The Darkness
When the lights go out...
Posted July 7, 2007
Ever since I completed Escape from Butcher Bay, I’ve been waiting for Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios to create another wildly immersive single player experience for us. The Darkness seems to be their answer. The narrative follows the story of Jackie Estacado, a 21-year old member of the local crime family in New York City. For reasons unknown to Jackie, the head of the family, Uncle Paulie, has ordered his death in the early opening of the story. While Jackie tries to protect the people that he loves within his life, he begins to hear a demonic voice emanating from within. The presence, known as the Darkness, gives Jackie supernatural powers beyond his comprehension to assist in the fight against Paulie. 
What happens next is an extremely wild ride that doesn’t let up until the final bullet has been spent. The presentation of The Darkness certainly rivals any major motion picture and vastly more creative than any crime drama of recent memory. One aspect that I absolutely love is the miniature cut-scenes during the loading times between level sections. Each cut scene is basically Jackie standing alone contemplating his decisions and life in general. While the cut-scenes do start to repeat toward the finality of the single player campaign, the fluidity of the narrative greatly benefits from this minor visual trick to keep the player’s full attention on Jackie’s predicament.
Gameplay:
While Butcher Bay was more of a compilation of different genres, The Darkness is a first person shooter for the most part. Jackie has a variety of weaponry available to him, everything from handguns to assault rifles. While the weapon choices aren’t as broad as other FPS titles, the weapons are more effectively used to destroy all the light sources in the area to help his supernatural powers flourish. In fact, I may have used more ammo on light bulbs than I did on actual enemies.
The Darkness abilities are gained slowly, specifically by devouring the hearts of your recent kills. At the outset, the Darkness provides three benefits, a constant bullet shield, and ability to summon darkling creatures, and a snakelike appendage that can traverse tight spaces in addition to ripping out a man’s throat. The darkling creatures come in four flavors, Berserker, Gunner, Lightning, and Kamikaze. These demon-like halflings crawl around on all fours and cause general chaos among your enemies. Berserkers can carry a variety of handheld weapons, usually quite devastating. The Gunner holds a mini chain-gun and fires a 90-degree spread of bullets. The Lightning darkling can blow out any lighting source nearby and unload a monster jolt of electricity into any nosy guards. Finally, the Kamikaze is loaded with a backpack of explosive material and loves to run up to the nearest enemy to give them a loving hug. These creatures come in handy during the final stages of the game when swamped with enemy fire.
As the game progresses, other Darkness powers will begin to emerge. The Demon Arm can skewer a man directly though the abdomen as well as lift large objects out of the path. Stacking boxes and dumpsters has never been easier. The Darkness Guns are two handguns that use dark energy for ammunition. One gun rapid fires in small bursts and the other fires a shockwave of energy that sends the enemy to the ground. The final and most powerful ability gives Jackie a method to controlling dark matter to create mini black holes. This ability can obliterate every enemy in a room in a matter of seconds. It sucks everything in to the floating hole and implodes upon itself in a blinding flash of light.
Remnants of Butcher Bay are present in the variety of side-missions available to Jackie. Other than unlocking achievements, the side missions are really just a diversion from the main story. Thankfully, several of the missions are just as entertaining. I particularly enjoyed helping the harmonica player in the subway station. A local thug was hassling the musician and demanding protection money. Jackie put a stop to that quickly, but got to help out the blues man again when the thug beat him up and stole his harmonica. After Jackie wasted those fools with a lovely black hole, harmonica man plays for me every time I walk by. Heck, I even like to do a little dance while he’s playing. The side missions are varied and can be everything from little mini-games to hired hits. It really adds a role-playing element to the game, which offers another level of immersion to the player.
The mutliplayer modes didn’t receive the same amount of attention as the single player experience and it’s badly apparent. Types of modes include capture the flag, deathmatch, team deathmatch, and survivor. The 8-player matches pit the darkling versus human characters. Darklings are quicker than the humans, but usually need to sneak up close to perform their attacks. Humans have plenty of weaponry to destroy the darklings from afar, but cannot get away in a running match. Rounds over Xbox Live tend to be filled with lag and don’t feel original compared to the bevy of FPS titles for the 360. It’s a poor excuse for entertainment especially when multiplayer friendly games like Gears exist.
