Quick Review: The Darkness II

He's condensed 90's edge.

I usually open on a quip, but this one I need to explain: The Darkness is a comic book series originally written by Garth Ennis under Top Cow Productions, a partner studio of Image Comics. This franchise, which has one of the most basic names ever, follows Jackie Estacado, a young mafia hitman who, on his 21st birthday, becomes the host of an ancient Eldritch entity known as The Darkness, which grants him a vast array of powers, including summoning imp-like demons. He’s stuck with the abomination until it gets what it wants from him, which doesn’t stop him from using its family-unfriendly powers in the best way he can manage. That is, VERY anti-heroically.

The franchise began in comics, but also had two games, the second of which I’m covering today. Developed by Digital Extremes, published by 2K and released to Steam on February 9th, 2012, this is a sequel to a first The Darkness game released in 2007.

Well! A dinner and a show!

I never played the first game, but a helpful catch-up intro explains its events: When the Franchetti family, which Jackie worked for, went after him because of the Darkness and killed his love Jenny, he rampaged through them and killed their head, taking that throne for himself. For two years, he keeps the entity dormant, but on a regular night at the restaurant, he is ambushed by a dangerous group and must call his demons into action.

You don't wanna know what the demon arms are gonna do
to that guy we just grabbed.

Lots of controls here. This is a shooting game with all that implies (shoot at enemies, grab guns, reload firearms, take cover), but the Darkness has its own set of abilities and mechanics. Using Q, your Mock-Venom arms can grab items and throw them at attackers (you can even grab the attackers themselves when they’re stunned), take their guns from afar, and even slash using the mouse wheel. The Darkness regenerates Jackie’s health over time, and we usually have an imp-demon by our side as well.

Killing enemies awards points, with more gained for creative kills. You spend those points in a skill tree, first unlocking the ability to eat the hearts of those you murder to regain health, and only getting more dangerous from there. The entity’s weakness is light; in well-lit places, its powers are nullified. In those situations, you can destroy whatever creates light around you to regain these abilities.

As a mafiosi, you can never have enough bullets.

He's like the grandpa with a hit count in the hundreds we
all wished we had brown up with.

In-between action missions, we come back to the luxurious manor and catch up with the mafiosi working under Jackie. And among many cinematic moments in the game, our protagonist (it would be difficult to call him a hero) is plagued by visions of his love Jenny, with him still suffering from her loss. All this while he investigates leads on the restaurant hit, which takes him to a cult strangely tied to the Darkness...

When the guns aren't enough, there's always the option to
throw a fucking gas container at the enemy's head.

In case the bloody fates you inflict on enemies weren’t a hint, this is an M-rated game. It’s got dark mature themes, and the comedy goes exactly where you’d expect. Your imp pisses on corpses. Characters casually talk about violence and sex, occasionally at the same time. We even visit a brothel as part of a mission. It would be charitable to say this story has shades of grey; more like shades of black, as actual good characters are mighty rare here. It’s a raw, disturbing story; consider yourself warned. That said, if you like cinematic storytelling, you’re going to find a decent amount of it here.

I'm not great at first-person shooters. However, I appreciate that this one has variety by including such a wide array of unlockable abilities, powers and means to kill enemies. It also means that enemies are plentiful and, therefore, you need to get good at using all these powers if you want to survive.

These villains are smart enough to bring in guys with big
lights on the field to weaken the Darkness.
Jackie and Alan Wake would totally get along. /s

I ran into a few issues of my own: I struggled to use the arm slice attack on specific targets. I got stuck in a vent – thankfully that could be solved by looking for a fix online. Ammo can be tricky; Jackie can carry up to 4 guns (and dual-wield), but when he picks up a new gun, he tosses away the old one, which lies around even without ammo so you may end up in situations where it’s hard to find guns with ammo, instead grabbing empty ones you threw away before. If you want to explore, there’s an extra goal in finding every Relic, which comes with heaps of worldbuilding, and there are extra missions known as the Vendettas to try out.

Another annoying enemy is this whip guy, who literally
whips the guns away from your hands. Real fun when you
need to put bullets in people. Good thing you have demon arms.

I liked this one just fine, enough to finish it at least, and though I don’t know whether I’ll touch it again, I can say I at least had a good time with it. If FPSs are your jam, though this one’s a bit on the short end, it might provide enough of a twist on the classic formula to be worth checking out.

The Darkness II is available on Steam for 29.99$ USD.