Developer: Digital Extremes
Publisher: 2K Games
Rrp: £19.99 (Steam and Humblebundle)
Released: 9th February 2012
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 12 Hours
Nyctophobia is an extreme or irrational fear of the night or of darkness. But you have to ask yourself is it really irrational to be afraid of the dark? Perhaps there really is something horrific that goes bump in the night.
The Darkness 2 is, unsurprisingly, the sequel to The Darkness. It’s a first person
shooter based on the comic book of the same name. You play as Jackie Estacado, who’s head of a New York City crime family. Jackie isn’t just an ordinary crime family boss (if there is such a thing) he’s also a possessor of ‘The Darkness’, or perhaps it might be more accurate to say its possessing him…. that line is a little blurry really as they both seem to be fighting for dominance. Either way it doesn’t matter that much because it seems someone put out a hit on Jackie and now he and the darkness are on a manhunt.
At the start of each level Jackie summons his demon arms that flank the left and right of your screen, it takes a moment to get used to having them always being
within view but you grow used to it fairly quickly. The demon arms aren’t some form of strange fashion statement though, they allow him to perform slashing melee attacks, grab weapons from a distance and regain health by eating the hearts of your enemies. You’re also are given a Darkling, which is a strange impish creature that is essentially immortal. He’s can be rather charming in a lot of ways, especially when he calls you Monkey. On a mechanical level though
he’s generally used to solve certain puzzles, aid in combat and act as the comic relief somewhat. He’s also almost painfully British.
All of these things cannot survive in the light though, if you step into a strong light your demon arms will disappear and the Darkling will drop dead, not to
worry though as they reappear shortly after you enter the dark again.
As you kill enemies you gain Dark Essence, this works in a similar way to Bulletstorms skill kill system although there’s a lot less variation. The more
spectacular the kill the more points you gain although killing people isn’t the only way to gain these points. You can also find the relics that are hidden around the levels which give a large amount of points at once.
You may be wondering ‘So, what’s the point of the essence points?’ Well, the points can be spent at Talent Shrines where you can unlock new abilities.
The game limits the number of weapons you can carry to three (discounting the demon arms), one heavy weapon and two light ones. A heavy weapon is something like a shotgun or assault rifle whereas light weapons are pistols and SMG’s. The light weapons can also be dual wielded although that removes the ability to aim down the sights. These weapons can be extremely potent when used in concert with the demon arms as you can use them to throw objects within the world to stun or sometimes even impale enemies. This makes the combat feel much more varied and dynamic than it would be if it were a standard shooter.
There is one aspect of the combat that unfortunately falls a bit flat, and that’s that quite often the enemies on a level will basically be clones of each other.
Missions are split into smaller levels, but between each mission you spend time at your home. I think this is important because it allows you to find out more
about not only your character but of the others that reoccur throughout the game. It also provides some quiet time allowing the action to seem more exciting.
To go with the comic book origins of the game the developers opted to give the world and its characters a cel-shaded look as well as ink lines around the characters. This comic book style causes the extremely gratuitous violence (which is very in keeping with the source material) feel less gruesome and easier to make.
This is going to sound odd and probably quite nitpicky but… I find the mouth animation a bit strange, or more specifically, the tongue. The mouth moves but the tongue inside is a static image, it just looks so out of place when everything else is so animated. Plus when you speak with a character the camera zooms in which just highlights the whole tongue thing for me. On the subject of the conversation system I don’t understand is why the [1] key is used for conversations as a default. The more normally used [E] is bound to do ‘context action’ so why not call conversations with non-hostile NPC’s a contextual action?
Beyond the single player campaign there’s also a game mode named vendetta. This is the obligatory multiplayer that got shoehorned into a lot of games when
this game was published. Thankfully the devs were clever and found a way to make the mode not only work but enhance the story. You can play the vendetta multiplayer sections on your own (as well as offline) but they’re designed to be played with others in co-op so playing them solo makes it much more difficult. The vendetta’s do more than just tick a publishers box for multiplayer to be included though, they actually expand upon the story in the main campaign. I
won’t go into this more specifically because my reviews are focused on single player games rather then multiplayer modes.
The Darkness 2 gets a thumbs up from me, I have very little to complain about and the relics section that’s found in the pause menu is quite possibly my favourite part of the game. It’s essentially a codex of every relic you have found in the game, each coming with a voiced over description that I found a joy to listen to. So much so that I kept replaying the game so that I could collect all of the relics.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Bulletstorm
Doom (2016)
F.E.A.R 2
