The Darkness Gamer Review
Top Cow's Cursed Anti-Hero Works Best Alone, and so does His Game
2K's newest game is an excellent FPS for the solo gamer delivering an excellent story and gameplay, but falls tragically short in its online presentation.
Single-Player Rating: 87 out of 100
Multi -Player Rating: 60 out of 100
Comic book-inspired video games have been around almost as long as video games themselves. In the past, comic-based video games tended to be poorly made and while there were some early exceptions, such as Super Nintendo’s Batman Returns, the vast majority of comic games were terrible. To be fair, the early consoles lacked the technology needed to make a video game feel like a comic. Recently this trend has reversed. The sudden rise in comic book game quality is largely due to the success of comic-inspired movies. Top Cow’s The Darkness is just one more game that has benefited from the increases in comic-game development budgets.
At its most basic level, The Darkness is a first-person shooter with supernatural elements. All the standard elements of that genre are present, but The Darkness has a number of innovative additions that make the game stand out from the norm. The hero, a mob hitman named Jackie, is celebrating his 21st birthday by performing a contract hit for his “uncle” Paulie. As Jackie and his mob friends make their way to their destination, betrayal strikes and we delve into a story full of legacies, loyalties, and tragedy. Jackie’s girlfriend, a girl from the same orphanage, Jenn is a calming and innocent light in our assassins life, and she serves to keep The Darkness at bay.
The game’s single-player mode is fantastic. Gorgeous graphics, eerie music, and ominous and looming environments combine to immerse you in Jackie’s world. The standard arrays of weapons we expect to find in a modern-day first-person shooter are present, and, sadly, they are woefully underpowered once you begin gaining control over The Darkness. After manifesting The Darkness, Jackie quickly discovers that his powers wane in the light. In order for The Darkness to retain its power, it must be kept away from the light. Shooting out the many sources of light throughout the game is a major part of the game, although it does tend to get tedious at times. The menacing voice of the Darkness sometimes speaks to Jackie from inside of him, offering “words of wisdom”, and sometimes almost prophetic warnings.
The Darkness inside of Jackie grants him strength, protection, and the power to control darkness for a number of effects. Jackie is able to use The Darkness to create black holes which suck nearby object in, an arm of darkness that can pick objects up to throw or impale opponents, and even create Darkness guns. The Darkness also grants the ability to create something called darklings. There are four types of darklings that you gain throughout the game, and each of these types has their own advantages and disadvantages. The most basic darkling is the berserker darkling, which attacks enemies with claws and can also be used to open some hard-to-reach places. Another darkling is the gunner darkling, which sets up a stationary point at a place you designate and begins firing its mini-gun.
While the single player story mode is outstanding in nearly every way, The Darkness fails miserably in its multi-player presentation. The online games are very small compared to other first-person shooters, but the worst part if the loss of most of your Darkness abilities. When playing online most of the Darkness abilities are restricted, and you can’t even summon your darklings. Instead, a player gains the ability to turn into a version of a darkling similar to a berserker. It’s disappointing because the entire single-player game teaches you to utilize your abilities, remain in shadows, and manage your darklings, but as soon as you enter an online match all those skills become meaningless. This severely limits the game’s replay value as it almost seems pointless to try to master the Darkness skills since they can’t be used online.
Overall, 2K’s The Darkness is an excellent example of how far comic-inspired games have come. The game has an excellent single-player mode, with an engrossing story, interesting characters, and an anti-hero you grow to love. The multi-player aspects of the game are lacking however, and in a first-person shooter, multi-player is what most people want today. It is the weak online play that keeps The Darkness from being one of the greats.
