The Darkness

Fight for your soul.

Jackie died on his 21st birthday and "inherited" The Darkness.  Now he is a puppet for a demonic collector of evil souls.

It's about time that the puppet started pulling the strings.

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Recommended Age Minimum Age Available On... 16 14 Xbox 360, PS3 Overall Fun Length Frustration   Violence Sexuality Substances Gambling 8 7 3   9 1 2 1 Mods Religion Anti-Law Community Sports Magic Miscellaneous 0 7 5 0 2 7 7

1.     Gameplay

• Overall Fun - 8

Jackie Estacado was killed by his Uncle Paulie, the Don of the New York Mafia, on Jackie’s 21st birthday.  When Jackie woke up, he found that he had inherited something called “The Darkness”, which is essentially the Devil (or some sort of evil demon entity).  The Darkness uses Jackie as a puppet to claim the souls of evil people, specifically the people involved with the New York Mafia and helping Jackie’s uncle Paulie.

Rule #1: Don't piss off your best hitman, especially when he's possessed.

But, unsurprisingly, Jackie does not want to be a tool of The Darkness.  He discovers that if he commits suicide on holy ground he will switch places with The Darkness.  In that scenario, he would control The Darkness in its world (a sort of weird vision of Hell), while The Darkness repair’s Jackie’s broken body.

This is a dark game, no pun intended.  Even if the player completes the game perfectly, Jackie will die a total of three times.  Jackie’s long-time girlfriend is killed by Uncle Paulie and despite Jackie’s best efforts, there’s no way to get her back.  Jackie has a few close allies, but no real friends.  He’s a lone gunman out for revenge, plagued by a demon that is claiming his soul.  There is no good in this game, there are just evil acts done for a less evil motivation.

Welcome to Hell.

This game is still fun.  It runs extremely smoothly and the variety of weapons and powers that Jackie has available keeps things fresh.  The voice acting is extremely good and the dichotomy between Jackie and The Darkness was well developed.  At times I genuinely feel for Jackie’s plight.

The problem is that there are no real good choices.  Half the game is spent killing off the mobsters who killed Jackie and his girlfriend Jenny.  The other half of the game is spent trying to find a way to take control of The Darkness.  But after all that time, the only way for Jackie to control The Darkness is to stop resisting it and embrace it, after which he ends up losing control to it just so that he can kill Uncle Paulie.

What big teeth you have!

Time after time, especially at the end when The Darkness was outright telling me that it was regaining control because Jackie kept murdering, I wanted to turn around and find some sort of non-violent solution to the problems.  At the very end when Uncle Paulie was at my mercy and The Darkness was telling me that Paulie’s death would seal the fate of my soul, I wanted to walk away and hand Paulie over to the Chicago Families (who were going to kill him anyway).  I wanted The Darkness to lose, but for some reason the game didn’t let me do that.  Jackie had to have his revenge and The Darkness had to win.

After I finished the game I just felt confused.  I knew it was a good, well-made game deserving of a sequel, but I didn’t really feel happy.  I was left just feeling partially unsatisfied and partially disappointed.  It was definitely worth playing, but the way things panned out left a lot to be desired.

• Length - 7

The missions in this game provide a decent length.  The main campaign is long enough to keep the player engaged and there are a few good side-missions to go on.  I skipped about half of the side missions because they can be a bit difficult to find but felt that my money was well spent.

There are supposedly multiplayer capabilities to this game, but I could never find any servers to connect to.  It may be that the servers were taken down (it happens in the gaming industry), but I can’t verify that anywhere.  Either way, this game should be long enough without the multiplayer.

• Frustration Factor - 3

For the most part, this game was very smooth and easy to play.  However, there were a number of instances when it was almost impossible to figure out what the game wanted me to do or where it wanted me to go.  A few times I ended up having to look up an online guide so that I could figure out how to pass a particularly difficult section or find a hidden enemy.  This was especially true when the game wanted me to send The Darkness’ snake arm up through a vent or window.  It happened so few times that I did not reflexively look for places that the snake could crawl through, so when the game required me to use that ability I was not prepared for it.

