[Review] The Darkness II

Genre: Action/FPS

So I bought The Darkness II from the Steam sale going on for Christmas(2013), and I found it’s a really good, well made game with a very driven story. I really liked the graphic style too, it was a fresh change of pace in storyline and visual graphics from the usual shoot-em up FPS. The Darkness aspect of the game also played really well into how the game worked and I highly enjoyed it. Just a snippet of my personal thoughts I suppose. I will say though the gunplay and tentacle play in the game is great. (If you haven’t seen the game before, you’ll see what I mean by tentacles although it’s a very widespread game at this point.) The main character of the game is Jackie Estacado, apparently a self-made mafia lord from the looks of his crew and where he lives. I was looking to play The Darkness but I couldn’t find it anywhere to purchase so I just up and played Darkness II. The game does a very good job explaining just what has happened up to this game so far, while you’re playing II. Throughout the game the Darkness attempts to take hold of Jackie, and as you get farther and farther through the game he hallucinates and keeps seeing his old girlfriend Jenny. This leads to a wide contrast of feelings for the player throughout the game and it keeps you on your toes, another great aspect of the game. I felt like the ending was also pretty good, if open-ended. General Information (Company, games they’ve made, etc) Gameplay Story Graphics and Sound Controls Overall Rating of Game and Conclusion)

General Information

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So the company that made this game is Digital Extremes, here’s their wikipedia link: Digital Extremes . They have made games such as:

• Bioshock (2008)
• Bioshock 2 Multiplayer (2010)
• Homefront (2011)
• Star Trek (2012)
• Warframe (2013)

They reside their offices in Canada and have won numerous awards for Canada’s Top Employer for 2010, 2011, and 2012. They have been awarded other things also from various areas of the world. Digital Extremes basically got started from one guy: James Schmalz. He created an Ultima clone called Sorcery on an Apple IIe computer, and the rest is history. The company has done a lot of co-development on Epic Games’ Unreal franchise. They seem to mostly work within the Unreal Engine, which is a pretty decent engine and keeps progressing every year.

Gameplay

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The gameplay aspect of Darkness II was definitely 9/10. I did have some bugs with movement here and there, especially with controlling the little imp guy at some portions of the game. One near the end of the game dear god, it took me 10 minutes to get out of the little vent he was in to go save Jackie.   The gunplay in the game is amazing. I’m a big fan of dual wield, so when I saw I could do that… I pretty much did that the whole game. There’s a variety of weapons to wield also which is nice, especially for dual wielding. Most games usually have pistols, so Darkness II really tossed up the mix there.

The tentacles as you can see in the picture there, are basically extensions of the Darkness inside Jackie. The Darkness is a living entity, as is the Light as you find out at the end of this game.   The photo above is from one of the parts I mentioned before where you play as his little imp buddy. His imp buddy tends to call Jackie ‘monkey’ and I’m not sure why? Not really going to be assed to read up on the lore of this game when it’s basically explained to you in the game but I think it’s just a demon thing. It’s humorous. Anyway these sections of the game are riddled with areas where you have to continually jump in place and move around a bunch and press W at the same time to move forward, I.E. bugs. It took me quite awhile to get through this vent part here. I ended up watching a gameplay video of another part I was stuck at when I had control of this guy because I literally could not get out of the hole I was stuck in and I needed to go see how to do it. And it seems on consoles it works just fine… so for this part of the game it does definitely feel like a shitty console port, I can say that. But for the rest of the game, it’s fantastic.

The tentacle/Darkness part of the gameplay is actually a TINY bit clunky however. I got the vibe the devs wanted the tentacles to be a smooth part of the game and it’s really not, at least on PC. Instead of clicking your mouse keys for them which are your guns, left mouse and right mouse, you have to hit a key on your keyboard to swipe/grab/rip with your tentacles and it does feel indeed somewhat clunky. However again I get the feeling this was designed with consoles in mind so it’s definitely not bad for a console port. Having the tentacles be a stun on enemies is fantastic though. Also lights suck in this game. Obviously because ‘darkness’ hates light, so that’s another gameplay mechanic in that you have to hit lights/shoot lights out to be able to use your tentacles. And I suppose I can just toss in enemy variety in here too. You start off just killing mobsters that are attacking your… ‘side’ I suppose, and you end up killing these high-tech humans wearing some sort of ‘darkness armor’ that you have to break off of them by either hitting them with your tentacles or shooting them, and in turn kill them as if they were normal humans. There are some other enemy types too in the end of the game but they’re not really worth mentioning, but they are… well made in terms of visuals, and the weapons you can pick up at the end also are pretty good in terms of visuals but it’s your standard carbine/assault rifle/pistols pretty much.

