Consumes You
Killer mutant snake's that spring out of your back and devour hearts of your dead enemies? How could you possibly go wrong with that? You cant. In The Darkness you take the role of Jackie the ex-mobster, Jackie the demon spawn, Jackie the lover not the fighter. Yes, The Darkness blends a mob story with a demonic curse accompanied by a love story. It sounds like an utter train wreck but it is astonishing on The Darkness combines all of these elements into one solid story.
The story. Clearly it was the main focus of The Darkness, and it is one of the most under rated stories of the next-gen releases. The story takes you through just a mere chapter in Jackie's life where all of his different ego's clash together, wanting to rebel from the mob family he was brought up in turns The Darkness into a redemption filled story at first but it sharply turns half way through to a vengeance quest. Without spoiling anything, believe me you will want to get vengeance, a lot of it. The Darkness will consume you in it's story, you'll get attached to characters and despise others. It never once feels like there is a character that is forced onto you thanks to incredible voice acting and visual representation, watching cut scenes and ripping hearts out of your enemies never was this much fun.
Gameplay was also a big plus as the Darkness monster's added a whole new element of strategy to the variety of different levels you are taken through as Jackie. It's just plain fun watching a black hole take form and sucking all of the nearby enemies as well as objects and then catapulting them in all direction. But likewise it is equally fun to go up to an enemy and perform an execution move with your dual pistols' wielded. The Darkness does justice to the fun factor aspect of the game.
Sadly what The Darkness doesn't do justice to is your wallet. It simply is not worth $60 as great as the story may be. After your done with the story (maybe a good 10-15 hours of gameplay) the experience is just over. Multiplayer would not be successful in fooling a monkey by telling it they spent more than a day working on it. The feeling of the single player gameplay and multiplayer gameplay are two different worlds, and these two worlds should not be mixed by 2K.
The Closure: 2k really outdid itself with the story of The Darkness. But it's the only thing they outdid themselves in. With no replay value or depth in multiplayer, The Darkness is an excellent weekend rental game, nothing more.
