The Darkness is based off a comic series of the same name. You play as Jackie Estacado, a hitman in his uncle’s crime family. On his 21st birthday, Jackie is set up during a heist, and, eventually, his uncle is out for blood to claim revenge for something Jackie didn’t commit. He’s hunted by the people he used to work with. When he’s first confronted by mobsters, he discovers that he’s host to an ancient demon known as the Darkness, two snake like tentacles that give him extraordinary powers.
The setup is strong, as is the rest of the narrative. For reasons I won’t explain, Jackie eventually sets out on his own quest for revenge against his uncle; it becomes more than just survival. It’s punctuated with very well written dialogue and voice acting. Each character is voiced authentically, if a bit stereotypically. The standout, though, is Mike Patton’s turn as the Darkness. His voice is simply evil, demonic, and, as far as I know, he voiced most of the game without an electronic help. It’s truly impressive to hear his work. The only real issue with the narrative has to do with the way NPCs react to seeing Jackie with the darkness coming out of his back. Most characters either don’t acknowledge that they’re there, or they mention it as if it’s just an accepted part of reality. It’s a bit jarring to kill an entire room full of bad guys and not have anyone mention the demonic appendages protruding from his back.
That aside, the game’s story takes you to a host of interesting places in the city, including an underground shrine, an apartment complex, and a hellish other dimension that is surprising and extremely well designed. The same can be said for the rest of the game. Despite the fact that it was basically a launch game, it has a terrific, run down visual design. Every environment is packed with small details. The character models, while slightly less impressive, still look solid, especially Jackie’s.
The game plays out like a mix between first person shooter and adventure. You won’t find too many corridors here (beyond the several buildings you fight in), and you have more or less free reign over where you go. It’s not an open world game, but it is definitely more open than other shooters. Between objectives, you can explore the subway station and the few parts of the city you have access to. Doing so yields surprising rewards. There are numerous little side activities that can be completed. Some are incredibly short (pressuring a guy into doing what you want) while others are a bit more elaborate (going to a guy’s apartment and kicking him out). They are usually fun, as they help break up the straight action of the main missions. Plus, upon completion, you are given a phone number which, when called, will give you a piece of unlockable content and more often than not a bizarre or funny message.
The main missions, though, are where the fun comes in. In the beginning of the game, Jackie is already quite powerful. He’s adept at using guns (read: there is generous auto aim that makes headshots really easy to pull off) and already has one badass power at his disposal: he can detach one of the demon arms and control it, slithering around an area to scout it out and take enemies out by gruesomely tearing their throats out. As you progress, you unlock three more powers: a tentacle you can impale objects and enemies on, throwing them around like they’re made of nothing; a pair of supernatural guns that pack a big punch and never run out of ammo, assuming you’re standing in the dark; and a black hole, very late in the game. The powers are all very fun to use in their own ways. By the end, you’ll almost feel too powerful. Unlike most games, the Darkness actually becomes easier thanks to these powers. There’s never really a limit or penalty for using them. All you need to do is stand in the dark to keep your power meter filled, and you’re more or less gold. There are very few times where you’ll actually feel challenged.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. The goal of the game is to feel like you can take on anything, and that’s what happens. One of the issues with combat, though, is with the guns. Aiming feels too loose until the auto aim kicks in, and by then it just becomes a shooting gallery filled with headshots. Plus, the dual pistols are arguably the best things to use. The shotgun just doesn’t feel powerful, the assault rifle feels too inaccurate and the heavy machine gun just feels sloppy. The pistols can pull off headshots with great ease.
This makes the powers that much more fun to use. Why just shoot a group of thugs when you can shoot the light out, impale one, toss him at his buddy, then tear the rest apart with a black hole, devouring all of their hearts afterwards? That’s right, you can eat the heart of every enemy you kill. Or, rather, your demon arms do it for you. It’s a positively brutal yet strangely funny way to level up your darkness powers. You see, with each heart, you are one step closer to improving your darkness capabilities. Granted, it’s incredibly linear; all you need to do is eat all the hearts you can and the game does the rest. Still, the fact that you can eat hearts is already weird enough, but the fact that it’s incentivized is, again, almost darkly comic.
This dark humor also comes in the forms of Darklings. These are bizarre little creatures that Jackie can summon in certain spots. There are four different types. One is a melee fighter, one shoots a chain gun, one suicide bombs and one is supposed to shoot out lights for you. These creatures are almost infinitely endearing, charming in their design and gleefully sadistic in their intent. They’ll often say some funny things, and do even funnier things. The suicide bomber will charge into a fight with reckless abandon, enjoying the hell out of himself while he does it.
At least, when the AI works properly. Very rarely did I ever find the Darklings did what I wanted. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that the only one that consistently does what it’s supposed to do is the melee fighter. The gunner will often empty his weapon into a wall, the suicide bomber often times just stands in one place, and the light killer will often forget his job, charging into the light and dying. It’s disappointing that the AI is so poor for these minions, because when they actually do work right, it’s a lot of fun and more than a little funny.
There are a few other frustrating parts in the game. Sometimes, the game will require you to send one of the arms into a vent. The controls don’t always register when you want to crawl into the vent, which can lead to some setbacks. Another section has you dodging explosives being thrown at you in a small room. However, it never makes clear exactly what you need to do to survive. I still don’t even know how I got through that sequence. There’s also one point where you must search for a specific area in a level, and if you wander off the path, it automatically teleports you somewhere else. It’s jarring, and more than a little confusing.
These issues shouldn’t stop you from playing what is, overall, a great game. It has a great, intense, and suitably dark story that takes you to many interesting places and holds more than a few surprises. The production values are good overall, especially the sound design, and the gameplay is fun and empowering, if a bit easy. This is all coming from someone who had never heard of the comics before the game- it’s well worth playing for someone looking for a different kind of shooter.