The Darkness II: Be strong, play this game

A name like ‘The Darkness’ tacitly promises you a game filled with violence and evil, and The Darkness II certainly seems to deliver on that promise. The game starts off a few years after the end of the first one; Jackie Estacado, the protagonist of the first game, has used his sinister power to become a mob boss. But like any infernal pact worth its salt, this triumph came at a price: namely the death of his beloved Jenny. That, and Jackie’s body continues to be the host for a terrible evil that likes to eat human hearts and occasionally talks to him in a really creepy voice or attempts to drive him insane with hallucinations. Despite Jackie’s wow never to call upon the Darkness again, the arrival of a mysterious stranger bent on seizing the power for himself sets into motion a dark adventure that promises to drag him down into the very depths of hell…again. The mobster that Jackie is, he does have a gun or two at his disposal to fight his enemies with. These, however, are slightly outshined by the powers that the Darkness grants Jackie, the most prominent being two tentacle/ snake like things coming out of Jackie’s back that the player can control independently using the shoulder buttons of the controller. A much-touted feature in The Darkness II is quad-wielding. Basically Jackie can fire up to two guns whilst simultaneously using his tentacles to pick up and fling nearby things (or people), eat nearby hearts, or just lash around wildly in a demonic rage. Eating hearts, by the way, is an integral part of the game; it’s how Jackie regains health. There’s also something called a Darkling, a wisecracking evil monkey-like henchman who helps Jackie takes down enemies and occasionally urinates on them. [caption id=“attachment_215731” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Screengrab from Official Darkness II website”]  [/caption] Since all these gifts come from the infernal powers, it stands to reason that they shouldn’t work in the light. (Although I’m still not convinced that they shouldn’t work in tubelight either) A constant element of combat is thus strategically taking out light sources so that you (Jackie) can continue to regenerate health and use his supernatural abilities. In the beginning of the game the occasional tubelight merely serves as an annoyance to get rid of in order to move forward. Then enemies start carrying portable floodlights to hunt Jackie down with, and suddenly there’s another dimension to combat. All in all, the action is very fast paced and highly entertaining. A fairly wide selection of powers to choose from and the many environmental objects you can use means that Jackie never runs out of ways to kill people. The game also does a good job throwing different sorts of weapons, enemies, and boss fights at the player to keep things fresh. Twice in the game, you also get to play as the darkling; the second darkling sequence involves some sneaking around which is a brief but welcome change from the straightforward killing that Jackie usually busies himself with. There are a number of combat-free interludes where Jackie visits his mansion, talks to his henchmen, or just sits back and hallucinates. These much slower moving sections are a stark contrast to the frenzied action sequences; I think they do well in making the story come alive a little more, although sometimes they tend to drag a bit. There are in particular some hallucination sequences set in a mental asylum that aren’t bad in themselves, but Hollywood has done the whole ‘am I imagining the asylum, or is the asylum actually reality’ bit to death and so they end up feeling clichéd. The game is an absolutely linear one; I say this not as criticism but as observation. Obviously the developers could have opted for a freer gameplay experience, or added some stealth mechanics beyond the very basic ones seen in the darkling levels. Instead, they decided to go for straight- up action, and in this they succeed quite well. (though I wouldn’t mind seeing some stealth in the Darkness 3) Besides, the levels are colourful and designed well enough for the linearity not to become irritating. The visuals provide a refreshing contrast to most present-day, straightforwardly-realistic shooters. Since the game is based on a comic book, it opts instead for cel-shading. The colours are really intense and dynamic and the game does end up looking like a well drawn comic for the most part. There’s a lot of violence in The Darkness II; those tentacles on Jackie’s shoulders do some terrible things to the people they happen to get their teeth into. Jackie’s hapless victims are impaled, crushed anaconda style, torn in half, decapitated, etc. (Did I mention that the tentacles eat their hearts?) The violence doesn’t slip into the realm of disgusting like some games do, and it’s in sync with the generally dark themes that the game deals with, but it is present in quantities enough to warrant mention. So it’s probably not a good idea to buy it for your thirteen year old nephew or niece. If there was anything in this game that made me grumble, it was the super-short length (under six hours) of the single player mode. Mind you, at least one of those hours was spent wandering around Jackie’s mansion or the mental asylum talking to people. There’s an online co-op mode where you can team up with up to three other players, but even that will only mark up the game to about seven and a half hours. If you don’t mind the length, then you’ll be well-satisfied by the crazed, bloody action The Darkness II brings to the table. Score: 7.5/10