The Darkness II

'The Darkness II is a 2012 first-person shooter video game developed by Digital Extremes and published by 2K. Based on a 1996 comic book of the same name, and a sequel to the 2007 game, it follows Jackie Estacado, who has repressed the titular Darkness entity for two years after the original, only to find himself using it once more against a cult trying to exploit the Darkness' power, and save the soul of his deceased girlfriend, Jenny.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Great voice acting with Mike Patton reprising his role as The Darkness, and giving another terrifying performance. Brian Bloom also does a great job at Jackie with him actually giving him more emotion and how one expected Jackie to act in the first game.
 * 2) Much better gameplay. While the first one could be a little glitchy, restrictive, and full of bullet sponge enemies, this one has a much smoother framerate and much easier gameplay to perform. It's also much faster paced and explains things more clearly.
 * 3) You can duel wield whatever handheld guns you want, even if one's full auto and the other's semi-auto. You also get to choose which guns to wield, unlike the first one.
 * 4) Amazing story, compared to the already fantastic first one, which takes place after the first one and focuses more on Jackie's attempts to move on from the events of the first, all while being hunted by a mysterious cult and haunted by the memories of Jenny. There's also points where Jackie finds himself in a psychiatric hospital with the other characters as nurses or patients, bringing to question what is actually real.
 * 5) Explores Jackie's backstory and his father, who was never introduced in the previous game.
 * 6) Greatly improved graphics. While the first one looked realistic, this one takes on a cel-shaded art direction which is more true to the comic books with characters like Jackie looking much more like his comic design instead of basing it around the actor's appearance like in the first game.
 * 7) New abilities for the Darkness that can be improved through skill trees that use essence from your performance in the game.
 * 8) You can control the darkness arms more, the left one can pick up and throw objects (including a car door, which you can use as a riot shield, and then throw and split an enemy in half), and the right one attacks and can slash in whatever direction you want.
 * 9) Lots of hidden collectibles in campaign and cooperative.
 * 10) A cooperative mode where you play as four different Darkness-afflicted characters and go on missions for Jackie.
 * 11) Getting exposed to light disables the Darkness and thereby Jackie's automatic healing, as well as blurring his vision and hearing, making it more important to destroy light sources.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some things that were in the original didn't return in this entry.
 * 2) * This entry forgoes the first game's semi-open-world style, replacing it with much more linear levels (with the exception of Jackie's penthouse, which is just a hub that you go to in between levels), which therefore causes the world to lose what personality it had in the original.
 * 3) * You can't summon darklings unlike the first game, and are stuck with only one.
 * 4) The game ends on a cliffhanger and its unknown whether a sequel will ever be made.
 * 5) In Vendetta Co-Op, you can purchase an ability to restore health by performing executions. This breaks the balancing since you can just rush into combat and chain together executions until you've beaten the level. The only thing stopping you is the boss fights.