The Darkness 2 Review
Developers Digital Extreme
Publisher 2K
Platform PS3, Xbox360
Release Date Out Now
You don’t control the Darkness, it controls you….
The Darkness 2 boasts new developers, a new art direction, and a great new storyline. Picking up two years after the end of the Darkness the Darkness 2 sees its protagonist Jackie Estacado needing to call on its powers again.
Jackie who has managed to keep the Darkness at bay for the two year that have passed between the two games is forced to once again call on its unnatural powers to wreak his revenge. The opening scene is set in a restaurant as Jackie sits down for dinner with a set of beautiful twins he comes under attack. In the mayhem of vans crashing through walls, bullets whizzing by and explosions ripping the place apart, Jackie is left for dead crawling to his doom he is left with no alternative but the release the Darkness.
For those who are new to the series (either the games or the graphic novels) the Darkness is pure evil, while it wields great power for its host it comes at an awful cost. Jackie and the Darkness play out a constant battle over his psychological wellbeing. The Darkness likes week hosts that it can easily manipulate, but no such luck this time Jackie is a tough son of a bitch.
This tale is one of misery, and revenge. Jackie thinks he has lost everything after his long-time girlfriend is murdered (in the first game) but his nightmare has only begun. A strange underground secret society are after the Darkness’s powers, the only way to capture the Darkness is to capture Jackie and get him to hand it over, by any means necessary. Jackie’s only way of surviving his current predicament is to let the Darkness loose, yet each time he uses the Darkness it grows stronger and is harder and harder for Jackie to control let alone tell reality from the mischief played on his fragile mental state.
A wonderful story that has you guessing all the way through about just what is normality and what is the work of the Darkness as Jackie is dragged through a physiological nightmare right to hell. The crowning achievement in the game is the brilliant portrayal of Jackie as some kind of paranoid schizophrenic, one moment you are the head of a mob family the next an vulnerable patient in a mental institution. This is done so well you do start to wonder about your own grasp on reality.
The gameplay is top notch, and while the story is somewhat short at around the 6-7 hour mark, it is perfectly paced and for once a shorter game just feels right. There is no artificial buffing of the story and no silly side missions just to make it artificially elongated. There is a co-op campaign included that offers a bit extra to the package.
This is a FPS so the shooting needs to be excellent and the guys at Digital Extreme have nailed it, it has to be one of the best shooting experiences in any game it really is flawless. Its smooth, it’s consistent and it’s bloody good as well as being very …well bloody!
As mentioned the quad wielding allows you to dual wield with two high powered sub machine guns whilst also using the two demon arms to grab, slash and rip enemies into tiny pieces. The fact you eat human hearts to regain health gives you some idea of what you should expect.
Overall : The story is brilliant, the gameplay top drawer and the art style does take a little bit of getting used to but at times it creates just the most beautiful scenes. A large varity of weapons, mixed with the demon arms and the ever hilarious Darkness (he is very funny, very British and very inappropriate) in fact the game as a whole really is quite adult.
Score 9/10
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