The Darkness

Developer Starbreeze gets a lot of credit for its work on the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, and it’s well deserved. The game managed to combine sneaking, twitch gunplay, and a compelling storyline all in one game. Now Starbreeze brings the Riddick formula of atmosphere, violence and narrative to The Darkness, a game based on the top selling Top Cow comic of the same name. Does Starbreeze still have the magic that made Butcher Bay one of the most overlooked games of 2004? Or does it fail?

Players take on the role of Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the mob who hangs unto outdated ideals. Jackie is sent on his 21st birthday by his Uncle Paulie to collect some money from a local bartender and later to do a hit on a construction site foreman. Jackie and his crew bungle the cash collection, so Paulie decides to retire Jackie… Permanently. Unfortunately for Paulie, on his 21st birthday, Jackie inherits the powers of The Darkness. With said powers in tow, Jackie sets out to repay his Uncle Paulie’s assassination attempt with one of his own. But what is the Darkness? Is Jackie its master or its slave? These questions and more are answered as you play and unraveling the story is one of the most satisfying elements of the game, so you won’t find any spoilers here.

The Darkness isn’t a fast-paced game like most first person shooters. Jackie has a slow, methodical gait and the game doesn’t push players down a confined path of scripted sequences and monster closets. The storyline is linear and the next objective is always clear but the world is open-ended, albeit limited in scope. Players can freely explore several sections of New York and pick up odd jobs at subway stations in order to unlock extra content and achievements. None of the side-missions are particularly interesting or difficult, but they do help to build the notion that the player is operating within a living city instead of a closed-set full of enemies and scripted sequences. It’s just too bad that the explorable areas of the city are so small. It’s also a shame that the rendition of Hell featured in the single-player campaign isn’t brought up more often or offered as another open-ended area.

Once players do set about completing objectives to progress the story, they’ll often find there are a number of ways through any given situation. Going in guns blazing is usually the least intelligent option since Jackie is still human despite his otherworldly abilities, but it is possible if the player has the necessary skills to pull it off. More often than not, a mix of cunning, shadowy cover, and one of Jackie’s Darkness abilities will offer the most efficient way forward. Which isn’t to say you won’t be gunning people down left and right. Jackie isn’t helpless and with his twin pistols, he is an expert shot. Special instant kill executions can be done if you get right up in an enemies face. You can also find a small selection of modern firearms taken from the enemies as you progress, but none of them feel like a huge step up in power over the dual-pistols.

Unfortunately the shooting is let down by some underwhelming controls. The auto-aim is a major culprit, as it’s so strong on its default setting that headshots are incredibly easy to perform. Thankfully it can be turned off in the options menu, but doing so leaves players to deal with the awkward reticule accelerating and twitchy movement controls. Those two can be tweaked in the options menu, but it will take a great deal of fiddling with several separate sliders to find a setting that doesn’t feel overly floaty or twitchy. It’s not so bad that it’s a deal-breaker, but it is disappointing given how visceral and responsive the controls in Escape from Butcher Bay were. Thankfully, navigating through all of the Darkness powers and making use of them in combat is incredibly intuitive.

Still, the selling point of the game isn’t the guns, but Jackie’s strange relationship with The Darkness. His Darkness powers are his most potent weapons and his only chance at survival against hordes of enemies, but they sap energy and eventually disappear in direct light. This means you have to make sure Jackie himself is shrouded in Darkness to power his abilities. The shadows replace slabs of concrete as the cover of choice in The Darkness and almost every light source in the game can be shot out so players can create their own cover almost anywhere they need it. As such, the combat has a natural ebb and flow to it since Jackie can easily alternate between dishing out offense and hiding in the shadows to recharge his Darkness abilities and/or get the drop on disoriented enemies.