Oh I’ll go over the NPC’s real quick. So generally you have Jenny, Aunt Sarah (Jackie’s aunt who is awesome), Johnny (Some guy from the last game who informed Jackie how to control the Darkness or something like that), and generally all of your mob members you come into contact with. They all each have individual voice actors and personalities. But one thing is for sure is that everyone’s rooting for Jackie the whole time throughout the game, you really feel that driving force behind the character as you move through the game.

Also you do have a talent tree for your Darkness powers.It’s pretty extensive and at the end of the game after the credits you do have a New Game+ option for you to fill out that talent tree! Definitely something I would do and also with the talent tree it really adds new ways to play… I.E. rip people apart, blah blah blah. Score: 9.5/10.

Story

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The story of the game is a real memorable one. I’ve touched on it above in the gameplay mechanics a little bit but here’s the general synopsis: You start out going into a fancy restaurant. Jackie is seated at a table with two lovely women. The Darkness is pretty much nowhere to be seen for quite awhile. Gunfire pops the windows and kills one of the women, other woman screams and gets hit by a van rammed through the building, Jackie goes flying. You wake up, place is on fire, one of your buddies is dragging you out. You get dragged out through the kitchen and the gas is leaking in it. Someone tosses a match in and the gas combusts, blowing out the wall. There’s a guy there talking to you and then he disappears. You get up and go outside, and then the Darkness manifests itself and you start cutting up guys while getting on the trail of who assaulted your night out.   It’s generally assumed that Jackie hadn’t used the Darkness for some time because later you find out he was keeping it under wraps.   Anyway so you go through this part and you end up finding out you’re never gonna find who did it right now so you return to home base.  At this point most of the game is spent trying to track down who did this to you. However at key points in the game the Darkness takes control and kills a couple people who have crucial information for Jackie. It’s pretty much known at a little after that point Jackie is operating on half a tank of Darkness here.   The people that attacked your guys are called The Brotherhood, and they are responsible for the Darkness. Particularly keeping it away from people, but it’s a little contradictory in the end of the game, but we’ll get there.  Anyway so like I said most of the game is spent finding out who assaulted you and your guys and you find out it’s The Brotherhood.You slowly get information piece by piece until the leader of The Brotherhood, Victor Valente, pretty much shows up and traps Jackie… twice. Once on a crucifix while Jackie is out looking for the leader of The Brotherhood. While Jackie is on the cross Victor brings in a TV showing that Victor’s henchmen have raided your home and are currently holding your mob family hostage, including your poor old dear Aunt Sarah. Victor makes you choose between one of your friends to shoot… I ended up not making a decision so the game did for me.

The Brotherhood has an ancient artifact called the Siphon that can drain the Darkness straight out of Jackie. While Jackie is on the cross, the Darkness shows him that it has Jenny hostage in Hell. And thus the game begins of cat and mouse for Jackie to retrieve the Siphon for the Darkness. However the Siphon is the one thing that can kill Jackie which pretty much happens in the end anyway.   Anyway at this point in the game you race out of the Brotherhood compound to go home and save your Aunt Sarah. You get there, fight through the baddies and basically get knocked to the ground. Aunt Sarah comes over to you and basically tells you to kick their fucking balls off… but gets stabbed with a huge machete. And you, get a shotgun to the face.   Most of your crew is intact after this, and a funeral is held for your Aunt Sarah. However you were shot in the goddamn face and previously you had your crew bring in Johnny so you could speak to him about the Darkness, and he patches you back up. It takes 4 days. In that 4 days the Darkness has created a sort of ‘purgatory’ for you, Jackie. You wake up in a room and well, I pretty much instantly realized: mental hospital. And you play through a decent bit of it, enough to make you think ‘this is the end of the game, what?’ but in reality it’s not. Jackie wakes up in his home with Johnny hovering over him. You get up off the couch and go talk to your crew and then go to your Aunt Sarah’s funeral.   At the funeral it’s pretty much wrecked by The Brotherhood as you have a boss battle here. Not too hard but the game introduces a new enemy, one with some sort of lasso that steals your gun and really pisses you off.. Anyway after you beat the boss guy he discloses where The Brotherhood is and you basically set up to head over there and whoop some ass, minus your crew because you’re pretty much aware it’s a trap and Jackie doesn’t want anyone else to be killed.

