Review - The Darkness II

Pros: All around well-crafted game, dark and compelling story and art style that stays true to its comic book roots.

Cons: Extreme level of violence that some find distracting and short single player campaign.

Final Judgement: Surprisingly excellent; if you’re ok with the violence you’re in for a fantastic game.

http://www.embracethedarkness.com/

Available For: PS3, XBOX, PC

Okay, so about a year ago I picked up a game called “TheDarkness” for cheap, a game by 2K Games and Starbreeze. Starbreeze who you may remember from my Syndicate rant, are the ones that really go for hyper realism in their graphics.  The Darkness for those, like me who didn’t know is a spinoff of Top Cow comics “Witchblade” series. I’m sure you all know Witchblade… the Superhero comic with the heroine clad in barely there bikini armor with breasts that should in all reality be afflicting the poor girl with scoliosis? Witchblade.

I remember looking at the cover of “The Darkness” and thinking to myself, holy shit this game looks really stupid. A goth Fabio impersonator with glowing eyes and demons crawling all over him adorns the front while the back regales you with a tale from the cutting room floor of the worst horror movie/goodfellas clone ever.  Allow me to read you a passage:

“You are Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the Franchetti crime family. On your 21^st birthday, a timeless force known as The Darkness awakens within you. You wreak havoc on your enemies with the powers it bestows. But you’ll quickly learn that The Darkness has a will of its own….”

"Dis Darkness it is so Fabulous... Like me Fabio."

Man… that really sounds stupid, really. It sounds like the pitch for a movie that Nicolas Cage would get excited over, in fact replace “Jackie” with “Johnny” and “hitman” with “motorcycle-guy” and its sounds a lot like the plot of Ghost Rider. Which reminds me, Stan Lee still owes me one hundred and ten minutes of my life back for signing off on that pile of cinematic diarrhea. But I digress, so I bought the game for ten bucks and stuck it in my library for a rainy day.  When that day rainy day came… wouldn’t you know The Darkness was awesome, no… not just awesome, fucking awesome.

Anyway, remarks about buxom super heroes aside, the Darkness was a game about the anti-hero Jackie getting screwed over by his family and in the process the aforementioned timeless force was unleashed. The Darkness wanted to use him as a puppet and it worked like a drug. It made Jackie unstoppable, but the more he used it, the more trouble he had controlling it.  The game was split between Jackie attempting to get his revenge in the mortal world all mafioso while at the same time seeking a way to control the Darkness in a hellish other dimension that resembled the trenches of World War I. The plot was out there, no doubt, but it was original and emotional and while Jackie was an amoral killer who had been capp’in dudes for cash and banging prostitutes since the age of 14, the game made you feel sorry for the guy and his tragic plight.

So February of 2012, 2K games releases, The Darkness 2 and goes in a different direction from Starbreeze instead hiring Digital Extremes to champion this installment. This one I picked up right away and again, wouldn’t you know it, it was fucking awesome.

YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE!

The Darkness II retains its dark and moody roots.  In this installment, Jackie has risen to the head of his crime family and now presides over his “crime empire” as he sits atop his accumulated pile or dirty money, hookers and blow in a downtown penthouse palace. Jackie has succeeded in controlling the Darkness after the end of the first game but is still suffering from the guilt of being unable to prevent his girlfriend’s death. In this game Jackie is battling a shadowy organization that is attempting to steal his powers from him. The game also takes an interesting psychological twist where Jackie keeps waking up in an insane asylum, being told that he’s suffering from schizophrenia. Personally I’m a real fan of the psychological twists on reality and the plotline overall.

Sock puppet Darkness is also the source of some of the games best one liners.

Digital Extremes made some serious changes to the Darkness which may surprise some players as this game is a direct sequel to the original. Amongst other changes, Digital Extremes really jacked up the violence level. This may not mean much to someone who hasn’t played The Darkness but considering one of the highlights of the last game was that the Darkness would tear out people’s hearts and devour them in front of you during game play, to “jack it up” is really saying something. Aside from the violence, Digital Extremes has made a few other major changes to the series, namely in the art style, the narrative framework, and a co-op story that parallels the events of the single player game.

