Since
the 2007 release of The Darkness, the first-person-shooter climate
has changed. In the world of Mafia-haggled mainstay Jackie Estacado,
two years of darkling denial have passed. In the real world however,
five long years have gone by, a console generation has evolved, and a
sequel, five years in the making, needs rather more weapons in its
daemonic dresser drawer than Digital Extremes' The Darkness II has
been able to muster.
It's
entirely fitting that your born-again baptism back into the
Italian-American ambience of The Darkness Universe is played-out on
rails. Schmoozing your way through the grossly opulent gangland
backdrop of (presumably) Jackie's favourite eatery, your cohorts lead
you to your table, shaking hands with old friends along the way,
while interchanging a slice of staid mob movie dialogue. Events turn
cold quickly, as you dodge bullets and suck turf, dragged away from
the fray, amid a firework display of stage-managed gunfire. A few
grim visions later, not to mention a near death experience or two,
the darkness will have you right back in the palm of its slobbery,
serrated jaw.
While
the sinister, mob-ruled world of the Darkness: part one remains, its
muted, ashen palette has been replaced with a rather more glittery,
swashbuckling facade. Jackie has undergone something of a makeover,
his poker-straight goth-locks replaced with a more ruffled,
late-nineties, Bon Jovi barnet, in black. With two years passing
since the untimely demise of Jackie's long time squeeze Jenny, Jackie
has taken on a more optimistic and brash outlook on his world,
reflected in the The Darkness II's relatively bubbly cel-shaded art
style.
Far
from fighting the mob, Jackie is now at the head of his family, in
order to survive the attempted hit, you're forced to embrace your
ungodly gifts in defence of all that you hold dear. Pressing forward
with your piranha-like puppets in tow, you'll set out in pursuit of a
mysterious limping man, last viewed amid the chaotic restaurant
scenes of the opening stanza.
As you
snuggle back in to The Darkness' familiar pattern of quad-wielding
craziness, you'll notice that the frenetic nature of the gunplay has
been coal-filtered into a warming blend of flailing limbs and flying
bullets. As before, the left and right bumpers, (or '1' buttons –
depending on your console of choice) control your free-spirited
appendages, while the triggers dictate your bullet control. Weapon
selection is neatly tied together with the relevant d-pad press,
letting you choose from one of two, one-handed weapons, or both, plus
the option of a two-hander, a shotgun for example. While much of your
blood-lust could be satisfied using only your collection of
Saturday-night specials, headshots aside, the incentive to kill with
Jackie's demonic extremities lies with an increased return of essence
compared to a standard rifle or Uzi kill.
Gathering
essence, a purple, gaseous discharge, released from each oven-ready
corpse will add points to what is an obtuse XP meter of sorts.
There's no real frame of reference for what it is meant to
encapsulate, what it does however, is act as currency to be spent at
soul wells, a kind of purple
black-hole, acting as an other-worldly ATM, at which you can upgrade
one of four available talent trees. Rather than defining your
character's DNA in the way that other games do, instead these prune
your talent trees to fine-tune your preferences. One might focus on
your weapons, while another will effect your limbs directly, the next
might increase the effectiveness of black holes and darklings (my
personal favourite). However you choose to specialise, if you spend
enough of your time performing executions, the goriest of ends to the
various stooges standing in your way, you'll build up enough
demon-dollars (not the actual in-game currency) to fully leaf out all
of the available branches. Each level also provides a small number of
collectible relics to give a shot in the arm to your available
essence, should you find yourself lagging. In truth, there is no
tangible relevance to their presence, and taking the time out to hunt
down any but the ones you stumble across is best reserved for the
cheev-gobblers among us.
While
instantly gratifying, the teeth-gnashing glee of splitting a goon in
two, or constricting and dissecting your foes, is deadened by the
speed at which these fantastic executions become habit. When
unleashed upon the world, almost everything you'll see, you'll
probably have seen in the first half an hour of The Darkness II's
brief campaign. The only real incentive to press on with these
elaborate, and relatively time-consuming moves is to ensure your
essence clock keeps on ticking. The more practical choice is often to
adopt a rather more Samuel L. Jackson-like approach and, “kill
every motherfucker in the room” (using guns – such as an AK47).
Often, grabbing a shield and a shotgun will take care of business
quicker than using your awe-inspiring powers. Taking this approach
will leave behind corpses with still-beating hearts, available as an
all-you-can-eat thug buffet.
Your
presence in the mortal realm is dictated by a healthy diet of
dismemberment and heart-consumption, each instance of amateur
cardiology restoring a tiny portion of Jackie's health. However,
should you choose to spend most of your killing time using your
serpentine extensions, you'll quickly find that the oh-so-useful
hearts stop dropping, and surviving becomes more of a chore. While
the sound of enthusiastic heart munching never grows old, it's a
shame that the more immediately practical option is to embrace the
rudimentary shooting mechanics, just to keep moving forward. When you
remove the glitter of the four-pronged assault, The Darkness II
becomes a rote, linear, tunnel chugger.
It's
not as if The Darkness 2 is without its charm. The brilliant Darkling
companion makes a welcome return, adorned in his union flag
miniskirt, gleefully pissing on the recently disassembled ensemble
from the outset, and turning the air gremlin-fart green at any given
moment. He's responsible for some of the Darkness II's throwaway
sense of humour too. Finding him humming Great Britain's unofficial
back-up anthem 'Rule Britannia' to himself, is particularly amusing.
