Based on the popular comic book
series, The Darkness presents players with a brilliantly realized world to
explore. On the surface, the game probably reminds you of a standard FPS,
but its use of tentacles called darkies, its gothic atmosphere, and
engrossing plot make it stand out from other games in its genre. The
Darkness' presentation is beautiful with elaborate cut-scenes, fantastic
voice acting and outstanding environments and special effects. There's
definitely a lot to love about this game so read on and find out why a
trip through the Darkness makes for one of the most innovative titles
released so far this year.
Set in a bleak underworld of violence
and destruction, 2K Games' The Darkness for the Playstation 3 creates an
intense and original experience that offers some unique gameplay mechanics
to keep players interested throughout. For those unfamiliar with the comic
series, here's a brief look at the plot. In the Darkness, you are a low
level mafia hitman named Jackie Estacado who's based in New York City. On
your 21st birthday, you find yourself in a bad position after a drug deal
has gone sour and the members of your crime family are after you. You are
surrounded and have become a prime target when out of the blue, you are
suddenly possessed by an evil force known as the Darkness and its voices
that haunts you throughout the game. This manifests itself as a series of
living, breathing tentacles that emerge from your body that give you
supernatural abilities to help you defeat your enemies. These tentacles
can be used to attack foes, explore the levels and can reach places you
can't otherwise find on foot which adds an interesting layer of strategy
to certain areas of the game. This definitely adds a layer of strategy to
the gameplay that other FPS titles lack.
For
example, you may need to kill an enemy that's hiding behind a gate, but
can't reach the other side. You can use your Darkness powers to release
the tentacles and go through the air vents and attack them from behind,
unlocking the gate and dispatching a potential foe. However, you have to
perform these tasks relatively quickly since they have limited power and
will retract back inside Jackie after a short period. The time they spend
here can also be shortened by the presence of the light, so you have to
stay out of the brighter sections, which means you have to measure the
time you spend in these sections carefully. They are very much products of
the night, and will gain energy when you are in the dark but will quickly
lose their powers the longer you stay in the light areas. You can help to
keep things dark by shooting out lights and lamps you see in each level,
which increases their strength, too. This gameplay mechanic definitely
helps the Darkness stand out from other FPS titles, and its implementation
is fairly integral to the standard gameplay. You'll need these dark powers
to get through the game since guns alone won't be enough to dispatch all
the enemies you'll encounter during the game.
While it might seem like their presence
makes things needlessly complex, the good news is that controlling these
tentacles is fairly easy. The game's basic controls should be fairly
natural for any players used to FPS titles, which makes targeting and
shooting fairly easy. In order to call up your Darkness abilities, you
simply press the square button to make them emerge from your body and the
R1 to make them leap off you are crawl around the areas. This allows you
to attack enemies from behind corners and at a safe distance. You can
attack them and use their powers to throw them and other various objects
around the levels as well. When you have killed one of Jackie's enemies,
you can then eat their hearts to increase your strength. In addition to
these tentacles, you can call on Berserkers, who are dark demons, which
can go through a level and attack foes. You can control them by pointing
where you want them to go and they'll automatically attack anyone standing
nearby.
This remote attack system adds yet
another cool dimension to the Darkness, allowing you to perform remote
attacks with little risk to your own health. When your character takes too
much damage, you won't have to return to the beginning of the level, and
are instead returned to the latest checkpoint. Since these occur
frequently during the game, you won't have to spend a lot of time
backtracking. This means you can progress through the Darkness fairly
quickly, though there are some areas in the game that present more of a
challenge than others. The game's levels are fairly long, and there are
plenty of interesting plot points and side missions along the way, though
the Darkness never feels overly difficult. While many games of this genre
tend to over-emphasize shooting, there's plenty of plot and story here for
you to enjoy, which unfold in a series of interesting cinematic cut-scenes
between levels. Since these are integrated into the main game seamlessly
and overlap load screens. This approach makes for a much more cinematic
and interesting title that allows you to fully immerse yourself into the
story. However, the majority of the time you spend is in-game action.
While many of the earlier levels have fairly easy opposition, the later
levels offer more in the way of challenge with more and increasingly
aggressive enemies.
Helping
to involve you are the game's robust and beautiful visuals which are
fantastically rendered throughout. From an aesthetic standpoint, the
game's gothic environments and creature design are excellent and help to
make this dark and engaging world come to life. The environments are
fantastically realistic and help to bring the world of New York City to
life. Its level designs mirror what you'd expect from the real world.
Every thing from subways to apartments and abandoned warehouse has been
designed in a way that feels authentic. Each of these large environments
are richly detailed with light sourcing, shadows and light to create a
believable and coherent world that helps to suspend your disbelief. The
Darkness' graphics engine is also impressive in the level of detail and
texture mapping on every object which helps to further cement your feeling
of going through an actual world. The character and enemy animations are
excellent as well and everything in the game feels like it should. The
graphics engine performs admirably on the PS3 with a consistent and smooth
frame rate throughout that makes for a fast-moving, smooth FPS experience.
As mentioned earlier, the cut scenes are quite elaborate but the voice
acting here is a cut above what you'd expect from most games and really
helps to bring the characters to life. Overall, the game's slick
production values and cinematic presentation make The Darkness one of the
most polished and impressive looking next-generation shooters to date.
While many games have aspired to create
a cinematic, immersive experience, The Darkness comes fairly close to this
ideal in a number of ways. It's engaging storyline is filled with
memorable characters with emotions and motivations the player can relate
to. Instead of being a cardboard character you can't really identify with,
Jackie is someone you can see existing in real life. This is obviously, a
dark and violent game but the gore doesn't seem excessive within its
context and never feels cheap like it's only there for shock value. The
Darkness' plot and storyline are well-written which helps to make things
fairly interesting, with above average dialogue and decent voice acting.
All this production polish would mean nothing if the game wasn't
enjoyable, but the Darkness plays smoothly. The game is challenging and
entertaining and the disc includes some really cool special abilities that
makes this FPS stand apart from the pack. Add in some nice bonus features,
such as the ability to scan the original comics and you have a fairly
interesting package. The Darkness is a very impressive title from a number
of standpoints and is definitely one of the more adult-oriented games on
the market.
Grade:
B+
