The Darkness is another ambitious shooter by Starbreeze.
In The Darkness, you play as a 21-year old mobster hitman called Jackie Estacado who's been possessed by The Darkness, a thousand-year-old demonic force. Sounds far-fetched? Well, it is. But it also works really well. Jackie's boss, Paulie, tries to whack Jackie in the very first scene of the game. The reasons as to why he tries to do this are not entirely clear, though it's obvious that Paulie suffers from paranoia. Not long thereafter, Jackie gets possessed by The Darkness. The Darkness is passed on from father to child. The father dies as soon as the mother is impregnated, and The Darkness manifests itself in the child as soon as he/she turns 21. Jackie doesn't know about any of this since he was an orphan that was "adopted" by Paulie (presumably just to be turned into another hitman).
The Darkness manifests itself as two snakelike demons that emerge from Jackie's back. There's also a creepy voice that Jackie often hears inside his head (voiced by Faith No More's Mike Patton) that commands him to do certain things.
After escaping the hit and being possessed by The Darkness, Jackie sets out to exact vengeance on Paulie. It doesn't take long however for Paulie to kidnap Jackie's girlfriend and murder her in front of Jackie's eyes. The game then turns into both a road to vengeance as well as a quest to stop the Darkness from taking over Jackie's mind.
As I said before, The Darkness features a rather unusual story, but for some reason it totally works. You'll be compelled to move through the story, and it's told in a very involving matter. Starbreeze chose to implement some ambitious features in their storytelling that really makes the game stand out.
For one, the game is actually open-world despite being actually being fairly linear. You'll be able to anywhere you want by taking the metro or by walking on foot. There's not a whole lot to do outside of the main story except for some lame side quests, but it helps establish a certain atmosphere. Furthermore, you can talk to characters using a fairly typical conversation system. Whenever Jackie walks up to someone he can talk to, you can select a response using the D-pad and the A button. You can even use phones that are located around the varies areas in the game and manually type in phone numbers.
Every loading screen in the game is masked by a short cinematic. Usually this is a monologue by Jackie himself about his past, his hatred for Paulie or his love for his girlfriend. Whenever you die you see a series of flashbacks from the area you were on while you hear the voice of The Darkness commanding you not to die. These cutscenes cleverly mask loading times and really add to the story and atmosphere.
At first sight The Darkness might seem like your classic first person shooter. Jackie has a limited array of weapons (most of them dual-wielding pistols) and has to shoot a large amount of mobsters and current police officers. The difference comes into play when Jackie is possessed by the Darkness however. The Darkness has varies features. For one, whenever it is manifested it acts as a shield for Jackie. Absorbing bullets drains your darkness power, which can be replenished by standing in the dark. You will most likely go through the game trying to shoot as many light sources as possible. Whenever you're completely in the dark you will still be able to say the outlines of all the objects in the area.
Aside from providing a shield, the Darkness can also use various powers. You can summon a darkness arm, which crawls over the ground like a snake and can stick to walls and can perform stealth kills on enemies or can open certain locked areas. There's also an ability that summons a spiky arms from the Darkness that can be used to impale enemies, pick up objects and throw them or simply destroy light sources. Then there's also a pair of "darkness guns" that you can summon that use your darkness power as ammo and finally there's a black hole that you can create that sucks in all enemies and objects. The black hole power does make the game sort of easy though.
Whenever the Darkness is manifested you can also see certain summoning spots. Here you can summon darklings, which are little creatures that work for you and come in various forms. They will follow you as long as you stay away from light.
The Darkness also offers you the gruesome ability to devour hearts. Devouring enough hearts will eventually increase your darkness power, so it recommended you devour the heart of every slain enemy. You can't devour the hearts of innocent people though, which makes the heart devouring ability a little less disturbing.
The game uses a simple lock on feature that allows you to target enemies fairly easily. Head shots can be pulled off with ease and the Darkness allows you to take more than a few bullets before going down. This makes the game relatively easy, but this also creates a lot of room to experiment. It can be a lot of fun to just mess around with your different abilities and try to overcome obstacles with your various powers. After all, the game's appeal lies in its unique features.
The game should take you somewhere between 8 to 10 hours to complete. There's also a multiplayer mode, but it's little more than an afterthought. So while the game is definitely great while it lasts, there just aren't a whole lot of reasons to come back and play the game again.
The game features some pretty stellar presentation. I already talked about the various atmospheric elements in the game. But there's more. There are some really stellar visuals to be found here (which should not surprise anyone who's played The Chronicles of Riddick). The game consist almost entirely out of grim night-time scenes. Filth is everywhere, and there are only a few areas in the game where you feel actually safe. It all fits very well with the game's story.
All the voice actors do an excellent job of conveying their roles. Admittedly Jackie's whispery bad-ass voice is an acquired taste, but he still does an admirable job. All the character models make convincing Italian hand gestures. The music in the game is a mix between a moody original soundtrack and some licensed tracks that can be heard on the various radios and televisions scattered around the city. Most of these consist out of bouts of Metal and Hardcore that really fit the mood of the game.
But most of all it's the game's attention to detail that struck me as the most remarkable aspect. Phone numbers written on walls can lead to actual pieces of dialogue when dialled on the phone, and there are many really special scenes in the game.
For example, when Jackie first arrives at the home of his girlfriend after escaping the attempted murder on him he gets a message on his beeper. Jenny notices that Jackie is tense though, and she asks him to stay with her for a while. You can then opt to either return the call or to stay with Jenny. If you decide to stay with Jenny, you can sit on the couch and she will wrap her arm around you. The TV will the display an actual licensed fragment of the 1960 movie adaption of To Kill A Mockingbird until Jenny falls asleep after five minutes. These kind of moments really make the game feel unique.
Throughout the main storyline there are many hidden collectibles. These collectibles are actually pieces of paper that have phone numbers written on them. Dialling them on a public phone will give you an often funny piece of dialogue and will unlock some extras for you. For once the extras are actually really cool. You can unlock some interviews, trailers, pieces of the actual comic and Photoshop time lapses. Almost all of them are very interesting and offer something that everyone can enjoy.
In the end, the Darkness is both an ambitious and unique first person shooter. It tells a very unique and remarkable story that is told in a series of interesting ways. While it only lasts about 10 hours, it remains highly recommended for those who are tired of playing cookie-cutter first person shooters that rely solely on fast paced action to get the player involved.
NOTE: The game often uses extreme violence and gore and has more than a few scenes that can be very disturbing. I wholeheartedly recommend that you keep this game away from children or that you stay away from it if violence offends you. You have been warned