I hold The Darkness comic series very lose to my heart, when DC and Marvel could only offer superheroes I started looking elsewhere for my monthly fix of action. I stumbled across the publisher Image, who later formed Top Cow, who seemed to offer a more mature approach to the comic industry, as well as Spawn, The Darkness caught my eye, and since the first issue of the exploits of Jackie and the Darkness I was hooked, in fact, one of the original reasons I got excited about the Xbox 360 was when I first heard that this game was in development. Let’s just hope it does not disappoint.
The Darkness has you control Jackie Estacado, a mob hitman just about to celebrate his 21st birthday. As you progress through the game you will learn about the horror that he has inherited and some of its history, and ultimately, how to control it.
First impressions will be that this is just another first person shooter on the Xbox, but once you get past the first few levels, the whole game opens up, unlike normal linear shooters, you are able to travel to different parts of the city, the main hubs are tube stations dotted around, in here you are able to gain directions to the next part of the game, assist a few people with their troubles and travel to other parts of the city. The story is still linear and you will have the same outcome but if you wish, you can get more out f the game by helping other game characters with their problems.
The story is well written and presented, there are some great twists and some truly emotional moments, however I will say this is an 18 cert game so expect an awful lot of swearing and violence. There are two sides to Jackie’s life, the city side, grimy, graffiti, flickering lights and scum all over the place, and later in the game you will visit a kind of purgatory, with freakishly evil looking soldiers fighting a never ending war. The graphics and overall presentation of the levels is stunning, you can tell that a lot of time has been put into this title.
The gun battles are fast and ferocious and you have a choice either to use cover and shoot it out, or take out the lights, and use the darkness powers to your advantage. The weapons you will mostly use are the dual wield pistols and sub machine guns, occasionally using a shotgun or rifle, these are used by the trigger buttons for each hand, once you start to open up the game you will unlock more Darkness modes, to start with you will have the Creeping Dark, which is like a small scout that can stick to walls and attack enemies, further on you will use the Demon Arm, Darkness Guns and the Black Hole. Whilst graphically impressive, they don’t really bring much more to the game other than more ways to kill enemies.
Another evil power you have inherited is the power to summon Darklings, these little guys and gals love carnage and bring bit of humour to the title. As with the Darkness powers, you learn to summon Darklings at certain points of the game, first you are given Berserker, who attacks enemies and generally helps out, later you will unlock Gunner, this gal likes nothing more than to let rip with her mini-gun and chew on a cigar, Kamikaze, who like the name states, blows himself up and Lightkiller who takes out lights with an electrical arc.
For those that want a bit more than just an first person shooter, you are also able to search around levels for collectables, some come in the form phone numbers which you can call on the many phones dotted around, you will hear a strange conversation or recorded voice and then earn an item in the bonus menu, there are also clothes for the Darklings to use in game. One of the more original aspects is the collecting of hearts to feed The Darkness. After you have killed an enemy you are able to approach them and at the press of a button one of your tentacles pierces the body and eats the heart, the more you eat, the more power the Darkness obtains.
This is a very well polished title and one of the better single player first person shooters out there, there are so many small bits in this game that have to be experienced, just a few I will mention are the loading times, rather than a stale screen with “Loading….”, you have a monologue with Jackie, great idea. You also have TV’s dotted around the game showing numerous films, in one situation you can sit down with you girlfriend in her new flat and watch To Kill a Mocking Bird, its little touches like this that makes this game more of an experience than your traditional first person shooters like Quake or Doom.
