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THE DARKNESS (8.5/10.0) |
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Game Review by:
Mike Kurnat
Platforms: Xbox 360 & PS3
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Starbreeze
Resolution: 720p, Widescreen, 1080p, 480p, 1080i
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Release: 062607
ESRB: M for mature. |
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"...this game was a
blast; there are a lot of extras to unlock and
accomplishments, or achievements for the 360, to check
off."
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From
the developer of the critically acclaimed The Chronicles of
Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay comes another first person
action adventure game that mixes a strong story with fast paced
gameplay. You star as Jackie Estacado, a New York mob hit-man who
starts to manifest The Darkness, basically a parasite that helps
guard Jackie and imbues some impressive dark power while messing
with his head. Jackie finds himself on the defense after a money
exchange goes bad and his Uncle Paulie wants Jackie’s blood as
repayment.
The game is obviously set in New York and it has a sandbox feel to
it to a much lesser extent of the GTAs and Spider-man games. You
can for the most part go to whichever section of the town you want
at anytime, but there are only about ten different locals you can
visit which narrows the scope of the world. However, you also spend
sometime in another realm that plays off of nightmares of war
veterans and gives us some twisted moments that will stick with you
beyond the game.
On the gameplay side of things, the game runs very smooth and the
action is very intuitive. The shoulder buttons do most of the work
with the L2 and R2 buttons fire you guns, L1 manifesting The
Darkness giving you the chance to use the enhancements in power and
R1 lets you do the Dark Power of your choice. There are four dark
powers that you gain throughout the game including Dark Guns and the
chance to create black holes. The black hole is by far the most
powerful weapon in you arsenal and actually hurts the pace of the
game. If you get into any kind of trouble, just throw a black hole
out there and you’re good to go. You end up relying too much on
that one power and it comes off cheap. A key element of the game is
creating darkness. You have to shoot out lights in your area so The
Darkness can feed on the…well, darkness. As The Darkness feeds, you
can do more of your dark powers for a longer period of time. Also,
you have the power to summon Darklings, little gremlin dudes that
have one of four different abilities. You can summon one to hack
and slash, one to shoot up the place, one that is a Kamikaze and
another one that takes out all the lights in the room. They are
very helpful once you get them to go where you want them.
The highlights of this game are the overall presentation and the
quality of the fire fights. The story pours off the screen with
Jackie giving you bits and pieces of the story during load screens
and interacting with other characters. Jackie becomes a very
likable character with his little side stories during load sequences
and because of his motivations. Jackie’s main motivation is getting
back at his Uncle for killing his girlfriend. You can really feel
Jackie’s torture with the loss of his girlfriend and you as a player
really want to help him get what he wants. His other motivation is
to honor his Mafioso heritage and do what he thinks is right by the
old guard of the New York mob. The narrative his backed by above
average voice acting and animations.
For the firefights, you will be double wielding hand-guns, blasting
people with shotguns and spraying bullets with Ak-47s. The game is
very graphic and bullets leave their marks on their targets with
great detail. The game also gives you the chance to execute your
enemies in a variety of different ways when you get up close, all of
them brutal.
This game does have its faults. I already addressed the pacing
problems with the overly powerful black hole, so let’s talk about
the graphical hiccups. First let me say that the game is beautiful
but there are some flickering problems and some character models
just lose pieces of themselves while they move. For example, I’ll
be talking to a guy in the subway and he’ll turn his head and the
collar on his shirt will just disappear for a second. It’s
distracting, but not that big of a deal. Also, the multiplayer
aspects of the game are flat out weak and feel like an afterthought
at best.
Making my way through this game was a blast; there are a lot of
extras to unlock and accomplishments, or achievements for the 360,
to check off. Also the game is loaded with bonus content including
some full comic books from the Top Cow universe including Magdalena,
Witchblade and of course Darkness books. Pick this one up and
make it to the end. By the end you are extremely powerful and
you feel that power. |
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THE
DARKNESS ©
2007 Top Cow Comics.
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2007 Alternate Reality, Inc. |
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YOUR HEADS UP |
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100's of new
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