Took me a good 10 minutes to figure out what to do here.

There were also a decent number of side missions in the game (at least a dozen), but these were sometimes very difficult to find because you have to talk to the right person at the right time.  I ended up missing at least a few of these missions because I didn’t know to talk to the person when I saw them.  Some people are obviously there for missions (usually the guys that look like mobsters), but some people are very innocuous unless you walk right up to them and wait for a second until they begin talking to you.

2.     Parental Notices

• Violence - 9

From start to finish, violence is a big portion of this game.  The player will be shooting enemies almost nonstop from the time the game begins to the death of Uncle Paulie at the very end.  There are multiple gun types for the player to use to mow down his various foes, but the gunplay elements are fairly mild.  Enemies will fall when injured and a few might squirm around on the ground if severely wounded.  Dead enemies will slump to the ground with a bit of blood on their clothing or bodies depending on where they were shot and with what weapon.

Like puppets with no strings.

And then the player has the choice of eating a dead enemy’s heart.  In order to increase the power of The Darkness and the abilities that come as a result of The Darkness’ powers, the player can send forth one of the snake arms of The Darkness to impale a corpse and take out the heart.  The snake will then consume the heart in front of the player.

Mmmm... yummy!

Occasionally the two snake arms will fight over a portion or the entirety of the heart.  They will pull on the meat of it, stretching it unnaturally until one wins out.

But what do they do with the hearts after they're done eating?

The player can also use one of the arms of The Darkness to impale enemies.  The enemies will be attached limply to the arm as it drags them about until the player releases.

He's bouncing to the left. I guess I impaled him in the crotch.

Certain characters show further evidence of some sort of graphic violence, but that is discussed in greater detail in the “Scary Images” portion of the “Miscellaneous” section.

• Sexuality - 1

One of the loading sequences mentions that Jackie’s first kiss was from a prostitute named Candy (or Kandy, it never specifies the spelling).  He never had to pay for the kiss.  There is also a store with a sign that advertises a live XXX nude show.

The fact that I only saw one of these in the entirety of New York City tells me this game has to work on it's realism.

• Substances - 2

There are bottles of alcohol scattered about the game in certain places but no one is ever seen drinking.  There may have also been one or two instances of smoking, but it was never obvious enough to notice.

Who drinks in a graveyard?

• Gambling - 1

There is one character who is a sort of street vendor.  He offers to Jackie the possibility of winning some money (an unspecified amount) if he can guess correctly which cup a ball is under.  Jackie never has to put any money down, but will always guess incorrectly.  Another character tells Jackie to mark one cup, and once the ball goes under that cup Jackie can get it correct.  Instead of winning money, Jackie wins a phone number (which is used to unlock extra content in the game).

Is it the one on the left?

3.     Other Factors

• Mods - 0

There are no mods available for this game.

• Religion - 7

Even though this game doesn’t usually mention religion (except in expletive form), religious references and motifs are abundant.  Throughout the first “Hell” sequence, Jackie can find depictions of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  The Darkness is clearly some sort of depiction of the Devil, and Jenny is referred to as an “angel” a few times.

The Devil incarnate...

The exceptions would be some of the locations in the game.  There is a Catholic church that Jackie will have to go in to confront the Chief of Police.  There is also the orphanage where Jackie and Jenny grew up which is run by Catholics.  These sites are pivotal locations where Jackie will choose to commit suicide so that he can try to take control of The Darkness within the “Hell” world.

The Darkness constantly refers to normal people as “worthless souls”, implying that The Darkness doesn’t want to “collect” them.

At the end of the game, Jenny says that “They” only gave Jackie and Jenny a moment to say goodbye.  Jackie asks “They?” but Jenny never specifies who “They” are.  The game, however, seems to imply that “They” are either a collective “God” or are both The Darkness and God coming to some sort of consensus.

