“You are nothing but my puppet”

Developer : Starbreeze Studios
Publisher : 2K Games
Available on : XBOX 360, PS3

In today’s age of gaming it would seem a new first person shooter comes out everyday. With hundreds of games flooding the market, gamers with guns are continually looking for a refreshing and unique experience. It is without a doubt that anyone who plays through The Darkness will be rewarded with a great story, interesting characters and some fond memories. That said, this 10-or-so hour experience isn’t without some gripes to deal with.

The Darkness follows a mafia hitman known as Jackie Estacado, a serious lover with flowing locks of hair that rival any Maybelline model. Set in a gritty modern New York City, the game opens with an action sequence similar to that of any other game that involves both guns and cars. Whilst a ‘riding shotgun in an on-rails vehicle’ scene may not be a significant opening, it does give the player a good chance to appreciate the beautiful details in the environment and the fluidity of movement.

Throughout the first half hour of gangster shooting, you could be easily convinced that there’s nothing special in store for this game, but you’d most likely find yourself appreciating some of the numerous and finer details of the game engine. Smoke trails from every gun shot. The incredibly realistic laser sight that collides with the skinniest poles. The quality and abundance of tubs of blood - shedding onto walls, floors, and every object around. Even the fluidity, as Jackie moves swift and smoothly around his environment you realise The Darkness is a very pretty game indeed. As a mature outlet for the power of this engine, The Darkness is also one of the most violent and intense games to surface this year.

Then it happens - The Darkness itself. It’s a tad disappointing how Jackie receives this entity known as ‘The Darkness’. It is very quick, and one brief explanation on this happening is somewhat hidden in the game, potentially leaving out some serious plot points on the hatred between Jackie and his uncle Paulie. Explanation or not, our anti-hero is soon seemingly possessed and altered into a carrier for what pronounces to be the doom of all mankind. Personally I would have imagined most people that are suddenly possessed with an entity bent on creating a world of darkness would be a tad more… surprised. For Jackie, it seems that this is routine schedule as no real emphasis is based on the moment of receiving The Darkness. Apart from an odd slip-up, the excellent story narration also comes into play with some great quotes. “You are nothing but my puppet” is scorched into Jackie’s ears as The Darkness first takes control of the player as a point of proving the power of The Darkness. There’s a lot of great quotes from the brilliantly voice-acted Darkness, creating a true immersion experience.

It also doesn’t take too long to get to know our dark beast friend, who is one of the strongest supports for this title. What is The Darkness? There’s no real explanation behind it. The storyline of the game is based upon the original comic book of the same name, and I’d assume it has a bit more in it than the game. Even though we aren’t really told what/who/why or how The Darkness came to be, we can be most certain that it’s intentions are evil. The Darkness is bent on devouring Earth in darkness, creating a world in which it can dominate. To do this, it needs Jackie. It seems The Darkness requires a human host to survive which in turn plays out to be one of the key plot points throughout the game. This allows a lot of great story driven events, twists, and epic scenes with developed characters that follow the path to both Jackie getting revenge on his uncle Paulie and attempting to free himself from The Darkness.

This is where the game gets really unique and interesting. Now Jackie finds himself with more tentacles than a hentai archive which he can generally control to both thwart enemies and escape situations. There’s a selection of powers The Darkness provides, and while they’re all nice and pretty, unfortunately a few of them are just plain useless. Summoning plays a key part in solving some puzzles, as Jackie boy finds portals to conjure small beasts known as ‘Darklings’. Throughout the game you learn to control four different types of Darkling - Berzerker, Gunner, Kamikaze and Light Killer. As a specific example for the let down of some abilities, the Light Killer is a Darkling who can eradicate light sources (such as street lamps) with a quick zap of electricity. This should be a useful ability, but the darkling is generally so slow and stupid at doing his job, that it is much quicker to just take care of light yourself, which is an important task. One of the most tedious points of The Darkness is eradicating light. It makes sense that Jackie is stronger in the dark, but spending an entire game having to hit or shoot out lights can be very, very tedious. Fortunately the Demon Arm power can save you ammo and make it quicker, yet having to constantly cycle abilities to eradicate something that is present throughout the entire game really isn’t fun.

There are a few nagging points in The Darkness that can make the time spent between cut scenes frustrating. A lot of conventional FPS rules are played with, rules that exist within the genre for a reason. The severe lack of HUD information (such as health, ammo and darkness power) can make life difficult, as well as navigation both of the in-game world and outside it. The menu is confusing to use, especially the ambiguous goal descriptions which are listed under ‘Inventory’ for some reason. There’s a section in the menu for The Darkness abilities, which does nothing other than give a brief description of each ability. This is good to have, but when you’re told that you’ve gained a Darkness level any information other than that is near impossible to find. Naturally upon being told you’ve just ‘leveled up’ in some way you’d expect to maybe spend some experience points, gain some abilities - but no, unless you want to go into the menu and siphon out which ability could possibly be new, absolutely nothing seems to change.

There are a bunch of side missions to do on top of your main objective, that would be a lot more tempting if you had a clearer grasp on what you’re actually supposed to be doing and more importantly WHERE exactly you should be doing it. If The Darkness wasn’t already short enough, the amount of time spent walking around with no specific details on where to go can be very infuriating. One side mission even involves taking a message to a man who always wears a red hat, and to look out for the red hat. When you eventually locate this man, and find him to be wearing a black hat, you feel a little ripped off. Perhaps the developer thought the pointless side mission of getting on one train could be made more difficult by just making up bullshit so the player can figure everything out them self.

Most of the pointless wandering around content of The Darkness really should just be avoided. It’s very fortunate that the core of this game is so well developed that it hooks the player in enough to deal with some frustrating moments, and there is still a very rewarding experience to be had. If only there was anything else to do after the single player story. Multiplayer is a very tacked-on experience, if you can even manage to get in a game you won’t want to stay for long. There are a few interesting modes and maps, but the core engine really doesn’t support the attempt at a faster paced multiplayer environment. It’s obvious little time was put into developing multiplayer, and The Darkness would be just as good if it weren’t there at all.

Recommended purchase? Well it’s an excellent game, but once the short story mode is complete, there’s not much else to do. If you’re willing to pay for a short excellent experience pulled down by some bugs and segments of poor design, then there is still a lot to gain from playing through The Darkness - and an experience you won’t forget.

The Darkness

82%

The Good -

* Excellent story and characters.
* Lavish engine.
* Nazi zombies!

The Bad -

* Some poor navigation of both in-game world, and the menu system.
* Some useless abilities and weapons.
* Reasonably short.

Fun “Fact”: The Darkness has a kick-ass metal soundtrack. Look out for the TV’s playing full movies and some music videos.