The 50 achievements are split 75% / 25% for single player & multiplayer respectively. While many of the single player achievements will be gained though the natural progression of the story, there are several that require a bit of leg work in addition to skill with your weapon of choice. Concerning Darkness mode, leveling up your darkness level, learning new skills, and devouring every heart in sight will rapidly increase your gamerscore total. Also, Starbreeze tossed in a couple insanely tough achievements such as killing every guard in the opening montage or killing 7 people in 15 seconds. The multiplayer achievements are built around match progression and wins. Much like the multiplayer modes, those achievements border on the uncreative side. Overall, Starbreeze set up a solid group of achievements. Gamerscore junkies should be able to rack up about 700 to 750 points in a matter of days.
Graphics:
Visually, the game is just as astounding as Riddick’s adventure in 2004. I could really stare at the facial expressions for days. The character animations are fluid and have a variety of positions dependent on the current environment. The hit detection system in spot-on and lighting detection is painfully accurate. When items are moved, they display the appropriate amount of ragdoll-style physics. The level designs are dark, mysterious, and seem to have distinct qualities within each section. The World War I scenarios are without a doubt some of the creepiest creations I’ve seen in 2007. The framerate is pretty much rock solid and never hampers the game experience. Even the beautiful lighting and explosion effects to little to slow down the pacing of The Darkness.
Audio:
The amount of voice work that goes into a title such as this always amazes me. While the phone call voices can be slightly corny at times, the entire voice cast for the main characters are quite the ensemble. Jackie, Jenny, Paulie, Aunt Jenny, Jimmy the Grape, The Darkness himself and nearly every supporting character on the streets are voiced to perfection. Additionally, the amount of recorded audio is shockingly huge.
The sound effects are definitely on point as well. Each gun has a distinct firing pitch and impact. The Darkness powers are gruesomely enjoyable. Each grotesque stroke of the Demon arm, sneaking slither of the snake’s head, or sucking power of the Black hole is wonderfully representative of the visual on the screen. Also, the city seems alive with the sounds of traffic, screeching subway trains, and distant voices. The musical score takes a back seat to the ambient presence of the city, but still offers up an Italian influenced score filled with soft melodies and hard driving rock. The music crescendos during the main battle scenes and also takes precedence during specific cut-scenes.
Overall:
While the single player story can be pegged as a bit on the short side, The Darkness leaves the player with an absolute sense of fulfillment derivative of the incredibly original experience that’s just occurred. The final scene is a poetic ending to Jackie’s battle against the mob and ultimately the price he pays for using the Darkness.
Due to the massive amount of cursing and grotesque imagery, kids shouldn’t be allowed within 50 feet of this video game. But it’s definitely a must play title for any adult Xbox 360 owner. Heck, it’s even worth picking it up just to watch the entire To Kill a Mockingbird movie while snuggled up on the couch with Jenny.
What happens next is an extremely wild ride that doesn’t let up until the final bullet has been spent. The presentation of The Darkness certainly rivals any major motion picture and vastly more creative than any crime drama of recent memory. One aspect that I absolutely love is the miniature cut-scenes during the loading times between level sections. Each cut scene is basically Jackie standing alone contemplating his decisions and life in general. While the cut-scenes do start to repeat toward the finality of the single player campaign, the fluidity of the narrative greatly benefits from this minor visual trick to keep the player’s full attention on Jackie’s predicament.
Gameplay:
While Butcher Bay was more of a compilation of different genres, The Darkness is a first person shooter for the most part. Jackie has a variety of weaponry available to him, everything from handguns to assault rifles. While the weapon choices aren’t as broad as other FPS titles, the weapons are more effectively used to destroy all the light sources in the area to help his supernatural powers flourish. In fact, I may have used more ammo on light bulbs than I did on actual enemies.
The Darkness abilities are gained slowly, specifically by devouring the hearts of your recent kills. At the outset, the Darkness provides three benefits, a constant bullet shield, and ability to summon darkling creatures, and a snakelike appendage that can traverse tight spaces in addition to ripping out a man’s throat. The darkling creatures come in four flavors, Berserker, Gunner, Lightning, and Kamikaze. These demon-like halflings crawl around on all fours and cause general chaos among your enemies. Berserkers can carry a variety of handheld weapons, usually quite devastating. The Gunner holds a mini chain-gun and fires a 90-degree spread of bullets. The Lightning darkling can blow out any lighting source nearby and unload a monster jolt of electricity into any nosy guards. Finally, the Kamikaze is loaded with a backpack of explosive material and loves to run up to the nearest enemy to give them a loving hug. These creatures come in handy during the final stages of the game when swamped with enemy fire.
