Is The Darkness 2 Getting Overlooked?

I would say it's easily the best story in a FPS this year, and I usually don't care about story in games. The graphics are great on an artistic & technical level, plus the gameplay is very fun. After hearing all the GOTY podcasts here and seeing many of the top 10 lists I was kinda surprised I haven't seen it mentioned. Do you think it has to do with the early release date, because the first one was sub-par, or you agree it shouldn't get any acknowledgement?

I think it might get some honorable mentions, but there were a lot of indie and PC titles that the Giant Bomb staff have been favoring. I don't think it will make the cumulative top 10.

I'm not sure it would make many top10 lists but it came out so early it probably is being forgotten.

Personally I loved it. Played great and the story was solid.

Amazing game.

It's a great game... But it doesn't have a lot to offer. Hell, I really liked that game and wanted more but it took me only 11 hours to get every single achievement in the game. Still, great game, just not GOTY material in my opinion.

I'm a huge Darkness comic fan and I really liked Darkness 2, but I don't really think it deserves any GOTY awards. Maybe best opening if there was one for that.

@JamesJeux007 said:

It's a great game... But it doesn't have a lot to offer. Hell, I really liked that game and wanted more but it took me only 11 hours to get every single achievement in the game. Still, great game, just not GOTY material in my opinion.

If this was a great year in gaming then I might agree, but I think it was far from that. If I had to pick between Darkness 2 being in the top 10 or at least being mentioned in the top 10, or Syndicate, Dishonored, AC3, Zombie U, Spec Ops, and other games I've seen mentioned on this site and others, I'd definitely pick Darkness 2 over them. In a normal/good year Darkness 2 might be outclassed by the big boys, but not this sub-par year.

I think so. I thought it was fantastic.

The Darkness II is kind of occupying an 11th or 12th spot in my personal Top 10 list. I liked the game an awful lot, but this year was surprisingly full of games I was very fond of. It would almost certainly make my personal top 20, but I've got at least 10 other games ahead of it. Which, in this case, definitely doesn't mean it wasn't great -- because it was.

It is a great game overall and I had a lot of fun playing it but judging the top 10 by Giant Bomb shooters in general took a back seat in favor of indie/downloadable games with only 3 FPS games that made the list.

@Deathstriker said:

I would say it's easily the best story in a FPS this year, and I usually don't care about story in games. The graphics are great on an artistic & technical level, plus the gameplay is very fun. After hearing all the GOTY podcasts here and seeing many of the top 10 lists I was kinda surprised I haven't seen it mentioned. Do you think it has to do with the early release date, because the first one was sub-par, or you agree it shouldn't get any acknowledgement?

A game with a heavily choreographed "twist" and a cliffhanger ending is a good story? Did we play the same game?

@wemibelec90 said:

@Deathstriker said:

I would say it's easily the best story in a FPS this year, and I usually don't care about story in games. The graphics are great on an artistic & technical level, plus the gameplay is very fun. After hearing all the GOTY podcasts here and seeing many of the top 10 lists I was kinda surprised I haven't seen it mentioned. Do you think it has to do with the early release date, because the first one was sub-par, or you agree it shouldn't get any acknowledgement?

A game with a heavily choreographed "twist" and a cliffhanger ending is a good story? Did we play the same game?

Spoilers:

I was fine with the twist, the light (or whatever it was called) possessing Jenny makes sense considering both of them were inside the darkness at the same time and they said it needs a female host while the darkness needs a male. The way they handled the villain, mental ward flashes, and other aspects were great for a shooter. I have no problem with a game ending on a cliffhanger as long that particular part of the story feels complete, which it does here. A bad example of that would be AC3 and how things end with Desmond. If this didn't have the best story in a FPS this year what did? Since you apparently disliked the story here.

Hell of a game, loved my time with it. Plenty of memorable moments and a well designed combat system (considering how much stuff you can do).

Nah. It was OK.

@Deathstriker said:

Spoilers:

I was fine with the twist, the light (or whatever it was called) possessing Jenny makes sense considering both of them were inside the darkness at the same time and they said it needs a female host while the darkness needs a male. The way they handled the villain, mental ward flashes, and other aspects were great for a shooter. I have no problem with a game ending on a cliffhanger as long that particular part of the story feels complete, which it does here. A bad example of that would be AC3 and how things end with Desmond. If this didn't have the best story in a FPS this year what did? Since you apparently disliked the story here.

I agree that stories in FPS games haven't been great this year, but I would easily vote for Halo 4 or even Borderlands 2 as having a better story than this. It's not that I absolutely hated it; I just felt all the story beats were easy to see coming (and rather cliche) and the ending really rubbed me the wrong way when I saw it. I disagree with your belief that this part of the story feels "complete." Just when we get to see the whole "light" thing come to fruition and just when we save Jenny, the whole thing ends. I haven't been so annoyed by a cliffhanger ending since Halo 2...

Agree, one of my 10 best. It's just solid all the way around. Great story, characters, and terrific gameplay. I don't think the early release date is what hurt it, because there's been plenty of talk about Mass Effect 3 and Spec ops :the line, which both came out early. I think the Darkness 2 should be commended for being the sequel of the year. I think eveyone can agree that Mass Effect 3, and Assassins Creed 3 were a step backwards from and not as good as ME 2 and AC 2; plus Borderlands 2 and Halo 4 were good but pretty much more of the same. "The Darkness 2" is much better than the first game in every way, and should be getting more recognition.

I haven't played it yet, but I felt that the first Darkness game was tremendously overlooked, so I'm not surprised. That game is still probably in my top 10 from this gen.

I didn't think it was that good, it was also PAINFULLY short, took me about 3.5 hours. I also didn't think the story was that good, don't remember all of it but the first Darkness was much better at its time. 

@wemibelec90 said:

@Deathstriker said:

Spoilers:

I was fine with the twist, the light (or whatever it was called) possessing Jenny makes sense considering both of them were inside the darkness at the same time and they said it needs a female host while the darkness needs a male. The way they handled the villain, mental ward flashes, and other aspects were great for a shooter. I have no problem with a game ending on a cliffhanger as long that particular part of the story feels complete, which it does here. A bad example of that would be AC3 and how things end with Desmond. If this didn't have the best story in a FPS this year what did? Since you apparently disliked the story here.

I agree that stories in FPS games haven't been great this year, but I would easily vote for Halo 4 or even Borderlands 2 as having a better story than this. It's not that I absolutely hated it; I just felt all the story beats were easy to see coming (and rather cliche) and the ending really rubbed me the wrong way when I saw it. I disagree with your belief that this part of the story feels "complete." Just when we get to see the whole "light" thing come to fruition and just when we save Jenny, the whole thing ends. I haven't been so annoyed by a cliffhanger ending since Halo 2...

Halo 4 has some good emotional scenes every now and then, but them not even bothering to introduce the villain, say why they're other spartans now, or why they're fighting the covenant again was downright incompetent. I know the terminals and books help with those questions, but they're not in the game so they don't count. Borderlands 2 barely has a story beyond "stop Handsome Jack". I will give it props for killing certain main characters, but other than that, I never once cared or thought about the story.