Days of Darkness - Day 2

The good folk at 2K Games recently gave me an opportunity to test drive a preview build of The Darkness – and being the good, conscientious person that I am, I’ve decided to pass along my impressions to you, the reader. So sit back, relax, and try not to let the tentacles scare you away…

The first thing I got to see was the title screen. It’s pretty nifty – the background consists entirely of writhing tentacles coated with an unhealthy sheen. From there, I got to see the intro to the game. The opening sequence sets up the back story: you are a young mobster named Jackie Estacado, right on the cusp of your 21st birthday. Unfortunately, your latest heist hasn’t gone too well – the game starts with you and two other low-level mafia types driving at high speeds trying to get away from something. This setup actually worked pretty well – you’re sitting in the back seat and can move your head around, while the guys in the front convey all the essential information via increasingly panicked conversations. It struck me as a nicely cinematic way of easing people into the game, especially when cop cars start chasing you. Soon, it’s all over, and your only surviving mob buddy has left you for dead.

But that’s precisely when you turn 21 – and come into your inheritance of the Darkness, a collection of evil (and therefore pretty damn cool) powers and abilities that let you kick ass in many interesting ways. Essentially, the game would have felt like quite a typical first person shooter if it weren’t for the Darkness powers – from what I could tell, they really made a fun point of difference from the huge number of other FPS games out there.


Your powers work like this: when you’re in a dimly lit area, you can summon the Darkness, which takes the form of a bunch of tentacles around the edges of the screen. In a nice touch, there is virtually no HUD – instead, things like your Darkness power level is indicated by the brightness of your two main tentacle heads. It’s a little thing, but helps add to the immersion quite a lot.

I got to play a level that was a couple of chapters in to the story. My goal was to infiltrate a headquarters of my former mafia boss (who, by the way, betrays you) and set fire to a huge stack of cash he had lying around. When you combine the available weapons with your Darkness powers, you actually have quite a few options when it comes to taking out enemies and breaking into places. I found it most fun to shoot out streetlamps and other lights to let my Darkness powers charge up, and then either rip out peoples’ hearts with a tentacle or summon a humorous Gollum-like creature to leap at their throats. These creatures actually perform a range of functions – you can, for example, summon them on the other side of a locked door and they’ll automatically open it for you. Encouragingly, the level I played was set up so it took advantage of this sort of thing, so hopefully the rest of the game continues to capitalize on it.

Graphics-wise, it looked like there was still a bit of work left to go. Or at least, I hope they sort out some anti-aliasing before the game comes out – jagged edges were everywhere. Besides that, the game looked pretty damn good when there were lots of shadows around, which is what you’d hope from a game that places so much emphasis on the dark. It doesn’t look up to the standard set by Gears of War, but it should certainly be good enough.


One other thing worth mentioning is the voice acting and motion capturing. Ex-Faith No More singer Mike Patton provides the voice of the Darkness itself, which he did on the condition that no post-recording effects were added to his voice (which is fine because he sounds bloody weird and creepy to begin with). The really interesting thing that developer Starbreeze have done here, however, is combine the voice actors with the motion capturing for their characters – meaning they actually acted out the scenes as they spoke them. The result, from what I could see, was pretty impressive, and it’s something I’m looking forward to seeing more of when we get more play time with the game.

All in all, my curiosity was certainly piqued by what I played. The combination of a dark storyline, interesting powers, and solid gameplay will hopefully result in a game that manages to stand out from the pack. Look for more info at NZGamer.com as The Darkness nears release in late June.