Hearing ladies of negotiable affection muttering “Hotdog down a
hallway? What does that even mean?” while visiting a dank brothel,
go over well too. The score is another strong point, orchestral and
dramatic backing peaks appropriately, even if sometimes it is
noticeably repetitive. During the hospital scenes, tentative piano
complements a warm, pulmonary baseline. Weaponry clicks and clacks
with authentic cartoon realism, and at its best, The Darkness II has
moments of climactic, post-Gotham fusion.
Digital
Extremes shouldn't feel too bad about their attempts to keep things
interesting, they have made a good fist of blurring the line between
fantasy and reality, as Jackie awakes repeatedly in the bright-white
halls of what appears to be a mental institution, at points
throughout, only to find himself back in an unwelcoming back alley
within minutes. As the story concludes however, the density of any of
the occurring distractions proves to be wafer-thin and unimportant.
Jackie's longing to be reunited with his departed soul mate Jenny
should strike a chord, as fond memories of their time together are
brought to the fore, but these moments rely too heavily on the
poignant romance of the first game. If you sat through much of To
Kill A Mockingbird, or watched the emphatic nature of Jenny's end
while playing through The Darkness, the sense of what could have been
in The Darkness II will be palpable. If not, there is nothing to
engage you emotionally with any of the frequent faux-dream sequences,
lamenting her passing. The bigger picture suffers in the same way,
when finally confronted by the limping man, he is inexplicably
familiar with your entire life story, and in spite of the logical
reasons he has for wanting your attention, the venom of his
anti-Jackie rhetoric misses a step, somehow.
The
Darkness II is a product of good will but very little invention,
imitation rather than iteration seems to be the stock-in-trade. The
winding snake-arm set pieces of the first instalment have been
replaced with some first-person darkling plays. Much like the main
partition, these prove to be something of a one trick pony,
experienced in full within minutes of their birth. The moody subway
interactions with NPCs, while relevant first time around, take place
in Jackie's luxurious mansion this time out, but really could have
been omitted entirely. The result is damaged pacing and reduced
suspense. The Darkness II even features an attempt at replicating the
shock factor of part one, with one particular moment coming close.
Like much of its subject matter, this turns out to be little more
than a faint echo of what came before.
In
truth, The Darkness II isn't challenging as much as it is chastening,
brainless AI and flawed boss-fights, confused terrain and
chaotic scrambling for ammo leave limited chances to play out a
battle using observation, timing or method. Either that, or they turn
out to be a game of, who can shoot who the most, fastest. While when
the quad-wield sensibilities fall into place, the feeling of complete
combat exists, often this will descend into wild slashing and
indiscriminate object hurling.
A game
with a five to six hour campaign (on an average difficulty
play-through) should have a narrative that leaves you wanting more at
its conclusion. While the latter stages are a break from the routine,
beneath their shiny coating, lies a very familiar skeleton. The
particularly anticlimactic end-game is a welcome relief when finished
with, rather than an achievement to be reflected upon. A
quasi-cliffhanger ending, alluding to the possibility that a fuller
campaign was always possible but never achieved, exacerbates the
emptiness, save for one last moment of sentiment, this one worthy of
its predecessor.
The
Darkness II unleashes its fifth limb in pursuit of some interesting
multiplayer content, also playable solo. Two game modes and four
fantastic, racially stereotypical wannabes (Eastern European,
Scottish, Chinese and Black) await. Each one equipped with a
different weapon set, plus a darkness speciality unique to their
character, imagine each talent-tree personified. Hitman mode will see
you skirmish with an easily dispatchable (that's not really a word -
never use it) gaggle of goons, in a tired attempt at what is now
known as 'horde mode', before re-enacting the relative tedium of the
boss jousts you might just have been fortunate enough to have
forgotten. Campaign allows you to ride the same railroad again, in
much the same way as in the central story, but through sterile
environment and with less killer skills.
It's
great to see extra content included, and it does provide a variety of
sorts, the most enjoyable part found playing as Jimmy Wilson. His
recallable dark-axe and wilful alcoholism are great fun, as are the
developers attempts at sounding like they know what Scottish people
talk about. The additional executions available, beg the question why
there aren't more for Jackie to embrace, these limited highs aside.
Largely, powers feel limp when compared to Jackie Estacado, mostly
because limbs three and four are missing from the tertiary toons.
The
Darkness II is a game of should-have-been. Your quad wielding should
make you feel like the semi-mortal man-demon you are, the effortless
ruining of your foes should feel gratifying every time.
Instead, every bland jaunt feels like an opportunity lost. Guilty of
excess padding around its midriff, The Darkness II is equipped with
all the gameplay tools you could ask for to make a genuinely
inventive and interesting shooter, instead it reloads the same-old
rusty side-arm and fires blindly into the light, bleeding missed
opportunities and asphyxiating its victims, in game or otherwise.
Mecha
Score 7.0
A good unbiased and very informative review. I approve of this publication!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good description of the game I played it for the first time tge other day and this sums it up completely exelent frost 10 minutes then quite repetitive.