Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

The Darkness

Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Starbreeze Studio
Platform: Xbox 360
Rated: Mature
Released: June 25, 2007

Visuals:
The visuals for The Darkness are pretty amazing for a game that came out in 2007 and are quite impressive to look at from the game's cut scenes and from the gameplay the visuals just looked very great and I was quite shocked in that as well and their were very little frame rate issues and in fact their was one issue I found with game and for me personally it was not that big of a deal and I'll get to that later, but now I'll talk about some of the detail to the environment's and character's in this game. So the detail to all the non-playable character's and the main character who is Jackie Estacado and the detail to him in the cut scenes are really well done as are the detail's to (NPC's) every aspect to the character's were all done well even the detail to your pet darklings and the detail to you demon arm's are all pretty great looking and you should be quite impressed with the visual detail to the main character Jackie and to all the other (NPC's) in this game. Now the detail to all the environments in this game are pretty impressive for a game that again came out in 2007 and so this game will take you through such locations of New York, like china town and the harbor front and you get to see a few more and you get to go to these location's through the New York subway line which is pretty well designed in the the detail for and the game will take you to what is Starbreeze's vision of Hell which was done pretty well, as well. So now the the one flaw that I found with the visuals and I'm not quite sure if I should put here or in the gameplay part of my review and I guess it might okay here, so the problem I found with the visuals were there was a little hiccup when moving the aiming cursor or the camera around with your guns or just simply looking around and as you did one of these things their would a little delay when turning to your right or to your left and this problem was just a minor one and should not render you fun with this game at all. So in short the visuals for this game are they quite impressive for a game that came in 2007 the same year as such game's as Halo 3, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Prey and many more that were pretty great visually as well that year and this is on was just great.

Audio:
The audio for The Darkness was amazing from the voice of work to the soundtrack everything about the the audio for this game was amazing and when you get in the a gun battle you get some great tunes to listen to as you gun down, shoot up and rip a part your enemies. So the voice over work for this game is very very amazing from the the main character Jackie Estacado and all the other character's that you get to meet along the way like Jackie's girlfriend Jenny, his Uncle Paulie and the voice of The Darkness was just spectacular and was some of the best voice work I have heard and in overall the voice work for this game was just awesome. So the the sound track for this game is pretty amazing as well and hit's it s mark beautifully and really helps set the mood for every aspect in this game and really makes feel like a real demonic bad ass as you run through this game and like I said it just really sets the mood for this games atmosphere. The sounds of all the guns and your demon arms all sound great and you get to hear every gory sounds as your demon arms chow down on some hearts of the enemies that you have killed and just simply everything sounds great. So in short for the audio for this game is that it is just amazing and is just superb.

Gameplay:
So now the gameplay for The Darkness is amazing from the story that take's you through a plot of revenge and twists it in to a extra side of revenge and help Jackie to control is new found power known as The Darkness which this game starts you of as Jackie Estacado who is a hitman for the Franchetti crime family. On his 21st birthday, a timeless force known as The Darkness awakens within you. You now can wreak havoc on your enemies with the powers it bestows. But you'll quickly learn that The darkness has a will of it own. As you play through this game you go through some of the streets of New York city and then take you through hell and back and I'll be honest this game had me sucked in and I'm pretty sure this game ran me about 12-15 hours maybe longer I was just blown away from with the mechanics of this game and when playing as Jackie in the light you are pretty vulnerable to bullets and other thing that will hurt you and when you go in to your darkness sense and in the dark to keep your power strong you are almost unstoppable as long you are in the dark and if you are not well you power gets drained you could be in trouble, so try to keep shoot lights out to keep you strong and this game has collectibles for you to find as you play this game and they come in a form of phone number to find laying around and in mail boxes and other areas you can try to find them in and their are some outfits you can find through out the game for the four Darklings you get to unlock to help you take out your enemies and you have a Berserker, Light Killer, Kamikaze and Gunner and trough out the game you will unlock some new Darkness powers and they are Creeping Dark which allows you to sneak around and do some recon with one of your Demon arms and as you progress you get Demon Arm which allows you to move unmovable objects with and you can grab and enemy and toss them in to another enemy or just throw them as far as you can. You can also devour you enemies hearts when they are dead and by doing this you can make Jackie and his powers a lot more powerful and make you almost virtually unstoppable. So in short for this game's single player as a great story and has a great new mechanic to FPS genre and it is simply an amazing game.

Multiplayer:
So for the multiplayer for The Darkness is basically DEAD and the one match I eventually got to play was pretty good and the on-line seemed to rely on the person that has a great connection and well that is what it felt like to me, maybe the server's are still up for this game but I did not get that. So basically this game's on-line is pretty much dead.

Overall:
So the overall point for The Darkness is this and that is this game has pretty great visuals, an amazing audio and the gameplay is pretty superb and here is the best part you can find this game for about $5 bucks used and around $10-$20 new dollars maybe less then that, but this is a great find and a must have in your collection or at least a must play.

9.5 out of 10