A 21st birthday worth remembering.
You would assume the script has been taken straight out of Hollywood. It features an engaging storyline, superb voice acting and intense action. It’s known as The Darkness which has been developed by Starbreeze Studios for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. I'm pretty happy with their first next-gen title from this developer. I would recommend anyone looking for a great single player experience to look at adding this one to their collection.
The Darkness sees you playing the role of Jackie Estacado, a hitman from New York celebrating his 21st Birthday. Unfortunately for Jackie it’s a 21st birthday that he wishes he could forget. In the beginning of the game you find yourself waking up to two of your friends in the back seat of a convertible in a not so good situation. You’re soon being chased by police and gunned down after you discover your Uncle Paulie has turned against you after a job goes bad. The story quickly evolves from here and you soon realise you have some new found abilities for your birthday that will help you seek revenge for the mistreatment towards you and other key characters in the game. Without revealing the whole story to you the game ends up on a roller coaster ride that often tests your conscious. This is something games have not been able to do, that is to immerse you into feeling a certain way before something happens in the game.
As for the game it self it goes to show that the first person genre still has new and innovative ideas that can be implemented. The Darkness not only sets itself as a gun wielding first person shooter but utilizing the powers of the Darkness it adds a new gameplay style that is refreshing and rewarding at the same time to gamers. The Darkness itself simply comes in the form of serpent like creatures with a number of moves to their arsenal. Starting from the ground up, literally, you’re given the power of creeping dark. This allows you to take control of one of the serpents and slither your way unexpectedly up to a waiting enemy, crawling through vents, slightly open roller doors and windows to take out a room of enemies or to open doors from the other side to let yourself in to closed doors. As you kill your enemies you then have the option to rip out their hearts allowing you to power up more Darkness features.
Another Darkness ability includes the darkness tentacle. The tentacle comes in handy in the game allowing you to spike lights out, lift heavy objects and quickly kill nearby enemies. It helps you through some puzzles of the game in the latter levels as well having to move some heavy objects to get past certain areas. Unfortunately it can also lead to a reset of the level. I discovered one bug where I lifted a tower bell and then got stuck behind it in a confined space only having to restart from the last checkpoint as there was no way out. The tentacle also doesn’t behave like the guns which tend to feature auto aiming. Instead the tentacle has to be pointed exactly on position of where you want it to be effective wondering if this could have been done a little better to relieve some frustration.
The Darkness guns are the next ability to gain and features a large pulsating shot that can tumble enemies in a nearby radius. The guns could have probably offered a bit more as they felt a bit basic for what could have been something much better. This ability was soon outclassed by the black hole power you receive. The black hole consumes near by enemies with ease and is a powerful weapon towards the end of the game that can take out a large number of enemies quickly enough.
Overall the ability given with the Darkness powers are refreshing to the first person shooter but, it tends to feel like they could have been just a bit more polished. The tentacle arm for example didn’t take full advantage of physics real well and often trying to throw things at enemies was a little less then rewarding. Something I’m sure will be improved on in future Starbreeze games.
The city looks stunning and graphically the Darkness shines in this area. Its then off to a hell-like realm which you soon find yourself in that quickly changes your thoughts on what Starbreeze were thinking? This other world is where you go at a point in the game which reveals a bit more of the Darkness. Unfortunately you find yourself often lost and walking around in circles looking for your destination, it’s an entirely new game in the other realm and it’s one that can be difficult and exasperating at times. Even the zombified enemy soldiers become irritating as you try to figure out your location at times wandering in circles trying to find you way out, compared to New York which is easy to navigate and offers a much different in game experience.
One of the other highlights in the game is the ability to call upon evil minions known as the Darklings. The Darklings can be found at certain spawn points in the game and you may only call upon one type of Darkling from one spawn point. These little creatures offer some good found humour and some spine tingly violence at times too. The Darlkings are here to help and often useful to pass certain points and puzzles in the game, most of the time this works really well. Sadly it’s often that they don’t follow your commands and get stuck in areas or left behind at times which needs improvement once again to be a much more polished game. At times you will also be wondering where they are and often you wonder if they’ve gone ahead and died somewhere. Perhaps a health meter for your minions or some sort of guide would have been a nice addition so that you’re able to quickly raise another from the spawn before running ahead.
Recognition must be made to Starbreeze, besides a few annoyances the game is a masterpiece in terms of execution. The storyline is easy to follow, the games looks stunning, the attention to detail and believable dialogue will also test your conscious at times. The game has been made really well. Do I recommend picking up The Darkness? I think The Darkness is the single player game you’ve been waiting for.
