exYle
June 28th, 2007, 04:30 AM
It's funny how one review changes so many minds.
Yes, you guessed it - I'm talking about the IGN US review of The Darkness. Now Starbreeze's latest hit was getting some pretty impressive reviews, like 8.5 and 9s, and there were plenty of people interested. Then, IGN US swooped down and dropped a 7.8. Well, lemme tell you all something. IGN US does not have an entire lineup of amazingly accurate reviews. Many good games were given low scores, and many mediocre games were given swell reviews. Halo 2 got a 9.8 - way too much for this game. God Hand got a 4 - no, it wasn't a great game, but it wasn't terrible (I had plenty of fun with it). Call of Duty 3 got an 8.8 - c'mon, man! Kingdom Hearts II got a 7.6. And The Darkness, was given a 7.8.
Ah, The Darkness. One can have amazing fun with this game. Where to begin? Let's start with the gameplay. The first few minutes aren't particularily spectacular. It's just run and gun, with a fair share of auto-aim. But after about 10 minutes, your power, the Darkness kicks in. You get a spectacular display of what these freaky tentacles and snakes can do - from ripping an enemies' face off to creating a black hole.
Yeah, the shooting is pretty fun, especially the uber cinematic executions. But without a doubt, The Darkness's powers are quite obviously the main attraction of the game. Along with being a great bullet shield (you can't die with The Darkness equipped. As you get shot, your Darkness energy level drains, but is replenished by hanging out in the dark. Yes, that means you have to take out as many lights as you can), you get 3 powers:
The Creeping Dark, which allows you to extend a demon arm (a snake) and slither up to an enemy. Most of the time, he won't notice you're there. Well, until you puncture his neck with your razor sharp teeth.
The next power is the razer... something. With one button press, a tentacle shoots out and impales the enemy or just about anything. This extremely useful - you can use this power a la gravity gun to drag cars and throw them. You can use it to take out lights without wasting precious ammo. And it's funny to see an enemy taken out so quick by being impaled by your tentacle.
The final power is the Black Hole. As you progress into the game, the enemies will stop coming at you in ones and twos. They will come in fours and fives, and I believe I've seen eight mobsters shooting at me at once. The easy answer is to use the black hole. When shot, the black hole will immediately commence sucking in everything in the vincinity - everything. Chairs, tables, cars, with all go flying in. There's these very nice animations on the people as they hang on to something, trying not to be sucked in. But alas, no. They zoom into the vortex like everything else, and get killed instantly. After you press the button again, or a set amount of time, the black hole dissipates and sends it's innards flying, so if a mobster wasn't killed upon entry, he will be upon soaring into a wall. Very nice.
To get these powers is simple, by a certain part of the game, if you have devoured enough hearts of your enemies, you will get a notification saying you have received the name of the power.
But this isn't the only thing The Darkness is capable of doing, oh no. As many of you know, you can summon Darklings. What you may not know is how to summon them and the fact that there are Darkness firearms. While you have the Darkness equipped you can see several portals, which resemble white holes with tentacles reaching out of them. Here, you can summon a Darkling of your choice: The Beserker Darkling - the basic Darkling, The Gunner Darkling - A Darkling with a gatling gun, The Kamikaze Darkling - A Darkling that flings itself at enemies and blows up, and The Light Killer Darkling - A Darkling that shoots electric bolts at lights, and consequentally, enemies as well. Also, they make quite funny statements in a successful attempt to add humor to a game (I like penguins!)
There are two Darkness guns, which are always wielded together - one is pretty much a SMG. Pretty cool ammunition, but not all that creative. The second one is much more intesting - this one seems to be shooting some sort of soundwave or something, which sends the enemies flying. These guns draw ammo from your Darkness energy level, so you cannot equip them without the Darkness equipped.
There are two places where you can travel to in The Darkness. One is New York, where you'll be assigned missions to bring down "Uncle" Paulie Franchetti's business, and the Otherworld, whose purpose is very important to the story, so I won't spoil it. In New York, you are fighting mobsters, who are employed by Paulie, and crooked cops, who are employed by somebody in Paulie's pocket. The Otherworld is way different. In The Otherworld, you are basically in a ****ed up version of WWI - nobody ever dies until you take out their hearts. The Nazis are wearing a kaiser helmet with spikes, but are wielding not-so-special weapons.
The reloading system for duel-wielded guns is really awesome. Why? Because it doesn't exist. What you do in The Darkness, is instead of holding, like, 10000 clips, you hold a number of guns themselves. When one gun runs out of ammo, you chuck it away and draw a new one. If you have no extra guns, then you hold a gun by it's barrel and melee with it. This is why manual reloading is not recommended - if you throw away a gun while it still has ammo, you can't pick it up again and you just wasted quite a few shots. I found this out way too late in the game.
