The Darkness (Xbox 360) Reviews

Crowdstorm's Description

Manufacturer's Description:
The Darkness video game is based on TopCow's cult comic hit of the same name that was written by famed comic-book author, Paul Jenkins, and co-created by famed comic-book artist, Marc Silvestri. The story for The Darkness video game was also written in collaboration with Paul Jenkins.

The Darkness is a gritty, first-person, action-adventure game with a horror twist. On mafia hitman Jackie Estacado's 21st birthday, the awesome and terrible powers of the Darkness awaken within him allowing Jackie to wreak havoc on his enemies. In the game, players experience extremely intense and immersive cinematic action. Players will have an array of dark and other-worldly powers available, including cannibalizing the corpses of slain victims and transforming them into Darklings - impish demonites that commit unspeakable acts.

Amazon.co.uk Review

Developer Starbreeze Studios seem to have found a niche for themselves creating top notch video games based on licensing tie-ins that hardly anyone has ever heard of. The Chronicles of Riddick may have been a film flop but the game was one of the best first person shooters on the original Xbox. This follow-up is based on an obscure comic book about a Mafia hitman with the rather handy ability to conjure up the eponymous Darkness – source of seemingly unlimited demonic power.

To some degree the game can be played like a standard first person shooter, with main character Jackie Estacado proving a dab hand with a wide variety of standard pistols, machine guns and shotguns. The Darkness powers though are obviously the game’s real draw, with the ability to use super strong tentacles to fling around objects in the impressively interactive game world or act as a shield or even spy camera. The most interesting of the Darkness abilities though is summoning special imps called darklings. These come in twenty different types, from interrogator to kamikaze to decoy, and ensure there’s always more than one way to tackle any obstacle.

The only problem with the Darkness as a power is that it doesn’t work in strong light, which is where the need for more traditional weaponry comes in – especially when shooting out lights to get your demonic groove back on. The graphics are superb (The Chronicles of Riddick still looks better than many low end 360 games) and despite its obscure origins the Darkness itself turns out to be the most interesting thing to happen to first person shooters in years. Harrison Dent