In first installment, under the care of Starbreeze, the Darkness had Starbreeze’s signature realism style of game play.  They really strove to make the game look as close to, say real life or a movie, as they could. In The Darkness II Digital Extremes went in the other direction by embracing The Darkness’ roots by changing the games art style to that of a comic book, with cel-shaded hand drawn environments and characters. The game does loose some of the stark lighting contrast and murkiness that the first game captured, however I found the art style of the Darkness II still fit the overall tone of the game while being a fitting homage to the games comic book origins.

The Cel Shading Technique really pays omage to the Darkness' roots

It’s worth mentioning that many other reviews have cited The Darkness II’s extreme and graphic violence as distracting and even gone so far as to say that it knee capped their enjoyment of the story. It’s true that The Darkness II doesn’t pull any punches in the violence or gore categories. The Darkness has an execution attack when it pulls your victim’s spine out of his still thrashing body through your victims ass which is cringe worthy. The game also features points where Jackie is captured by the secret society and is then tortured, rather graphically and all while keeping you in first person perspective. Maybe I’m just desensitized to it; but I really didn’t find it all that distracting. I’m not going to go so far as to say these critics are wrong, I would  ask what they were expecting?  In my opinion the violence is part of the show that the game was putting on… Jackie is possessed by the incarnation of absolute evil and chaos, you can’t really say with a straight face that you expected the game to be all sunshine, roses and laser beam guns that never hit or harm anyone a la G.I. Joe. You knew what you were getting into when you picked up the Darkness, if not you should probably give the games back cover and ESRB rating more than a cursory glance.

"Blue moooooon, you saw me standing aloooone, with out a love of my owwwwwn!"

Digital Extremes also made a big change from the first game by moving away from the open world concept, where Jackie was free to roam the streets of New York City encountering side missions and story hooks between main plot missions. Instead Digital Extremes went with a linear campaign with short sequences centered in Jackies Mansion and The Asylum. While this may seem like a shortfall for those who really enjoyed the open feel of the previous installment, the linear campaign had a much faster pace to it and I found it made for a more emotional story. For example, one thing I found in open world campaigns is you can more or less pause the action and give yourself a chance to catch your breath. This is achieved by dicking around and doing odd jobs and side missions. In a linear campaign however, you don’t have a choice, you must continue down the story’s path. I’m a fan of both open and linear story lines but for dramatic effect and timing you can’t beat the linear campaign. 

The only drawback I could find with the story was that it was decidedly shorter than the previous game; I can only guess that this was done because they were assuming game play would be fleshed out by the co-op campaign.

 The co-op mode, which was also a new feature in the sequel, entices the player to select one of four characters who have all be touched by the darkness and are in the employ of Jackies crime group. The characters have ridiculous powers and sound like a bad set up for a “guys walk into a bar” joke.  There’s the Black Voodoo Witch Doctor/Real Doctor, the Irish drunkard who hates the English, the Japanese samurai dude and the Israeli special-forces chick who seems oddly out of place and is a bit too “straight man” for the rest of the crew. I guess they thought they should throw in a sobering character to give the co-op campaign some much needed grounding? That or Adam Sandler found out they were going to rip off Zohan and sic’ed his army of studio lawyers on Digital Extremes.  

A Black guy, a ginger, a jewish pincess and a Asian dude walk into a bar...

Whatever the case may be the co-op story-line is a bonus, it doesn’t feel like it was added as an afterthought and the designers clearly took their time to make sure it was a worthwhile gaming experience. The co-op mission can be played solo if you’re a pale, friendless, recluse such as myself but I found that looking for additional players to jump in with me really added to the overall effect of the co-op. The four characters all have their own stories and motivations which come out through interactions that they have with each other.

My only complaint with The Darkness II was that it just didn’t feel as long or as grand a story as its predecessor. The games plot was excellent, in many ways even superior to the previous game. However I felt the game was just getting into its groove when the wrap it music started playing and the “Surprise ending” slapped me in the face. The obvious defense to the short single player story is that the co-op campaign bolsters the play time of the Darkness II because it is, in its own right, a well thought out complementary story to the main plot line.  Although I would have agreed, the feeling of the co-op campaign, while enjoyable, is so different to the feel of the single player that they almost play like two different games entirely.

I wouldn’t recommend The Darkness II for those who feel video game violence should be used sparingly, much like horse radish.  For those that don’t mind an extra helping of the almost cartoonishly ridiculous levels of violence, the kind that hasn’t been seen since Sonny Chiba stopped making films, then you will thoroughly enjoy what the Darkness II has to offer.