It also provides him with two snake-like arms protruding from his back, both of which can be controlled independently to cut enemies in half, launch them into the air, or grab them for up-close-and-personal executions. ![]() Jackie’s curse provides him with highly entertaining powers like the ability to fire a distracting swarm of insects at foes or open a black hole near them. ![]() Jackie’s got a wide variety of firearms at his disposal, and although players will surely fire thousands of rounds of ammunition, the real weapon of choice is the Darkness itself. The visual style makes the cartoonish violence that much more palatable, as the bright red splashes of blood actually complement the garish colors they fall on. This is precisely how one would hope a game based on a comic book would look. The colors are bright and vibrant, a far cry from the grays, dark grays, and even darker grays that permeated the environments in the original. Evoking memories of cel-shaded shooters XIII and Borderlands, The Darkness II looks very much like a comic book come to life. That’s not the case with The Darkness II, and the game is much better for it. The game offers a lot of ruminations on love and loss throughout, and some of them are surprisingly touching.Īlthough The Darkness sprang to life as a comic book, the first game eschewed that medium’s trappings to present much more realistic visuals. Even the player is liable to get confused from time to time, leading to a climactic player decision precipitating two wildly different endings (both of which are definitely worth seeing). With the Darkness back in his life, and guilt over Jenny’s death pulling his mental strings, Jackie begins to have trouble discerning what’s real and what his surprisingly literal inner demon wants him to think is real. The Darkness II’s story isn’t quite as heavy-handed as the previous game’s, offering up a surprisingly nuanced narrative that plays with the perception of reality itself. Naturally, things don’t go as planned, and it isn’t long before Jackie is fighting for his life again, using both his Darkness powers and good old fashioned guns to decimate hundreds of enemies. As The Darkness II opens, Jackie explains that he’s bottled up his power for nearly two years, amid worries that it would come to control him completely. In the first game, Jackie embraced his newfound abilities to avenge the murder of his true love, Jenny, and take over New York’s Italian mob. This curse has existed since the beginning of time and is passed down from generation to generation, granting those who possess it various otherworldly powers. Both versions tell the tale of one Jackie Estacado, a mafia hitman who learns on his 21st birthday that he harbors a nasty little family secret: a demonic power called the Darkness. ? The Darkness began life as a comic book series in 1996 before Starbreeze Studios first adapted it for video games in 2007. * = platform reviewed From comic to video game The Darkness II manages to strike the right balance between the two extremes, not only making it a better game than the ones mentioned above, but also making it superior to its predecessor in many ways. Last year’s Bulletstorm, on the other hand, was so over-the-top and silly that the blood and guts really didn’t make any impact at all. ![]() Games like Rogue Warrior and Soldier of Fortune were just as brutally violent, yet their uber-serious undercurrents simply made them feel like exercises in virtual sadism. Given that, it surprisingly never makes the player feel like they’re in need of a shower when the bloodshed is over. Bodies are regularly torn in half (both crosswise and lengthwise), skulls and spinal columns are torn out through mouths, bodies are impaled with thrown objects, and entire digestive tracts are forcibly removed through enemies' nether regions. While bullets, exploding heads, and tearing through flesh aren’t anything new in the video game world, the brutal Darkness executions take the virtual carnage to a whole new level. The Darkness II is one of the most unabashedly and gleefully gory games of this generation, reveling in its own torrents of blood and shredded viscera. Image courtesy of 2K Games reader comments 41 with
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