Blog #5 Review - The Darkness

Seeings how I'm always criticizing game reviews I figure I'd try it. So I'm going to review one of my favorite Xbox 360 games. I break my review down by categories and have no scoring system, just a brief look into the more important areas of a game.

There are spoilers in this review.

The Darkness was released in June of 2007. Developed by Starbreeze studios and Published by 2k Games.

Story:

The story is a very intriguing and weird tale. You are given control of Jackie Estacado a contract killer for the Franchetti crime family. You are a coming of age male with a very brooding personality, he has a face that says more than words can. The story concerns Jackie and The Darkness, a demon older than the planet itself. It manifests in its host when said host becomes 21. The Darkness comes in the form of several large black tenticles and a voice that sounds like something straight out of Death Metal.
The story is very well done and a very intelligent mix of Horror/Gangster Noir. Alot of this is comes from the script which is extremely well done. The characters are all well done as well and each have a personality that stands out. Uncle Paulie,the villan, is probably one of the more realistic game villians in quite a while. You will grow to hate him as much as Jackie does.
I enjoyed the story very much and the non-linear approach to how things work in the world. Lots of details are explained, but the mystical side of the game is not explained in great detail. The Other World in the game is a place of great mystery and the Developers give you small clues and leave the rest to your imagination.
I would call this lazy but the details they leave out really get your mind working. Such as what the other world exactly is.

Game Play:

The game is a typical FPS in one sense and something new in another sense. You have guns, you play in a First Person perspective but it tries something different in the form of The Darkness itself. The Creatures over your left and right shoulders are the HUD, they display health and your Level of Darkness. This is where it gets very un-First Person Shooter.
The creatures devour human hearts to upgrade your powers and strengthen the darkness. The more hearts you eat the more powers you gain, such as the Creeping Dark. Creeping Dark plays to a more stealthy game play element. You can slither around with out being noticed and kill people silently by tearing out they're throats. The tentacle, is a giant black tentacle that you can use to impale enemies or quickly extinguish a light source. Another power,and my personel favorite, is the Black Hole. That says it all, it summons a massive black hole that sucks you're enemies in and then collapses throwing everything back to earth.
Darklings are another power, they are small creatures manifested by the darkness that help you in time of need.
The game gives you alot of fun powers with out making things too complicated.
The game is a solid shooter with strong controls designed for new players and FPS veterans alike. The guns sound great and they have a good kick to them. The Darkness powers are the real meat and potatoes though. They make the game memorable and are a blast to use.

Graphics/Sound:

One of the higher marks of the darkness are the incredible graphics. The textures are very photorealistic and the animation is fantastic. The only downside is the lipsyncing and some of the character model textures. The mouths dont always match up and some characters look like they could have used a little more work.These are small complaints as the game is beautiful to look at.
The lighting is excellent and the environments are richly detailed. The animation on the Darkness tenticles is stellar, from they're fighting over human hearts to them sucking up darkness, and is a major accomplishment for a game.

The sound is also very good, especially the voice acting. Jackie Estecado in particular is excellently voiced and the actor portraying him is very talented. Infact its really cool to see a game where peoples voices match they're faces. Major credit goes to Mike Patton as well , the lead singer of Faith No More and Mr.Bungle, for creating a very disturbing but highly believable voice for the evil and manipulative Darkness.

Over all this is an enjoyable game with some very memorable moments and a very good plot with some non-linear depth and emotion and is technically outstanding and an achievement in its own right.

The game has been out a little over a year now and is probably very cheap. If youre looking for a good game with a good story and some good action , The Darkness is just what you're looking for.