You head into a carnival area and have hallucinations of Jenny leading you though the carnival, killing baddies on the way. You end up going through a ‘scary’ ride with Jenny at your side along with killing baddies throughout this section. You exit the ride and Jenny is gone, and in front of you is an iron maiden. There’s a knocking sound coming from within the maiden and you open it… and Victor appears behind Jackie and he turns around and Victor says some stuff and then you’re pushed into the iron maiden and you play through some more ‘insane asylum’ area of gameplay, but this time you meet your imp buddy who is the janitor of the place. He helps you get out of the ‘purgatory’ and back into real life where you’re in the iron maiden and having the Darkness sucked out of you. There’s absolutely nothing you can do this time as you have it sucked out of you. Victor is successful in taking the Darkness from you and he leaves Jackie to literally burn, as someone lights logs on fire underneath Jackie in the iron maiden.

Spoilers- Do not read ahead if you are going to buy the game.

Control switches to the imp guy who is assisting Jackie and needs to rescue him. You basically do, through a ton of invisible walls and crap by turning off the power inside the room Jackie is in, and then he comes and frees Jackie from the iron maiden. Control then goes back to Jackie who pursues Victor with haste, because he needs the Darkness to free Jenny. At this point, Jenny is all he has. You end up having a mini-boss battle with one of Victor’s right hand henchmen but it’s not too bad. You retrieve some of the Darkness from the guy after you kill him and it’s a more powerful version of the Darkness. You pursue Victor and end up fighting him in an attic inside the house you’re in after leaving the catacombs under the house where you were. This fight is a little annoying with the various baddies being transported in/resurrected but otherwise it’s not that bad. After ‘killing’ Victor Jackie has control of the Siphon. Victor recovers and tries to take the Sipon back but you knock him out cold. Afterwards, Jackie stabs himself through the abdomen with the Siphon, which as I mentioned before is the only thing that can really kill Jackie because the Darkness’ power is overriding itself, and Jackie goes to Hell.   Hell kind of looks like an Oblivion crossover with the Oblivion gates, which I commented to my fiancee.   Anyway so you run up to Jenny and she’s stuck with some rocks binding her wrists, calling out to Jackie. You get your tentacles because you’re still in possession of some of the Darkness’ power and tear through the enemies Hell has waiting for you, which again are of different design than the other enemies back on Earth but same thing, just tear through them to get to the objective which here, is freeing Jenny. At one point you come to a circular room with Jenny in the middle and some egg looking things and you have to defeat all enemies, then tear off one of the arms holding Jenny. After you do that she attempts to free herself but is unsuccessful and she moves up to the last floor. Jackie fights his way up and frees her other arm after again, defeating all enemies. She falls down off the pedestal and Jackie catches her and they hug, and the credits roll.   However, there is something after the credits which you probably guessed in the game earlier but I won’t disclose it here.   Also I wanted to point out that during the game the ‘purgatory’, the insane asylum is something the Darkness creates for Jackie so he won’t die. This is revealed at some point in the game but I don’t remember where so I thought I’d just add it here. Score: 10/10

End Spoilers

Graphics and Sound

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The graphics and sound are what’d you’d expect from a triple-A title. Fantastic, no overusing of music, no same areas over and over, good textures (in my opinion), great framerate, game runs perfectly. Voice acting is fantastic, for all NPCs and Jackie and the Darkness especially. And as you can see from the images up there, I’m not lying.   Score: 10/10

Controls

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The controls are pretty much… as much as they impacted gameplay I really have to give it 7.5/10. They really tried with this port to PC to make the Darkness’ movements for attacks as fluid as possible but definitely did not pull it off. Movement is fine with Jackie but the imp’s movement needs polish. NPC’s movement was fine, no stuck places or anything so pathfinding was good. Doesn’t really fall under controls but I figured I’d add it under the topic of movement here. However it was really immersion breaking to have to hit a key and be hitting the wrong key to tear a door off it’s hinges unless I’m really in the zone.   Score: 7.5/10

Overall Rating of the Game and Conclusion

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So this game was definitely a memorable experience, and in the case of replay-ability, they do give you a New Game+ option after the credits to experience the game over again and fill out your talent tree, and I’m pretty sure I would at some point here. Will have to keep it in mind, but otherwise it was a solid gameplay experience. Lasted a REALLY decent long time for me playing in 2-3 hour bursts with other stuff in-between in real life.   Overall Score: 9/10,   Controls just needed a little more polish for the PC release.   Here’s the links for the game, just select which platform you want and away you go![Keep in mind different platforms have different prices!]

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