The Darkness

The Darkness is a first-person shooter video game developed by Starbreeze Studios and published by 2K Games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was released in 2007 in North America and Europe and it is based on The Darkness comic book series published by Top Cow Productions.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The story is pretty interesting with a concept that's unique for a game. It involves a hitman who becomes possessed by a demonic entity on his 21st birthday. He is betrayed by his Don and seeks revenge after the Don murders his girlfriend by destroying his organization.
 * 2) Instead of traditional loading screens, the game has the player watch these little one-on-ones, where Jackie talks to the player about the places you visit and the experiences he's had at these locations and his thoughts on the current situation and the people you interact with. It's a rather unique way of doing both world-building and giving the player some incite about Jackie's character and backstory.
 * 3) For the time, the game looked pretty realistic with a lot of the character models looking close to real people.
 * 4) When you kill enemies, you can devour their hearts which will increase your Darkness level. The more hearts you devour, the longer you'll be able to survive in sunlight and the more damage your Darkness Shield will be able to absorb.
 * 5) Good voice acting with everyone making the characters feel real and organic despite the wonky motion capture. The most standout, however, is Mike Patton as The Darkness. His change in tone and pitch makes the Darkness come across as this unhinged, raspy, demonic presence which really sells how otherwordly it truely is.
 * 6) As you progress, you'll be given Darkness powers which are obtained by eating the hearts of bodies with black smoke coming out of them. There are four powers.
 * 7) *Demon Arm: Jackie can conjure a giant tentacle to impale foes, move objects, and destroy lights.
 * 8) *Creeping Darkness: Jackie can send out/control a demon tentacle to scout or kill opponents without approaching them himself. The tentacle can sneak up on enemies and kill them, flip switches, and destroy locks, however, it leaves Jackie completely defenceless as he's the one controlling the tentacle.
 * 9) *Darkness Guns: Jackie can conjure two powerful guns out of thin air. The Darkness guns act as something like infinite-ammo weapons that draw upon your Darkness Energy instead of physical ammo. There are two of them, both shaped like pistols: the one on the right will fire small bolts of darkness, and acts like an SMG, while the one on the left will fire something similar to a sonic boom and kill most enemies on impact and damaging everything in a small area. This power also comes with a downside as the ammunition is dark energy which The Darkness requires in order to manifest itself. Use of the guns can cause the Darkness to withdraw much quicker when exposed to a light source as a result.
 * 10) *Black Hole: This allows Jackie to conjour a black hole which will suck up objects and enemies, killing them instantly. A great thing to use when needing some crowd control,. However, it takes up all the darkness power and will thus cause the Darkness to retract.
 * 11) You can summon what's called Darklings, which are small creatures who can help Jackie.
 * 12) *Berserker: It can be equipped with a weapon if you find the clothing sets, but they have sharp claws and teeth by default which make them a more savage darkling compared to the others. They use their claws to rage at enemies and then finish them of with their teeth.
 * 13) *Kamikazie: It is equipped with TNT which they use to blow themselves up when they get near a group of enemies. Kamikazes wear top hats and trench coats, and scuttle around with TNT on their back waiting for you to tell them where to go to next. They are useful for missions where you have to blow something up to go through, but mostly to deal with a large group of enemies.
 * 14) *Gunner: Is equipped with a mini-gun that they carry on a sling on their back. Gunners wear a vietnam military type of uniform covering all their body. Gunners shoot at a medium distant range. They are great backup when there's a lot of enemies around.
 * 15) *Lightkiller: Their almost sole purpose, besides sometimes powering up generators, is to take out lights for Jackie so he can gain more strength. This doesn't mean, however, that they don't have any offensive capabilities. They can zap enemies within close or medium range. They wear a white shirt similar to a straight jacket and are equipped with a car battery used to release an electric shock from their bodies.
 * 16) Unlike other shooters at the time, the game isn't entirely linear, but instead a semi-open world where you can go to specific locales with the subway station working as a hub.
 * 17) The game also has world-building to it by having side quests and by not giving the player the exact way to go, but by instead having them look at things like tourists maps and street signs to find the place you're looking for like in real life.
 * 18) The main collectible of the game is phone numbers. Throughout the world and as a reward for completing sidequests, you can get scraps of paper with a phone number which you can call using the phones in the Subway. These phone numbers can range from ads from local bussinesses to random people like a conspiracy theorists. Calling these numbers (and finding letters when in the Otherworld) will unlock extra content. This includes videos from the developers, concept art, and even the comics the game is based on.
 * 19) During the story, Jackie will die and end up in the Otherworld. This is a place where the Darkness sends Jackie's soul to reside while it "puts him back together". This world is a hellish version of World War I and includes lots of nightmarish imagery inspired by the art of Polish artist: Zdzisław Beksiński. It is also where Jackie learns more about the Darkness itself and how to control it.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Given that this was one of the first console exclusive shooters, many aspects haven't aged well.
 * 2) *The game tries to go for a realistic artstyle which at the time was pretty impressive, however, the game looks pretty cheap by today's standards with the characters particularly have what looks like rubbery skin.
 * 3) *The motion capture. Most of the characters don't show more than one facial expression making a lot of the characters seem lifeless most of the time. The movement is also rigid which makes them feel closer to robots.
 * 4) *The game has A LOT of loading times which gets really repetitive when doing side-quests.
 * 5) *The gameplay.
 * 6) **Jackie doesn't have a lot of health and dies pretty quickly when not using the Darkness. But even with it, your health drains quickly which leads you to have play the game more like a cover shooter.
 * 7) **The SMGs and shotgun are somewhat weak. You can fill an enemy with seemingly hundreds of SMG rounds and it won't kill them. The shotguns damage is seemingly RNG since sometimes you can kill enemies with one shot, other times it takes two.
 * 8) **There are many times where you have to shoot an enemy from far away, the problem is that there is no sniper in the game and the AK and M16 aren't very accurate when shooting from far away.
 * 9) **The movement is somewhat stiff and makes strafing hard since you don't move all that fast.
 * 10) Despite not being mute, Jackie never once speaks to or shows any emotion outside of conversations or the one-on-ones he has between sections. This is especially jarring when you realize that Jackie never once interacts with the Darkness itself. You'd think a man that was forced to watch his loved one die because the demonic entity refused to let him intervene would have a few words to say, but no.
 * 11) While everyone does a good job and fits there role, Kirk Acevedo (Jackie) doesn't really give much emotion until the game needs it. It's possible the developers were going for a more soft-spoken protagonist.
 * 12) The Black Hole power is overpowered since you can conjure one up virtually anywhere and it instantly kills enemies.
 * 13) The only thing you get from doing side quests is phone numbers which can make it not worth the trouble of having to keep seeing the same recycled load screens every time you have to go from one area to the next.

Reception
The Darkness received "favorable" reviews on both platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

The Darkness sold over a million units worldwide.

Controversy
The Media Development Authority of Singapore previously banned the game for excessive violence and religiously offensive expletives.

Videos
9qdQ9Rvj53o 4xlkcNoDpAs XrK3Xpu3eR0 EarELtAAwOo