But with all this gameplay goodness, there has to be a bad side, right? Yeah, there is. The AI is pretty bad. I was using the creeping dark, I saw a man playing pool and a woman leaning against the wall to the side of the pool table. I killed the man. The woman didn't react. So I killed her as well. Awkward. Another bad part is the navigating. The map you are given is immensely unhelpful. So instead, you must settle with shopping mall-esque signs that show where you are and name all the streets in the vincinity. Kinda annoying when you've got a helicopter on your tail and you don't know where to go.
Now, let's move on to graphics and stuff like that. As anybody who has seen The Darkness in action can tell, this is an extremely pretty game. The lighting, the textures, the models - all amazing. Blood spews realistically and brutally. I even got to check out myself in the mirror - amazing. When I looked one way, the mirror would show my head moving. When I drew my guns, it would show myself getting the guns up. Unfortunately, when I switched weapons, the gun just randomly appeared instead of me putting the gun away and getting another. Oh well.
The sound and voice acting is also superb. The actors of choice are extremely good, as they display good emotions in their voice. I especially like the voice of the Darkness. The gun shots and metal pinging and what not sound great, and are definately a good side of this game.
On the other side, however, the animations are considerably less hot. The enemies move ok, but they die kinda awkwardly. When you're talking with someone, the hand gestures used to emphasize your words are kinda weird, and not all that great. Not to mention, lips don't move very much in the game.
And finally onto multiplayer. Now, every review I've read says that the multiplayer was tacked on, and I have half a heart to agree with them. However, it's not entirely true. Yes, it's obvious that The Darkness was not supposed to be a MP game, but it's still fun. The ability to turn into a Darkling is very useful for moving around the map and getting the slip on an enemy preoccupied with someone else. But they are horrible in combat, which makes me wonder why Starbreeze bothered to give them the ability to melee. I personally like the use them when someone is shooting me from behind. I run and they never catch up, because I'm gone so fast. The humans are obviously run and gun, but I don't consider that a totally bad thing, because the action is fast and furious.
If you go into this game after playing the Warhawk Beta or the Halo 3 Beta still echoing in your head, you will be severely disappointed. Head into MP with low expectations, and you'll have fun. Head into MP thinking it will be a POS, and you'll think it's a pretty good game.
The graphics and sound in MP are only slightly worse than the SP, if not exactly the same. Very impressive, especially compared to the teams dedicated to Ubisoft's Tom Clancy games.
THE VERDICT
Gameplay - 9.2
Graphics - 8.9
Sound - 8.5
Lasting Appeal - 7.5
OVERALL
8.5
Yes, you guessed it - I'm talking about the IGN US review of The Darkness. Now Starbreeze's latest hit was getting some pretty impressive reviews, like 8.5 and 9s, and there were plenty of people interested. Then, IGN US swooped down and dropped a 7.8. Well, lemme tell you all something. IGN US does not have an entire lineup of amazingly accurate reviews. Many good games were given low scores, and many mediocre games were given swell reviews. Halo 2 got a 9.8 - way too much for this game. God Hand got a 4 - no, it wasn't a great game, but it wasn't terrible (I had plenty of fun with it). Call of Duty 3 got an 8.8 - c'mon, man! Kingdom Hearts II got a 7.6. And The Darkness, was given a 7.8.
Ah, The Darkness. One can have amazing fun with this game. Where to begin? Let's start with the gameplay. The first few minutes aren't particularily spectacular. It's just run and gun, with a fair share of auto-aim. But after about 10 minutes, your power, the Darkness kicks in. You get a spectacular display of what these freaky tentacles and snakes can do - from ripping an enemies' face off to creating a black hole.
Yeah, the shooting is pretty fun, especially the uber cinematic executions. But without a doubt, The Darkness's powers are quite obviously the main attraction of the game. Along with being a great bullet shield (you can't die with The Darkness equipped. As you get shot, your Darkness energy level drains, but is replenished by hanging out in the dark. Yes, that means you have to take out as many lights as you can), you get 3 powers:
The Creeping Dark, which allows you to extend a demon arm (a snake) and slither up to an enemy. Most of the time, he won't notice you're there. Well, until you puncture his neck with your razor sharp teeth.
The next power is the razer... something. With one button press, a tentacle shoots out and impales the enemy or just about anything. This extremely useful - you can use this power a la gravity gun to drag cars and throw them. You can use it to take out lights without wasting precious ammo. And it's funny to see an enemy taken out so quick by being impaled by your tentacle.
The final power is the Black Hole. As you progress into the game, the enemies will stop coming at you in ones and twos. They will come in fours and fives, and I believe I've seen eight mobsters shooting at me at once. The easy answer is to use the black hole. When shot, the black hole will immediately commence sucking in everything in the vincinity - everything. Chairs, tables, cars, with all go flying in. There's these very nice animations on the people as they hang on to something, trying not to be sucked in. But alas, no. They zoom into the vortex like everything else, and get killed instantly. After you press the button again, or a set amount of time, the black hole dissipates and sends it's innards flying, so if a mobster wasn't killed upon entry, he will be upon soaring into a wall. Very nice.
