Hands-On: The Darkness 2 “Quad Wielding For The Mortal Man”
Banned in Singapore in 2007 and later repealed in 2009 “for excessive violence and religiously offensive expletives, ” The Darkness was one of the earlier first person shooter action horror titles that had actual unique twists in gameplay and story. The Darkness met above average reviews applauded for its interesting narrative penned by Paul Jenkins (returning) and Mikael Saker, along with excellent voice acting to boot.
A New Developer, Digital Extremes Picks Up Where Starbreeze Left Off
Originally, The Darkness was developed by Starbreeze Studios (The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and currently an untitled Syndicate video game). The pressure now falls into the hands of Digital Extremes (Bioshock 2 multiplayer sections, Homefront PC, Dark Sector) and now The Darkness 2 focusing heavily story driven narrative abandoning the multiplayer in the first game.
3 Keypoints Emphasized By The Producer
As our group was seated to watch a short demo of The Darkness 2, the producer wanted to us to notice the “Graphic Noir Art Style, Interactive In Engine Storytelling, and Quad Wielding.”
The demo begins two years later since Jackie Estacado, now the Don of the Franchetti crime family, used The Darkness (voiced by the returning Mike Patton) to kill the men responsible for his girlfriend’s murder. At first glance, the look of the game seemed like a cell shaded Borderlands with highly contrasted light and dark lines around objects. This effect however was not referred to as “cel shading” but hand painted textures which seemed to pull of their authentic graphic novel noir look.
Since the demo is broken up into several bite sized sections, there were a lot of flashbacks and storytelling. Everything in the demo was in engine and never broke out of first person, this kept me immersed unlike the first game. The first scene begins with the controller vibrating as each nail is hammered through Jackie’s hands onto board. A familiar creepy older man taunts and reminds Jackie of his girlfriend’s death, degrading him as he teases him into giving up The Darkness up to him. The Darkness is highly sought after mainly due to it being pretty damn powerful and because of it’s regenerative abilities.
Suddenly, the game flashes back to a fancy restaurant engagement with two promiscuous young ladies interrupted abruptly with one of them being shot in the head and one getting hit with a van as it crashes into the building knocking Jackie far back. As you regain consciousness, your henchmen attempt to drag you out to safety introducing an on rails “red carpet” shooting gallery familiarizing you with a far improved shooting mechanic compared to the clumsy auto aiming of the original. All aspects of the controls are vastly improved and the input lag of the first game is almost non existent. You can now sprint, which is worthy of being put on the back of the box right next to Quad Wielding.
New to The Darkness 2 is the modern aim down sights (ADS) mechanic popularized by games like Call of Duty. The (ADS) auto aim is not overly snappy as Call of Duty, but is very subtle allowing you to shoot groups of mobsters out faster and to take out light sources with ease. Shooting out lights is important like Sam Fisher because light greatly reduces the range of The Darkness and blinds you whenever you walk under a light source weakening you in the process.
Control Options Screen Included
Sensitivity Slider, South Paw, Gore Options, and Hints.
As Jackie is dragged outside, NPCs (not playable characters) rally him to stick close and hurry along. Once outside, and now that most of your henchmen are dead, The Darkness re-emerges at an opportune time to take out several baddies when you get cornered in a dark alley. Say hello world to Jackie’s monstrous appendages “righty” and “lefty.” After both arms snarl and clench their teeth you resume control of Jackie.
To my knowledge there are only three confirmed execution moves (in the pre-alpha demo) that are context sensitive depending on which part of the body you decide to use your “monster” arms on. If aimed at the head the Daisy Popper cuts your victim’s head clean off, if aimed at the hip the Anaconda is performed by wrapping your tentacles around your foe followed allowing your arms to bore a hole through his chest (like Alien), and lastly if aimed at the legs the Wishbone is performed by ripping the foe clean in half from the legs.
Bite Off Their Faces
In order for the player to focus on shooting while using The Darkness’ arms, a small glowing orange dot indicates which part of the body you intend to grab that is aimed automatically at each part allowing you to multitask and (buzz word) quad wield. Also, new to the sequel is the improved right arm that can slash in any direction using the right analog stick. Enemies can even be cut clean in half, vertically. Once again, you can pick up objects with your left monster arm in the environment like saw blades, poles, newspaper dispensers, and taxi doors (that can be used as shields, too.
Kill With Skill?
It seems that a wealth of influences were poured into this game now that you’re rewarded points for how skillfully you kill someone similar to Bulletstorm. As I played through the demo I received points for impaling enemies, cutting them in half with saw blades, and executing them with finishers. Points popped up out of no where that seemed out of place with the atmosphere that was already set. It’s still odd seeing +20 +10 appearing out of no where, but it felt rewarding. Weapons in the demo ranged from shotguns, pistols, and uzis with enough ammo to go around to shoot out lights and random civilians if you so choose.
Say Hello To My Little Friend
Gone are the multiple darklings that you were able to summon in the first, now you only get one demon helper. The first game allowed many helpers, but you never really got to form a bond with one of them so the producers decided one of best fit the character driven story.
The demo ends where the demo began just as you’re about to escape the clutches of one familiar face as he retreats to fight another day. After shooting out a light source and popping a guard off in the head the screen fades and the Darkness 2 logo appears.
Can Digital Extremes deliver a well polished single-player story driven experience with “quad wielding” in Fall 2011 amongst strong competition? We’ll see, but from how it’s looking so far the sequel seems promising from the pre-alpha build.
So You Never Played The Darkness…
When asked if a PC version of the first game was being looked into, they said that they are not looking into it at this time. 2K Games and Top Cow will bridge the gap for PC Gamers by using the The Darkness: Confessions comic book to introduce the first game into the sequel. It was also mentioned that new players will not have to play the first game to enjoy the second. If you’re behooved to play first, look no further since Amazon has the brand new copies for as low as $13.
Look for the The Darkness 2 on October 4, 2011 for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.
