Review: The Darkness II

Some of you may be thinking: "What is The Darkness?" For our standards it's the name of a video game series available for the PC, Xbox 360 and the PS3 based on a comic book I've never read nor heard of before I picked up The Darkness II from Redbox. 

I never played the first game, mostly because I had heard almost nothing positive about it. 

The game is rated "Mature," although I wish they'd change it to Adult. There's nothing mature about ripping somebody's limbs off in a sea of F-bombs. 

The Plot Darkens

Fortunately for me, there's an option to have a quick synopsis of the first game sputtered at you from a guy called Johnny Powell, whose suffering from a severe case of the jitters. Johnny explains that the Darkness existed as an evil entity before the creation of the Universe. This is presumably an interpretation of the verse from Genesis which says that God's voice came out from the darkness and said "Let there be light".

According to Johnny, the Darkness wasn't very happy about God creating a universe without talking to it first, so it decided to get back at Him by attacking his creations with suffering whenever it got the chance by infecting one person of power and influence at a time and using him as a vessel with which to spread said misery. At present, it happens to be dwelling in one Jackie Estcado, a mafia hit man who has apparently become the boss since the events of the last game.

It seems Jackie became infected with the darkness at some point in the last game and has since decided to bury it inside himself and promising never to let it out again. But of course he does, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a game here. 

One day Jackie is at a restaurant when he's battered to within an inch of his life. He's unable to hold the Darkness back and lets it loose in a flurry of blood and gore that would put the Doom series to shame.

The Darkness manifests itself as two giant black snakes jutting out of  Jackie's shoulder blades. These snakes can be used by Jackie for melee attacks as well as picking up various objects which litter the ground and hurling them at opponents. They can also be used to grab the opponents themselves and perform a brutal execution.

Jackie then embarks on a journey to track down his attackers and figure out what they want. On the way he will be forces to face his inner demons and square off several times with raging insanity as the Darkness attempts to exert full control over him.

Gameplay

 Don't get me wrong, I like all the sexy violence of gaming as much as the next guy, but there's a certain point where it starts to get ridiculous. Tearing out a live enemy's still-beating heart through his splintered rib cage and agonizing screams for mercy so that you can eat it would fall roughly in that area.  

The camera sits comfortably nestled in the protagonist's skull as you run around shooting multitudes of corridor-filling thugs and hide behind three-foot walls waiting for health to regenerate. 

It has the same sort of things that just about all First Person Shooter's have these days: Iron Sight aim, some form of flash bang grenades, regenerating health and the screen turns a viscous red when you're on the verge of death.

Throughout the game you'll gain "essence" for each kill you make (they're just xp), and the gorier the kill, the more you get. You spend these at an upgrade terminal to gain powerful abilities for Jackie. There are several to go through, from simple gun upgrades to the ability to cast groups of enemies into the darkest reaches of oblivion. 

Only two complaints this time. The first comes from the fact that the Darkness cannot be used where there is bright light. That makes sense, but the problem comes from the fact that it's sometimes hard to tell what the game considers to be "bright light" when you've got twenty-plus horribly accented goons ramming a flurry of bullets up your snakes. 

I would often get into a frantic situation and end up stumbling into some light, at which point the snakes retreat into Jackie's back and the whole screen flashes white, making it difficult to see.

Also, the enemies also know that your snakes don't work in the light, so they often flash bright lights in your face, effectively sapping you of your powers and blinding you. You can shoot them out, but trust me, it starts to get irritating when you spend about half your play time squinting to see what's going on while you get wailed on by thugs. 

My other complaint is sort of an extension of the first. It's that the boss fights get a little absurd. You'll have to take down the boss's nearly indestructible BS armor while at the same time holding off thugs and trying to keep from going blind.  It all gets very frantic and in my case resulted in many deaths before victory could be mine. Part of this might be because I played it on hard, though, so maybe on normal it's not so bad. 

Multiplayer

It's called "Vendettas."  It's a four player co-op campaign seperate from the actual storyline. This one bases itself in dark humor rather than action-horror from what I can tell. I didn't have time for it, so you'll have to check somewhere else to see if it's any good. My guess: meh.

Overall

You know, it was actually pretty fun. I didn't quite make it to the end, but I assume was getting pretty close because I had long since hit the big plot twist and everyone was ranting about ending things once and for all. 

I have to say, shoulder snakes make for the fun times. So remember that, "Call of Duty" and "Halo": more arbitrary guns that do the same thing as the old ones is lame and shoulder snakes are cool. 

Investment suggestion: Rent this game. I got pretty close to the end in just a few days, and with no multiplayer. I can't see the thought of playing it through on a harder difficulty making it worth $60.

The above is only my opinion.  It just happens to be right.