As the game progresses, other Darkness powers will begin to emerge. The Demon Arm can skewer a man directly though the abdomen as well as lift large objects out of the path. Stacking boxes and dumpsters has never been easier. The Darkness Guns are two handguns that use dark energy for ammunition. One gun rapid fires in small bursts and the other fires a shockwave of energy that sends the enemy to the ground. The final and most powerful ability gives Jackie a method to controlling dark matter to create mini black holes. This ability can obliterate every enemy in a room in a matter of seconds. It sucks everything in to the floating hole and implodes upon itself in a blinding flash of light.
Remnants of Butcher Bay are present in the variety of side-missions available to Jackie. Other than unlocking achievements, the side missions are really just a diversion from the main story. Thankfully, several of the missions are just as entertaining. I particularly enjoyed helping the harmonica player in the subway station. A local thug was hassling the musician and demanding protection money. Jackie put a stop to that quickly, but got to help out the blues man again when the thug beat him up and stole his harmonica. After Jackie wasted those fools with a lovely black hole, harmonica man plays for me every time I walk by. Heck, I even like to do a little dance while he’s playing. The side missions are varied and can be everything from little mini-games to hired hits. It really adds a role-playing element to the game, which offers another level of immersion to the player.
The mutliplayer modes didn’t receive the same amount of attention as the single player experience and it’s badly apparent. Types of modes include capture the flag, deathmatch, team deathmatch, and survivor. The 8-player matches pit the darkling versus human characters. Darklings are quicker than the humans, but usually need to sneak up close to perform their attacks. Humans have plenty of weaponry to destroy the darklings from afar, but cannot get away in a running match. Rounds over Xbox Live tend to be filled with lag and don’t feel original compared to the bevy of FPS titles for the 360. It’s a poor excuse for entertainment especially when multiplayer friendly games like Gears exist.
The 50 achievements are split 75% / 25% for single player & multiplayer respectively. While many of the single player achievements will be gained though the natural progression of the story, there are several that require a bit of leg work in addition to skill with your weapon of choice. Concerning Darkness mode, leveling up your darkness level, learning new skills, and devouring every heart in sight will rapidly increase your gamerscore total. Also, Starbreeze tossed in a couple insanely tough achievements such as killing every guard in the opening montage or killing 7 people in 15 seconds. The multiplayer achievements are built around match progression and wins. Much like the multiplayer modes, those achievements border on the uncreative side. Overall, Starbreeze set up a solid group of achievements. Gamerscore junkies should be able to rack up about 700 to 750 points in a matter of days.
Graphics:
Visually, the game is just as astounding as Riddick’s adventure in 2004. I could really stare at the facial expressions for days. The character animations are fluid and have a variety of positions dependent on the current environment. The hit detection system in spot-on and lighting detection is painfully accurate. When items are moved, they display the appropriate amount of ragdoll-style physics. The level designs are dark, mysterious, and seem to have distinct qualities within each section. The World War I scenarios are without a doubt some of the creepiest creations I’ve seen in 2007. The framerate is pretty much rock solid and never hampers the game experience. Even the beautiful lighting and explosion effects to little to slow down the pacing of The Darkness.
Audio:
The amount of voice work that goes into a title such as this always amazes me. While the phone call voices can be slightly corny at times, the entire voice cast for the main characters are quite the ensemble. Jackie, Jenny, Paulie, Aunt Jenny, Jimmy the Grape, The Darkness himself and nearly every supporting character on the streets are voiced to perfection. Additionally, the amount of recorded audio is shockingly huge.
The sound effects are definitely on point as well. Each gun has a distinct firing pitch and impact. The Darkness powers are gruesomely enjoyable. Each grotesque stroke of the Demon arm, sneaking slither of the snake’s head, or sucking power of the Black hole is wonderfully representative of the visual on the screen. Also, the city seems alive with the sounds of traffic, screeching subway trains, and distant voices. The musical score takes a back seat to the ambient presence of the city, but still offers up an Italian influenced score filled with soft melodies and hard driving rock. The music crescendos during the main battle scenes and also takes precedence during specific cut-scenes.
Overall:
While the single player story can be pegged as a bit on the short side, The Darkness leaves the player with an absolute sense of fulfillment derivative of the incredibly original experience that’s just occurred. The final scene is a poetic ending to Jackie’s battle against the mob and ultimately the price he pays for using the Darkness.
Due to the massive amount of cursing and grotesque imagery, kids shouldn’t be allowed within 50 feet of this video game. But it’s definitely a must play title for any adult Xbox 360 owner. Heck, it’s even worth picking it up just to watch the entire To Kill a Mockingbird movie while snuggled up on the couch with Jenny.