The Darkness

With all the coverage we provided in the days leading up to the release of The Darkness, you could have been easily lead to believe there was something special coming. The launch of the Xbox 360 version was surrounded by a huge amount of interest, and now that the PS3 version has arrived, gamers have the chance to check out the (in my opinion, slightly underused) capabilities of Sony’s next gen beast. Based on the internationally best selling comic created by Top Cow, The Darkness already has a large base of fans waiting to be disappointed over a cruddy game adaptation. Fortunately, The Darkness manages to deliver the goods, even if it’s not entirely apparent for the first few minutes of the game.

Playing as young Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the Franchetti crime family, you are immediately thrown into a frantic car chase through the street tunnels of New York. The start of any interactive gameplay blends so seamlessly into the opening cut scene that it’s a little daunting to figure out what’s going on, and when, if it all, you should begin opening fire and pulling your weight during the action sequence. This marks the occurrence of one of the only detectable flaws in the impressive gameplay.

The Darkness weaves such a cinematic and haunting story around you, that it blurs the line between interactive gameplay and the cut scenes needed to push the story onwards. While this may seem like the ultimate goal of a game developer, there’s a difference between an immersive experience and standing staring at a subway trash can for a full minute before you’re quite sure that the cut scene has ended and you’re back in control of Jackie’s footsteps. Some gamers may claim it to be nothing short of a miracle; less experienced FPS gamers may find it a little frustrating.

As the storyline unfolds, Jackie celebrates his 21st birthday and subsequently inherits a malevolent and gory family gift – a set of demonic powers known as The Darkness. Aptly named, these powers can only be used in the darkness (a shadowy-ish dusk light is also fine, the developers aren’t total asses). With monstrous, ravaging tentacles growing out of his back, things are suddenly looking a tad brighter for Jackie boy as he attempts to overthrow his depraved Uncle Paulie, currently at the helm of the Franchetti crime family.

The Darkness powers are introduced progressively in order for players to come to grips with the usefulness of each technique. While you’re always equipped with plenty of kick-ass firearms, The Darkness powers shouldn’t be neglected. The ability to summon a range of imp-like “Darklings” to your aid will get you out of plenty of tight spots and the disorienting “Creeping Dark” power lets you send out a disembodied and vicious probe to scout out unreachable spots or to tear the hearts from enemies at a distance. Other powers include the ability to spear enemies with a long tentacle, move heavy objects and summon deadly black holes designed to suck the bad guys into oblivion. Whilst being exceptionally violent and gruesome, the powers are well crafted and don’t take long to master.

As a first person shooter, the pace of the game rises and falls in bursts, leaving you with dozens of enemies to kill and then a nice big (relatively) safe area to explore. Although not immediately obvious, each location is filled with collectables, encouraging exploration of entire areas which can slow the gameplay right down. Most importantly, the deviating pace of the story doesn’t ever feel like a burden. The structure ensures you have enough time to get used to your new abilities and then happily throws you a pile of enemies to test them out on. Brought to you by the developers at Starbreeze Studios, you can see the similarities from the award-winning Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay shining through. During the more intense periods of action, the slight auto-aiming function does wonders for your confidence, allowing you to flick quickly and accurately between targets.

The graphics created for The Darkness are most agreeable, and leave you with the feeling that this is getting pretty close to how next-generation graphics were intended to look. Interestingly enough, it’s not the technical quality of the graphics that are most impressive, but rather the incredible creativity and attention to detail the developers have applied in creating a run-down New York city. For once, the graffiti covering buildings is true to life. They’ve realised that nearly all graffiti comes as unintelligible, illegible nonsense and have meticulously recreated graffiti that succeeds in portraying ‘truly run-down’ as opposed to ‘shoddy artist let loose with a spray can’.

The voice acting is solid, however the mouth animation for Jackie seems to leave his speech in a mumbley mess. As far as animation quirks go, it’s small but ultimately distracting when the game starts introducing frequent monologuing cut scenes, with Jackie delving back into his sordid family history.

The brutal nature of the story won’t lend itself to the faint (or young) of heart but once the initial shock wears off, you’ll find yourself wrapped up in a grim tale of violence, love, and family betrayals. With the gothic-romance style of The Crow, hard-core action of Vin Diesel and horror of John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Darkness will intrigue and delight.

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