Suprisingly good game, Much better than i thought it was going to be
I chose the darkness because im a fan of dark creepy games/films and im rather partial to a bit of gore. So with what little i knew about this game i thought it may just entertain me for the weekend.
After firing the game up i was initially pleased to see that the graphics are very nice and the overall production of the game is very pleasing and complete.
Im sure you know that in this game you play as 'Jackie' a man who works for the mob as a ruthless killer.
Its your 21st birthday and all is going well until while on a hit job, for your uncle paulie, you discover a tv playing a taped message from your uncle. He's obviously taken a disliking to you for one reason or another and tells you to look in the nearby closet for you birthday present.
On doing so you discover a bomb that is about to go off, as you run away it goes off blasting you out of a window and you just about survive.
You decide to take vengance on your uncle and it just so happens that at this point your suddenly possessed by some kind of demon. You now have two large tenticles spawning from you shoulders that bare razor sharp teeth and have a craving for fresh hearts that you can rip directly from the chest of your fallen foes with great satisfaction,. It should be noted that you can at anytime decide to switch to a normal human appearance which is good as people tend to be a little freaked out by your demonic appearance. Switching back to demon form is just as easy as long as your in the shadows (the inner demon doesn like the light) but this isn't a problem as you can smash, shoot or simply switch off virtually all the lights in game
The game is set in new york city and you are pretty much free to roam as you please, you can even use the subway and hop on a train back and forth between the 2 main areas you'll be visiting.
You can talk with pretty much all the NPC's wandering around although most of them will just say 'hey, whats up' or something similar but some will offer you a side mission to carry out if you wish and others may offer advice or give a clue about a mission you are currently on.
The missions you get are all pretty much in the same vain. Go here kills these people find out some information then return. Your demonic powers make killing people satifying and actually a little too easy but for me i didn't mind as i enjoy being a double hard b'stard!!!
This game is great for sucking you in and making you feel that you are actually ''Jackie" i love the way that people react to your appearance. For instance you may enter a room full of goons trying to take you out. On seeing you they might cry out 'there he is, kill him' then you decide to let your inner demon surface and the formentioned tenticles will sprout from your body and your eyes will glow. When the goons see this they will react by saying something along the lines of 'Holy sh*t did you see that? what is that thing' this will be their last words as you start shooting your way through them and you may feel like skewering one of them on the end of your tenticles and swing them around for a bit before throwing him to the ground. Or you may use your special powers such as opening a black hole which causes anything or anyone nearby to be swirled around in the air as if stuck in a tornedo.
I've nearly completed the game and have thoroughly enjoyed the story so far. Some parts are shocking and unexpected. Others are grusome and there's one part which i found very disturbing and i nearly had to look away from the screen. This is the first time any game has caused me to do this, i was even screaming at the screen 'NO NO NO dont dont dont!!!' I'm sure if you play this then you'll know what part i mean. If you've seen the film hostel then this is something that could have been in it (maybe its in hostel 2 which i haven't seen). The game has many hidden extras many of which can be unlocked by finding phone numbers which you can actually dial on the ingame phones. You will hear a mildy amusing answerphone message followed by a onscreen confirming you've unlocked an extra found in the main menu.
Another little easter egg this game features are televisions, you can go upto a tv and change channel and sit and watch to your hearts content. There's a couple of full length feature films, a couple of music channels and a couple of cartoon channels so i reckon there's at least 4 hours of real tv to watch if you so wish.
Wow i didn't mean this review to go on for this long so im gonna cut it short here. Basically its a great game with good acting through out, and a special congrats goes to the voice acting of your inner demon. Its a great deep dark croaky voice that really adds to the dark feel of the game.
This game rocks!!! Buy it!!!