The Darkness - Review

Added June 29th, 2007 by Slunks

Comic books often experience trouble when attempting a transition into the gaming world. While the genre may have encountered a success spree as of late, a few games have slipped through the door of disappointment. Not to worry though, as Starbreeze, the developer of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, is also on call for their latest game, The Darkness.

In The Darkness, you play as Jackie Estacado, an orphan who was adopted by "Uncle" Paulie Franchetti, only to be recruited as a hit man for the Mafia. Living the life of a mobster since his early teens, Jackie has never seen eye to eye with his overseers. The game starts you off waking up in the back seat of a reckless convertible. Apparently, a money deal has gone horribly wrong. You and your fellow peers are attempting a getaway in a traffic-filled underground tunnel which involves cops chasing you, weapons being fired, and eventually your car coming to a halting crash. With your mob mates dead, Paulie suspects you're taking the money for yourself, and not only sets a hit out on you, but also to take out your beloved girlfriend, Jenny. The opening is a true show-stunner, and it gets the game moving right away.

Because Paulie will be using his corrupt cop friend, Captian Eddie Shrote, and all of his forces to take you down, things are obviously going to get rough. However, near the same time, you are possessed by a supernatural, sycophantic demon that is ironically named The Darkness. Much like Jackie, it doesn't mind taking the lives of those who are trying to do the same. Although, Jackie's main goal is to take revenge on Paulie for the attempted assassination by taking down his operation, The Darkness' intentions are to override Jackie. Aside from the normal weaponry, you are able to whip out The Darkness on command and use him at will. At the press of a button, The Darkness shoots out of Jackie's back and hovers around his sides, not only acting as a passive, yet limited shield, but as other selectable elements to brutally kill your enemies. They're four different powers to learn throughout the game, which you can change at any time by using the D-Pad. While you may not have too many techniques to choose from, you'll never feel overwhelmed.

Using the demon's abilities drain power from it, as does standing in the light. Because of this, it's essential to fight your battles in the dark, where you can consistently drain the shade for power. You can view your power by looking at the sides of the screen, which happens to be The Darkness' face. You may think having two face-eating demon tentacles in your view would clog up the screen, however the game does a nice job of bringing a clean interface. There are no health bars, directional arrows, or mini-maps in the way. Instead, what you have is the occasional weapon and ammo display every time you reload, and that's about all. Because of this, there is an admired natural and cinematic feel to the game from start to finish. The Darkness' extremely talented voice acting, personality, and style help this as well. The setting is New York, and it hits the whole mobster scene right on the nail's head, as if they released a Goodfellas game instead. Visually, the game is absolutely stunning, considering how grimy and disgusting New York is. The extremely impressive atmosphere really is astonishing, and the little things such as the littered streets and graffiti-filled buildings and walls make the setting truly stick out; you'll feel as if you're actually in the city itself.

Of course, The Darkness doesn't only have good looks, it's entertaining to play as well. Running and gunning your way through firefights is usually a first class ticket to the concrete. All weapons aren't as useful when compared to certain others, there are only half-dozen weapons and four different Darkness powers to acquire throughout the entire game. There is much experimentation to be had. Jackie is also able to summon minor demons called Darklings. There are four different types available and each one will do its best to deliver the worst death imaginable to your enemies. However, you may only spawn these at hellspawns, which you can only see when The Darkness is unleashed. Unfortunately, these little guys aren't as supportive as they could be at times, due to uninteresting AI.

The soundtrack is fine-tuned with what you're doing, and it sounds great as well. Heavy rock will play during a firefight, and revealing The Darkness will turn up the music a few notches, as well as making it much heavier, all without disturbing the song, and that's cool.

Unfortunately, The Darkness does have its slew of issues. New York can be a big, confusing place, and while you'll always know what place to go to next, you may not know where that place is due to lack of direction and good map features. Because of this, the free-roaming aspect that The Darkness brings is a double-edged sword. You may feel a bit intimidated on your first visit to the city. You may experience a bad case of both irritating gameplay and graphical glitches. While it is rare to see a specific problem within a play-through, you'll be bound to run into a few unexplainable things. Not to mention the AI can be rather inappropriate at times. Most civilians don't seem to mind that you killed a mass of people and devoured their hearts, it's as if they see it every day.

The multiplayer consists of an eight-player limited frag-fest. There are typical run-of-the-mill game modes such as deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag and survivor. Although it tries new and interesting things, such as allowing you to play as Darklings, which can climb on walls and ceilings, the attempt comes up a little short. You may encounter an unhealthy amount of lag occasionally during play. It seems if one person starts lagging, it bogs the entire match to an almost unplayable rate. It's unfortunate to see a game with this much potential be less than thrilling. Although you may enjoy the first few rounds, you know that multiplayer wasn't a first thought on the developer's mind.

Summary:

While The Darkness may not hit the mark on everything it tries for, it's not nearly enough to knock the experience off track. It successfully combines a pleasant story, entertaining gunplay, fascinating visual style, and an overall enjoyable experience that you'll want to encounter more than once. Even for an average 10-15 hour campaign, The Darkness hits a lot of nails, and only bends a few.