The original Darkness video game was a surprisingly great game; it featured slightly nonlinear exploration, a great cast of characters and good story, as well as some fun and unique gameplay, thanks to the powers given to the game’s protagonist, Jackie Estacado. The game’s sequel continues the tradition of good storylines and intense action, but almost shifts genres entirely. Whether or not this is a good thing is entirely up to the player.
The game’s opening gives a good idea of what the rest of the game will be like. Jackie, now the head of the crime family he belonged to in the first game, meets up with some of his Mafioso pals at a restaurant. As he chats it up with some rather full figured twins, the sh!t really hits the fan. The twins are both killed as a van plows through the wall right where Jackie’s sitting. Things aren’t looking good; his leg is all but useless, and his men are being overwhelmed by the mysterious attackers. While he’s being dragged away from the scene in the first shooting sequence, he realizes what he has to do; reawaken The Darkness, the demon that has cursed his bloodline for generations and has been lying dormant within him for the few years since the first game.
The story is much more “comic book-y” than in the first game. In the original, despite the heavily fantastical powers Jackie was given, as well as the weird otherworldly settings he was periodically transported to, the story felt fairly grounded. In this one, there’s ancient artifacts, a mysterious counter power to the Darkness, and other things that feel straight from a comic. Despite that, the story works, and this is in part due to the quieter moments. Jackie will frequently hallucinate about his dead girlfriend, Jenny, the last ray of hope in his otherwise condemned life. These are a lot more impactful than they should be thanks to the voice acting and mood setting music.
The production values, just like the original, are all around top notch. The voice acting is strong and well done, the sound effects are great, and the graphics look great (although the developers opted for a heavily cel shaded look as opposed to the more “real” look of the first). Another factor that was brough over is the gore. The first game was quite violent and merciless, but this game kicks the buckets of blood up about ten notches. Rather than having four distinct powers, each arm does a different thing; the left arm can grab and toss things in the environment or enemies, and the right arm can be used for melee attacks. Frequently, enemies will be in a weakened state, and you can grab them and execute them in… Well, some pretty horrific ways. Expect to see guys have their chest impaled, heads ripped off, torsos split up the middle, and maybe their spines yanked out through a certain orifice.
Even though the powers of the original are more or less gone, that doesn’t mean Jackie has a lack of powers. In this game, you gain experience points that can be used to upgrade skill trees, giving Jackie abilities like shooting a swarm of bugs to stun enemies, or significantly upgrading your gun’s attack power for a brief period of time. The skill trees aren’t huge or expansive, but being given the choice of how to play is always a nice bonus. You won’t have all the upgrades by the end of your first playthrough, either, so completionists have a reason to return to the game once the credits roll.
However, another good reason to return to the game is to simply play around with the combat more and more. The game allows you to “quad wield”, meaning you can hold two guns, one in either of Jackie’s human hands, and also use the two demon arms to wreak havoc. Using everything you have at your disposal does take a bit of getting used to, but once you do, you’ll be slaughtering, maiming, and butchering bad guys left and right. There’s a simple, visceral thrill in slamming one guy to the ground, shooting his buddy to stun him, picking the guy up, tossing him across the room into another guy, then executing the first enemy on the ground. Plus, environments usually give you plenty of things to toss and use as makeshift weapons. Pool cues, explosive barrels, car doors and more can all be used in combat, and, simply put, it’s thrilling.
While the combat, story, and production values are all stellar, the level design leaves a bit to be desired. Each level is almost always, essentially, a corridor to run down and gun some dudes down. In the rare instances it does open up, it’s only marginally so. The only bonus collectibles are relics that reward experience and explain some of the mythology behind the story. They’re quite neat, but the lack of side quests like the first game is rather disappointing. Additionally, the game sometimes throws a boss at you. With the exception of the first, they all feel artificially extended and not very fun. Plus, most of them are just humans; it makes me wonder why Jackie can’t just pick them up and rip them in half.
There are some issues with enemy design, too. After a certain point in the game, enemies start mixing things up with their variety. Most are fun to fight, like guys with giant shields, or the basic grunts, but there are two varieties that are more frustrating than anything. One carries a giant flashlight and shines it at Jackie to eliminate his Darkness powers. That’s not the part about them that bugs me. It’s that a really intense and blurry white filter crawls over the screen every time you step into a bright light. It’s incredibly easy to be in combat, kicking ass, only to have a flashlight guy come in and completely blind you, leaving you wide open for attack. I still haven’t found a way to effectively beat them aside from popping out of cover and randomly firing bullets, hoping to kill either them or their light. The other annoying variety uses a whip to grab your weapon right out of your hands. You can always hold three (two small arms and one two handed weapon like a shotgun) so you can quickly switch to another one, but these guys, combined with the flashlight guys (and they are in the same room more than I’d like) are just downright frustrating.
Still, these issues are overshadowed by the fact that the game is a bloody good time. Even though it’s incredibly linear (unlike the first game) it still manages to stand out from the other hundreds of FPS’s on the market thanks to its grim, macabre story, its cool cel shaded graphics and quality voice acting, ridiculously bloody, empowering and brutal action and sense of improvement (thanks to the skill trees). People who were hoping for another relatively slow paced adventure FPS may be disappointed by the transition to almost pure action game, but the game is good enough on its own to forgive its sometimes annoying enemies and disappointing linearity.