To get these powers is simple, by a certain part of the game, if you have devoured enough hearts of your enemies, you will get a notification saying you have received the name of the power.
But this isn't the only thing The Darkness is capable of doing, oh no. As many of you know, you can summon Darklings. What you may not know is how to summon them and the fact that there are Darkness firearms. While you have the Darkness equipped you can see several portals, which resemble white holes with tentacles reaching out of them. Here, you can summon a Darkling of your choice: The Beserker Darkling - the basic Darkling, The Gunner Darkling - A Darkling with a gatling gun, The Kamikaze Darkling - A Darkling that flings itself at enemies and blows up, and The Light Killer Darkling - A Darkling that shoots electric bolts at lights, and consequentally, enemies as well. Also, they make quite funny statements in a successful attempt to add humor to a game (I like penguins!)
There are two Darkness guns, which are always wielded together - one is pretty much a SMG. Pretty cool ammunition, but not all that creative. The second one is much more intesting - this one seems to be shooting some sort of soundwave or something, which sends the enemies flying. These guns draw ammo from your Darkness energy level, so you cannot equip them without the Darkness equipped.
There are two places where you can travel to in The Darkness. One is New York, where you'll be assigned missions to bring down "Uncle" Paulie Franchetti's business, and the Otherworld, whose purpose is very important to the story, so I won't spoil it. In New York, you are fighting mobsters, who are employed by Paulie, and crooked cops, who are employed by somebody in Paulie's pocket. The Otherworld is way different. In The Otherworld, you are basically in a ****ed up version of WWI - nobody ever dies until you take out their hearts. The Nazis are wearing a kaiser helmet with spikes, but are wielding not-so-special weapons.
The reloading system for duel-wielded guns is really awesome. Why? Because it doesn't exist. What you do in The Darkness, is instead of holding, like, 10000 clips, you hold a number of guns themselves. When one gun runs out of ammo, you chuck it away and draw a new one. If you have no extra guns, then you hold a gun by it's barrel and melee with it. This is why manual reloading is not recommended - if you throw away a gun while it still has ammo, you can't pick it up again and you just wasted quite a few shots. I found this out way too late in the game.
But with all this gameplay goodness, there has to be a bad side, right? Yeah, there is. The AI is pretty bad. I was using the creeping dark, I saw a man playing pool and a woman leaning against the wall to the side of the pool table. I killed the man. The woman didn't react. So I killed her as well. Awkward. Another bad part is the navigating. The map you are given is immensely unhelpful. So instead, you must settle with shopping mall-esque signs that show where you are and name all the streets in the vincinity. Kinda annoying when you've got a helicopter on your tail and you don't know where to go.
Now, let's move on to graphics and stuff like that. As anybody who has seen The Darkness in action can tell, this is an extremely pretty game. The lighting, the textures, the models - all amazing. Blood spews realistically and brutally. I even got to check out myself in the mirror - amazing. When I looked one way, the mirror would show my head moving. When I drew my guns, it would show myself getting the guns up. Unfortunately, when I switched weapons, the gun just randomly appeared instead of me putting the gun away and getting another. Oh well.
The sound and voice acting is also superb. The actors of choice are extremely good, as they display good emotions in their voice. I especially like the voice of the Darkness. The gun shots and metal pinging and what not sound great, and are definately a good side of this game.
On the other side, however, the animations are considerably less hot. The enemies move ok, but they die kinda awkwardly. When you're talking with someone, the hand gestures used to emphasize your words are kinda weird, and not all that great. Not to mention, lips don't move very much in the game.
And finally onto multiplayer. Now, every review I've read says that the multiplayer was tacked on, and I have half a heart to agree with them. However, it's not entirely true. Yes, it's obvious that The Darkness was not supposed to be a MP game, but it's still fun. The ability to turn into a Darkling is very useful for moving around the map and getting the slip on an enemy preoccupied with someone else. But they are horrible in combat, which makes me wonder why Starbreeze bothered to give them the ability to melee. I personally like the use them when someone is shooting me from behind. I run and they never catch up, because I'm gone so fast. The humans are obviously run and gun, but I don't consider that a totally bad thing, because the action is fast and furious.
If you go into this game after playing the Warhawk Beta or the Halo 3 Beta still echoing in your head, you will be severely disappointed. Head into MP with low expectations, and you'll have fun. Head into MP thinking it will be a POS, and you'll think it's a pretty good game.
The graphics and sound in MP are only slightly worse than the SP, if not exactly the same. Very impressive, especially compared to the teams dedicated to Ubisoft's Tom Clancy games.
THE VERDICT
Gameplay - 9.2
Graphics - 8.9
Sound - 8.5
Lasting Appeal - 7.5
OVERALL
8.5