The Darkness is a comic series from Top Cow. It hasn’t been the most successful series but it has its own cult following. The upcoming game will be based heavily around the story of the comic, so not only will people who are familiar with the comic be happy but those who aren’t familiar will be catered for as well. The story revolves around Jackie Estacado (who is meant to be 21 but he looks more like 31), a mob member who has genetically inherited an evil power known as “The Darkness”. The story is written by Paul Jenkins and is essentially a mafia/organized crime story mixed with some dark supernatural themes. Note: It’s definitely not for children.
As mentioned, the developers of The Darkness are the same as those behind The Chronicles of Riddick. The Darkness will be played from a first person perspective and for the most part (from what we saw) the game will stay there. While the game will start out as your conventional FPS, the big difference comes when you start to unlock the powers that the Darkness holds. We only got to play through two levels and it was a fairly early build but it gave us a sound idea of what the game was about.
Say hello to your little friends
While it would have been interesting to see Jackie from a 3rd person perspective, it is very interesting to watch the happenings through his eyes. To activate the Darkness, you need to charge it when you’re in a dark spot. If you can’t find a dark spot, just shoot out a few lights. After doing so, two insidious snake-like heads and dark tentacles surround your view (without blocking it). We had access to three of the many powers that will become available to you and each was depicted by the eye-colour of your nasty compatriots. One of the staple powers was the summoning of a Darkling. You could summon a creepy little critter to help do your bidding, whether it will be to kill enemies or open doors for you.
The two other powers were “Creeping Dark” and “Demon Arm”. By pressing the R-button (on the Xbox 360), a creeper would jump out and you could move it like a small remote “turret” to grab objects that are unreachable or chomp down on enemies from a distance. Demon Arm allows you to grab onto objects that were either encompassed in a light-red glow or to brutally kill in enemies. One example of using objects, was to grab on to a dumpster and toss it into a gate to knock it down. The powers are meant to give the players several option on how to go about their business. For example, you can use the creeping dark to destroy the switch box and open the gate, or as mentioned, toss a dumpster to force the gate open. This could all be done while blazing away with your standard weaponry.
Aside from the powers, there will be some more conventional gameplay. One addition that has been made, is that when you are shooting someone at point blank, Jackie will automatically pull off a “execution kill”. Basically, it’s a very gory little sequence that will vary depending on the enemy’s position. While the story itself will have a fixed timeline, you will have the opportunity to partake in numerous side-missions that will unlock goodies and more dark powers. Finally, as you play through levels, more events become unlocked in prior levels, so you can go back by using a subway network within the game.
Shameless destruction will be a cinch with your dark powers
The Darkness is set to be released on both the Xbox 360 and Play Station 3. We were put through the Xbox 360 version but it was assured that the two versions will be pretty much identical. According to the 2K, Starbreeze will soon be announcing the details of the multiplayer that will be in the game. Other than it will be online and it’s been kept under wraps for a while, we don’t know anything else about this elusive mode. In terms of controls, they were a little bit fidgety and sensitive at the time but we’re sure this will be addressed for the final game.
In terms of graphics and presentation, we can’t make too much of a judgment because of the earliness of the build but it definitely had a Riddick and a next-gen feel to it. Everything was very well detailed and aspects such as the physics, lighting and animations were on track for being great. However, it would be nice if the developers worked a bit on the Dark Vision because it wasn’t that much of an advantage in this build. We were informed that each character model that has something relevant to say has been mo-capped so that their movements and voice-synching could be considered more realistic. Whether it will meld well with the comic's stylised designs of characters remains to be seen. The game looks like it will be very gory and graphically intense as well.
The Darkness is shaping up nicely but it was clear that the build was still deep in development. Given the game’s pedigree, anything less than great would be considered a disappointment but it looks like (and we know that) the developers are up to the task. Stay tuned to PALGN, as we will be bringing you a verdict for The Darkness once it is released sometime in Autumn.
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