I have been excited for this game since I saw the trailer showing off the story and it
was so well crafted that I knew the game would also be just as well
crafted. The Darkness's story is
amazing you play as a member of the Franchetti crime family who is named
Jackie Estacado. On his 21st birthday he gets powers from the darkness
which include a tentacle that impales enemies to a black hole that
sucks in everything around it enemies or objects. So the plot basically consists of getting revenge on your Uncle Paulie who sends a
hit out on you on your 21st birthday. The story gets better and better
the more you go on. Although the ending battle kinda annoyed me because
you do alot of awesome stuff in cutscenes but you don't actually play
them but they still integrate it in the storyline by explaining why you
can't play it. So anyone should rent the game atleast because of the
story.
The gameplay is pretty good too, it dosen't really beat the story but it
still is fun. You get the regular assortment of weapons in modern day
shooters like pistols and AK-47's and shotguns but the aiming system is pretty good because the crosshair is only a red dot or when your
dual-wielding there is two dots but there is no hud at all so it really immerses you in the
experience. The game uses a rechargeable health system like Call of Duty 2 or Rainbow Six Vegas although the game is still pretty hard even
on normal because it takes quite a while for it to charge it up,
it explains the rechargeable health system because the darkness
protects you from bullets. The darkness powers really make this game
original not exactly innovative since certain things that you do you
can do in other games other than the black hole and demon arm. All
together though the darkness's gameplay isn't the stand out part of the
game it does it's job fine.
The graphics are amazing all of the character models are really detailed
and also the enviroments are but they are pretty small. The
gun models look good but I didn't really like how a pretty long line of
smoke follows your gun after you shoot off a shot. The graphics though
really make the game more immersive and you will spend time
enjoying them because Jackie moves pretty slow. The sound is also really
good, I was suprised at how good it was since the graphics were
so good but all the gun sounds are good and devouring hearts sounds so
brutal. The vocals are also another reason the sound is so good each
person sounds authentic and the lip syncing is also awesome some people
just feel real with their hand motions and such. There also is a guy
who is alot like Jack Nicholson in a area called Grinders Lane.
Now theres also a multiplayer mode that is kinda fun but is really laggy but because of the
variety of 2 completely different play styles since you can change from
human to darkling [which are like little gremlins] in certain game modes it is kinda fun. Which are the same darkling's
from the single player game and they control suprisingly well also they
can climb on walls and jump a good amount of feet. The multiplayer feels really tacked on though but if they could release a update to fix the lag it could be
a little bit more fun and the graphics are also the same in multiplayer as in
singleplayer which is helps it a little bit.
All together though the darkness has one of the best storyline's on 360 and has
pretty good gameplay to boot but the replay value isn't that good. I can't wait for The Darkness 2.