---

The Darkness itself is presented as a separate entity with motivations that don’t always coincide with Jackie’s. It’s always happy to cause more pain and suffering, and Jackie has to find ways to keep it in check. The two most visible manifestations of the Darkness are Lefty and Righty, two eel-like creatures with glowing eyes and jagged teeth that appear any time the player opts to tap into Jackie’s other half. Righty can be dispatched to slither along the ground, up sheer surfaces and through confined spaces to otherwise unreachable areas or enemies. A demon arm can be summoned to lift objects or punch holes through enemy torsos, and the hearts of fallen enemies can be consumed by the demonic tendrils in order to keep the Darkness powers functioning a little longer in the light and increase their overall power. Over the course of the game Jackie will also unlock the ability to open blackholes that suck enemies into Hell, as well as Darkness-powered guns that deal huge damage but sap power incredibly fast. All of the powers are useful and deliciously sadistic in nature.

Then there are the Darklings. These little demons can be summoned up from the shadows as reinforcements, but they don’t distinguish between innocent or guilty. As players grow in power they’ll be able to summon different types of Darklings and more of them. Beserkers are melee troops that tie up enemies at close range and leave them vulnerable to ranged attacks, while gunners dispatch enemies from range. Kamikaze Darklings run at enemies and blow themselves up, along with anything else in the area. Finally, Lightkiller Darklings focus on taking out light sources so Jackie can focus on taking out foes. All of the Darklings do their jobs adequately most of the time, but sometimes they just don’t seem to work properly. Gunner Darklings will occasionally try to shoot enemies through a wall, or the Berserker will run at an enemy only to vaporize under a lightsource. Still, on the whole they prove to be more helpful than harmful, and their morbid wisecracks add a lot of dark humor to the gory proceedings.

Given the necessity of using the cover of darkness, the ability to create said cover almost anywhere, and the litany of Darkness powers at Jackie’s disposal, Starbreeze had all the necessary pieces for an intelligent, even tactical supernatural FPS. Unfortunately, the enemy AI isn’t smart or coordinated enough to force the player to think on their feet. In the heat of combat certain powers are only marginally more useful than others, so players don’t have to put any serious thought into when and where to use one as opposed to another. Enemies will frequently dive behind cover to avoid gunfire, but they seem completely unable to cope with Jackie’s Darkness powers. On one hand this makes the player feel like quite the all-powerful badass, but on the other hand it makes combat far more mindless than it had the potential to be. Battles don’t completely lack intensity, it’s just that the intensity present is garnered more from enemy numbers and presentation than from exciting back-and-forth exchanges. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that Jackie just keeps getting stronger and unlocking more and more powerful attacks, while the enemy types are pretty much consistent throughout the entire game. It’s a testament to the stylish presentation, the sheer visceral satisfaction of unleashing Darkness powers, and the intensity of the major combat set-pieces that the game remains not only fun, but exciting right up until the end.

The world in which Jackie lives, though eternally in night, feels like an enclosed living world. Oh it’s not very large and Jackie doesn’t move too quickly through it, but it feels real on occasion. This is due to small things such as working phones, diverse characters, and TV. Dubbed Darkness TV, it’s filled with shows, cartoons, and movies all available in the public domain. There must be at least six or more hours of TV to watch, and all of it accessible from any TV in the game.

Graphically, this game is simply beautiful. Every single area is filled with small details that make them stand out. From the little bits of litter that Jackie treads on during his quest for revenge, to the way his guns smoke when he fires off lots of rounds, it looks good and is a great way to showcase the power of your system. There are some hitches, however. Chief amongst these is the enemies and the Darkling’s ability to see you through walls. Also, Righty can be ignored, as sometimes enemies will, literally, step right on him and not notice him. They also tend to do with that corpses, for no reason whatsoever. The sound and music is top notch, with some great voice actors providing the cast with real life. However, the multi-player is, to put it mildly, an afterthought. Sure it sounds fun to play as the gun wielding Mobsters or speedy Darklings, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before AND better in… Well pretty much any game. You won’t buy this game for the multiplayer at all.

The story of Jackie Estacado is a short but excellent one, and this game will eventually be remembered as yet another overlooked title once the fall cornucopia of games parade in. However, if you are looking for an excellent story and some awesome gunplay, the Darkness is a must try. Just don’t turn the lights off.