The darkness – we were afraid of it as children, we gave ourselves nightlights to rid our rooms of it. We feared the noises that came from areas we could not distinguish. No matter what we did, we thought something may actually be there and what you cannot see makes it all the more terrifying. Welcome to The Darkness where developer Starbreeze demands you to embrace it, and after playing, embrace you will.
Based on the comic book by Marc Silvestri, The Darkness is a first person shooter where violence is in abundance and revenge is your motivation. You are, Jackie Escatado, a New York mafia hitman whose life bursts into flames on his 21st birthday. Uncle Paulie, the boss of the Franchetti crime family, as a birthday gift wants Jackie “sleeping with the fishes” and also is threatening to harm Jackie’s beloved girlfriend, Jenny. It doesn’t stop there. Not only does Jackie gain an enemy on his 21st birthday, but he inherits The Darkness, a demonic creature that feeds on shadows and the hearts of men. It possesses Jackie and provides him with some rather handy and unique abilities. The story that ensues is fantastic. I won’t delve much more into the story, so that this review stays spoiler-free, but it can be said that The Darkness has one of the more engrossing stories in recent memory.
The Darkness has many characters but out of all of them the one that shines through the most is light. It’s a character in this game itself, as it is in the Splinter Cell series (Double Agent doesn’t count). When blasting through the levels you will find light sources everywhere and leaving them in working order is about a good idea as bringing a knife to a gunfight. When standing under the light, you will hear a sizzle as if the Darkness if being fried for dinner. So obviously, if the Darkness feeds off the dark then you might come to a logical conclusion that maybe light isn’t its best friend. In other words, the light is hurtful and if you want to use any of your darkness abilities or rather actually survive in the game, you will want to break every light source you see.
Speaking of The Darkness abilities, the first of which you will receive is the Creeping Dark ability. Initiating this will enable you to get through small areas Jackie cannot; such as ventilation ducts, partially opened windows, etc. Creeping Dark also will enable you slither up walls and to the top of ceilings and bite out a light bulb or better yet slither up behind and unsuspecting enemy and get the good ol’ stealth kill (i.e. biting his face and thus giving him a closed casket funeral). Now when standing over a corpse you can, yes you can, devour the corpse’s heart. Doing so will make you stronger and in time, level up your darkness abilities. Let’s get the story straight, this isn’t the old 16-bit Mortal Kombat ‘tear-out-the-heart’ look; no this is way beyond that. The Darkness will dive straight into the corpse’s chest, pull it out with its mouth like it was bobbing for hearts, and promptly chew away with pleasure. It is a very gratifying moment, especially if it was done to an enemy who was pissing you off.
As the game progresses, you will receive more craziness, such as the Demon Arm, the Darkness Guns, and the Black Hole ability. The Demon Arm puts the physics engine to work by enabling you use one of your tentacles to impale objects and toss them at will (this includes humans) and also to bust out light sources. The Darkness Guns are really not that exciting. Their design isn’t that appealing, they deplete a lot of your Darkness Energy and as weapons they aren’t as efficient as you’d like them to be. It’s the one power you will most likely skip using. Continuing, the Black Hole ability is ridiculously dope (yeah I said it). Like you’d expect, it sucks in anything near it then when done, sends everything flying outward in a glorious display of death. Now, the size of the hole is determined by how much Darkness Energy you have, but using this power also depletes a lot if not all of your Darkness Energy. Anyways, these abilities really are what set The Darkness apart from other console shooters. The problem however is that these abilities can render regular weapons obsolete. Your dual pistols, shotguns, AK-47s, and so forth all great to use, but the Darkness Powers are tastier. You can be smart though and combine them! Nothing better than impaling some wretched soul, tossing him 30 feet into the air, then shooting him as he falls back down to earth. Me 1, Enemy 0.
