted without attempting to negotiate, which also surprised me. But I'm psyched! I'm making good money doing something I love.
So anyway's I start finding bugs at the core level; Like if you're doing anything which uses mouse control, they'ye got one of the Z controls mixed with the X control. When working in 2D mode, the background colors don't work. They seem either unconcerned or incapable of fixing bugs at the core level however, and instead have released a number of different applications which all rely on this same, buggy engine.
At the moment, they are plugging away, obsessed with the notion that the world needs yet another First Person Shooter authoring tool. Meanwhile the foundation they are building it on is still full of holes.
The real genius behind DarkBasic is Lee Bamber: a brilliant programmer, but not too socially adept.
Enter Richard Vanner, a manipulative contol freak with one of the worst cases of ADD I have ever seen: always 40 projects going at a time, rarely finishing any of them. The Chaotic, Winchester Mystery House feel of the software is indicative of his state of mind.
Anyways, I tried my best to help these people and all I got was ripped off for three weeks wages.
I suspect that the "personal differences" they've had with their other employees is that they just won't compensate people fairly for their work. The whole project is a mess of patched together bits and pieces.

I would give this 6 stars on concept alone.
However the the implementaion leaves much to be desired.
For documentation, they get a big fat ZERO

I think this product has a tremendous amount of potential if they would just finish what they started before moving on to another project. They could easily have one of the premiere game authoring platforms if they would just get back on track with their core BASIC engine and stop trying to follow in the footsteps of HalfLife and Unreal Tournament
5 stars (Best in class) - After trying several game engines, in the "affordable" class, DarkBasicPro is the only one without high end limitations. As another reviewer said, it is a wrapper for DirectX. This means you have all the capabilities of DirectX, without the complexities, including shaders, sound, media, collision detection, packaging, etc. And it gives a good frame rate! The package has matured within the last year, and many of the earlier defects have been corrected. (The manual still leaves room for improvement. Buy the Dark Basic book also, and you will be happier!)
Dark Basic Pro now requires DirectX 9.0. And for really fast action games, you will need a reasonably powerful PC. If you find any command limitations, (even though it has over a thousand commands), you can always write your own DLL, and add capabilities, such as Octrees to the engine (which they don't have yet.) There now are several third party add-ons, such as "TreeMagik G2" and other enhancement packs which greatly aid in game construction. Check out the Game Creators web site, and the forums!
There are other game engines which are simpler, and "spoon feed" the process to you. But once you get a little experience, you will be frustrated by the limitations caused by the watered down interface. Dark Basic Pro is not that much more difficult to use, and is tremendously more powerful and flexible.

4 stars (Good product, bad manual.) - In reviewing this product, I would like to fairly say that I have not written a single complete program using this product yet.Now, that scentance could be a double edged sword, it could meen I am incompetent, or it could meen there is something wrong with darkbasic pro. What I like to think is that dark basic pro has thoroughly flawed documentation. Just as Peter Patterson said in his review. The programing lanuguage is great and very easily allows you to write software very fast, yet, when you are stuck, the manuals are no help.Many of the commands do not work as predicted, and same functions seem to be implemented differently for different commands. The 3D rotation commands can drive you nuts. The coordinates system also seems to be a bit unpredictable.I love the programing language, and that is why I gave it four stars, but they realy need to work on the documentation and help files.I heard there is an update, hope the documentation update is up to expectations.
DarkBASIC Professional Features:
Computer software (programs)
Programming Languages
C
CD
Powerful, flexible, and easy to use
Powerful language for creating games
Ideal for both beginners and more experienced programmers
Create 2-D and 3-D effects
Make games using Quake 3 levels

DarkBASIC Professional is the CD-ROM version. The full version can be purchased by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO ORDER" button below for around 84.99USD.