The Darkness

The Darkness

XBOX 360

Review

Summer, too many people is a time of delight, and celebration, leisure, but for a gamer it is a time of reflection, and dread.
For you see, many games wait for a pre-Christmas release, to make the big bucks during the holiday season, few games are actually released during the summer.
This summer is different, we’re getting a few great games, The Darkness is a game that falls into that category.
Taking on the role of a Mafia Hit man, Jackie Estacado, whose life takes a roller coaster ride on the eve of his 21st Birthday.
Jackie is asked to make a hit, and retrieve a certain amount of money for his psychopathic uncle, however, the money Jackie was supposed to retrieve wasn’t in the said location, his Uncle assumes Jackie has stolen it and takes it to personal extremes, calling in numerous hits from people all around New York on Jackie Estacado. And his Uncle being the current Mafia “leader” for New York, every body and there mother wants Jackie dead.
And if it weren’t for a very special “gift” bestowed upon him by his ancestors, Jackie wouldn’t last very long.
Not long after the game starts going underway, Jackie is engulfed by a mysterious dark uh, power? Quite hard to describe, so I’ll take a simple description from the comic book series.
“The Darkness is like the force on crack.”
Truer words have never been spoken. The Darkness is a parasitic type power, handed down from generation to generation, and presents itself to the host on the date of his 21st birthday.
Apparently the Estacado family has been carrying The Darkness power since World-War 2, “starting” with Anthony Estacado.
Make no mistake; The Darkness has been around much longer.
Aside from story elements, The Darkness power starts off as not much more then a shield. You have one more power, but you really can’t take advantage of it until you level up.
Now, as the name implies, you can’t really use your powers in light, only in Darkness, you’ll be shooting off lights, a lot, a lot a lot.
The game gets off to a bumpy start, in which you are more trying to avoid direct confrontations with half-the city (Those of whom want you dead), and just trying to get from A to B without having your brains blown out all along the side-walk.
Weather it’s trying to survive long enough to make contact with Butcher, or meet with you girl-friend Jenny, you’ll be mostly getting from A to B for the first 2 hours of the game.
You can fight your way through the hordes of dirt-bags who want you in a body bag ASAP, but once the crooked Police Team (lead by Eddie Shorte) are all pointing giant guns in your face, it’s a better idea to run. I make it sound easy, but out running a helicopter is hard work.
The shooter side of the game is the usual you’d expect from an FPS, with ability to change the settings of the auto-target, which, well, targets your enemy.
Jackie can’t take much heat without the darkness backing him up, so you’ll be generally staying in the dark most of the game, if you wish to keep on trucking’.
You’ll be given a pretty large array of weaponry; there are the modern day weapons, your usual shot-gun, dual pistols, and such.
Then you’ll get to take on the classic WWII weaponry, which consist of old pistols, and rifles. There really isn’t much difference between the two, but it puts an element of diversity into play.
You’ll be traveling between two worlds, The Darkness’ vision of hell, and the real world; you’ll be in the ‘real’ world most of the game, but you’ll be going to hell quite a bit as well.
It’s when you first experience the second world that the game starts to flesh itself out, you’re given a new power, your Darkness skills have probably been leveled up at least once, and the story truly begins after you complete the first “part of the game”.
You’re given two powers, The Darkness guns, and The Demon arm. (Another power ‘The Black Hole’ comes in later.)
The Darkness guns are well, not much of use besides the fact they require no ammunition besides being in the dark. An exuberant blast fires out of the left gun, which requires dangerously close range, that you might as well be doing an execution move.
The Right gun is weak, but can shoot pretty fast and consistent, that along with not needing ammunition, the right gun is probably the one you’ll be using the most.
The Demon Arm is by far one of the most efficient and easy to use powers, even if you don’t notice at first.
Impaling and throwing an enemy is an easy way to dispose of a threat without wasting ammo!
You’re given the opportunity to also pick up some pretty heavy items as-well, but you won’t really notice, or care for the most part.

This game is "M" rated for a reason, it's not one for the kids.

Moving on to the Black Hole, it is, as one would assume, a hole that sucks up anything in its path, and continues on to spit them out. It’s over powered in the sense that if you CAN suck up a group of bad guys, they die instantly. Now, the problem is sucking people up, it can be really hard and straining if your Darkness powers aren’t charged. It’s really effective and a great power, but the circumstances must be just right if you want to suck up enemies.
Along with your Darkness powers you’re given the opportunity to control “Darklings” Goblin like Minions who have a strong thirst for human blood.
Darklings aren’t very smart, nor are they extremely helpful, but they can be somewhat funny, and they add a bit of charm and humor into what is otherwise a dark game. Another problem with the Darklings is that (until the end of the game) you can only control one at a time, it’s not a BIG deal, seeing how you don’t need them, but they could’ve done a lot more with the Darklings.

At its core, the game is really story driven, you may be going from point A to point B a lot, but there’s always a reason, and you’re always motivated to do so. You’ll find yourself really engrossed in the story, and even though the game isn’t long, there is a lot of meat to the story and experience, that you’ll feel satisfied by the end, even if the ending leaves you guessing. By the end you’ll want to read the comics, so you’ll get the full The Darkness story.
Adding to the great story is a great voice talent behind the characters; Starbreeze really shines in quality of story telling and Voice Acting.

You’ll spend most of your time running through the city of New York, a very small section of New-York, very linear too, it’s big enough to harbor a very few side quest, but the nook and cranny’s of this section of New York are where the main game takes place.
And by Nook and Crannies, I mean parts of the city you wouldn’t usually stumble upon if you weren’t given a narrative to guide you.
This being said, levels are diverse, in the sense that you are constantly visiting places you may not have discovered before, however, you will be backing tracking through these sections; but most of the time they have changed in the sense that perhaps an enemy force (A-la a SWAT team) has set up barricades etc. in order to hunt you down.

The city is small, but there are a few side quest and many unlockables to find in New York, you’ll be traveling through subways left and right, dialing phone numbers, and receiving them. While the majority of side quest are…well…something along the lines of Fetch Quest, there are a few that require you to make a hit, kill a group, or something equally as exciting.

The Darkness has three big elements, Shooting, Exploration, and Unique powers. And while the shooting doesn’t offer much to the genre, The Darkness is a great, fresh experience with a powerful story and Voice Work.

I give The Darkness Two Thumbs way up.