• Anti-Law - 5

The Chief of Police in New York is completely corrupt and works as a henchman for Uncle Paulie.  There are a number of instances when Jackie will have to kill dozens of supposedly corrupt police officers.  There was one part of the game where Jackie has to chase the Chief of Police through the police headquarters, killing cops along the way.  The game never specifies if these are corrupt cops as well.

• Online Community - 0

As I mentioned before, I could not find any online servers for this game.  As a result, I could not test the online community for this game.

• Extreme Sports - 2

Jackie walks at an almost unbelievably slow pace, so the idea of falling high distances or going fast seems almost absurd.  There are some places that Jackie can fall high distances and live (such as off of stairwells), but the game usually encourages the use of stairs instead.

There is one scene in which Jackie is in the gunner position of a tank.  The tank is being driven deep into the bowels of “Hell”, and the driver isn’t stopping to take in the view.  He almost drives himself and Jackie off of a cliff.

Drive! Drive! Drive!

There’s another scene in “Hell” where Jackie rides in some sort of shell-loading car.  The car goes over some very unsafe railroad tracks over a large chasm.

In one of the loading sequences Jackie also mentions that he knows a crazy taxi driver who drives the wrong way down the midtown tunnel at 95 miles per hour during rush hour.  That taxi driver is never actually seen though.

• Magic - 7

Jackie is able to use the abilities that The Darkness gives him in order to kill his enemies.  There are five abilities that make Jackie superhuman.  When The Darkness is exposed, it surrounds Jackie and forms a protective shield, greatly increasing the vitality of the player.  The player can also use the “snakes” of The Darkness to slither forward and attack enemies or one of The Darkness’ arms to impale enemies and move heavy objects.

Dual pistols with almost unlimited ammunition? Sweet!

The Darkness also gives two special pistols to Jackie that use energy instead of traditional ammunition.  The energy for the guns, as with any of the other powers, is gained by consuming the more literal darkness.  The snakes suck in the shadows around Jackie.

It's like chocolate milk!

The Darkness also has the ability to rip open a black hole in front of Jackie.  If any enemies are close enough, they will be pulled into the center of the black hole and killed.

• Miscellaneous - 7

Suicide

As I mentioned before, in order for Jackie to try and fight for control of The Darkness, he must kill himself on sacred ground.  The first time he does this, Jackie shoots himself in the head.  The second time, Jackie uses The Darkness to detonate a bomb in a briefcase, killing himself, the Chief of Police, and a few of the Chief’s lackeys.

And boom goes the dynamite!

Murder for Hire

Jackie is a hitman for the New York mafia.  There are a few side missions in the game where characters will ask Jackie to kill someone.  The characters compensate Jackie by promising favors in the future and giving him one of the phone numbers necessary to unlock extra content.

“Scary Images”

The entire “Hell” sequence is filled with scary and disturbing images.  All of the British soldiers are extremely torn up.  Most have some sort of staples or stitches over the majority of their face.  The German soldiers are lucky to have a face.  Most have no face at all, and there’s at least one German soldier who is more of a skeleton than anything else.

Dude, there's something on your face...

Ghosts will occasionally flash in front of the player.  It’s not really the kind of “jumper” that makes you scream in surprise and terror, but it’s enough to be a bit freaky and add to the confusing nature of the game and especially that of “Hell”.

When you see it...

If the player is killed in the game, the loading sequence is a series of three images.  The images are a demented, scary mockery of different characters or elements within the chapter that the player is going through.  They’re a bit like something I would expect to see from Salvadore Dali, but with a much darker element to them.

This is your mind on drugs.

Torture

Jackie ends up being captured by the Chief of Police.  The Chief, undeterred by the fact that Jackie can mow through dozens of cops without effort, decides to torture Jackie for information on how Jackie manages to be such an effective killer.  He ends up taking a power drill to Jackie’s face (all in first person).

Drill, baby, drill.