Review : The Darkness

Let's talk about a game called The Darkness, shall we?

The Darkness is by 2k games and Starbreeze studios and is based on the TopCow comic book of the same name. It's for the Xbox 360 and PS3. You play as Jackie, an "adopted" hitman for the mob. The game starts on Jackie's 21st birthday in the car coming back from a job with a couple of his compatriots in the mob. From there, it just gets kinda crazy. See, our friend Jackie has a demonic power called The Darkness living inside him and it's on his 21'st birthday when it manifests.

As you continue through the game you piss off your psycho "uncle" in the mob, find out why you are cursed with the darkness and what exactly the darkness is. The story is pretty decent, but I've personally never read much of the comic book so I don't know if its a new story or a retelling.

The graphics are quite good in that light and shadow plays a big role in the game as one would imagine. The darkenss is hurt by light so you end up using more ammo on lights then enemies sometimes. The effects of the powers and the guns are very well done and the faces for the characters for once don't have that shiny wet look that new gen skin textures seem to have. The game earns is M rating though as the language is typical of what you would hear in a mafia movie as well as the Darkness's need to well, eat the hearts of the people you kill. :D

The sound and voice acting in this is above board I would say. It's quite good and despite a couple clunky repeated voice overs, it generally sounds pretty natural. (at least for mafia types).

It's a fun game to play through, but suffers from being almost too easy once you get the darkness powers. When you don't use them, Jackie is fairly fragile. When they are activated you pretty much become an engine of destruction. There are no health packs or even a health meter, instead relying on resting for a short while to recover your health. The darkness itself gains health from being, you guessed it, in the dark.

The multiplayer component of the game is pretty abysmal. Of the handful of games I played on online the lag was crippling and generally wasn't much fun. The only game type that seemed to be played is shapeshifters where the only darkness power you have is to change into darklings. Small fast demons made of the darkness. I didn't really see the advantage other then being fast and able to move quickly. Smart players were able to kill me just as easily.

Overall, here is what I liked and disliked.

Liked
*Graphics
*Voice Acting

Disliked
*Strange AI
*Multiplayer
*Too easy

Overall I would say its a rental at most. 3 stars ***

Next I'll have a write up on Bioshock. :D