I found The Darkness to be an interesting premise. I had never read The Darkness comics; and to be completely honest I had never even heard of it before I found out that it was the basis for the game. Being the type of person who likes to try new things I decided that the premise was interesting enough to give it a try.
The Darkness follows the main protagonist Jackie as he seeks out revenge against "Uncle Paulie". In the beginning of the game Paulie attempts to assassinate Jackie. After surviving this assassination attempt Jackie encounters The Darkness. The Darkness is a type of Demon that has been in his family for generations, and with its abilities Jackie becomes strong enough to seek his revenge. I actually enjoyed the story in The Darkness; even though I feel that the story is too big for one game and therefore I feel that some aspects were a little short changed.
Easily my favorite part of the Darkness was the different type of abilities that Jackie had access to. Although there are conventional weapons, the true experience comes from the powers of The Darkness. The Darkness grants Jackie the ability to call forth demons, use different weapons, open portals and even impale your enemies with The Darkness itself. One thing I found especially interesting is the way The Darkness is seemingly useless in the light. Although the game takes place at night there are plenty of street lights that must be broken before Jackie can use his special abilities. This adds an element of strategy to The Darkness, because the overwhelming power of The Darkness can not be used anywhere and everywhere.
Unfortunately, the abilities The Darkness grants you are just about the only truly great thing about this game; and even those abilities have their flaws. When you acquire the ability to create black holes any challenge that the game offered to that point goes right out the window. Actually, in general the different abilities you have to use are really not very fun. As much as I enjoyed impaling different enemies, the feeling is short lived. About half way through the game I just found myself going through the motions. The Darkness also features some of the most repetitive environments I have seen in a while. The game will have you constantly back tracking over environments that were not any fun to go through the first time.
The Darkness reminds me of what happens when games try to be converted into movies. All the things that made the game so great are filtered out and all that is left is a disappointing feeling when you watch it. The Darkness may be a great as a comic (again I don't know because I have never read any) but as a game it falls pretty short. Fans of the comic may find something to like about this but everyone else will probably see this for what it is; a below average first person shooter.
The CEO of Nightdive Studios has said in a tweet that the game is currently on the list for a modern update.
Oh I'm sold already, Nightdive does really solid remasters, and to this day I still love the darkness
Excellent news. The Darkness is one of my all-time favorite games and the sequel is great too. I've just recently had a great time replaying them on my PS3. Unfortunately it's kinda hard to recommend them these days, because they're stuck on PS3 and 360 so a remaster would certainly be appreciated. Nightdive has been killing it lately.
Awesome, I loved The Darkness made by Starbreeze who a lot them are now developers at Machine Games . Yes , again thank you Nightdive !
Now I'm hoping they remaster more of starbreeze's games. Namely the chronicles of riddick games
Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay , is one my favorite gaming experience I ever had . Great game .!
Excellent games.
Recently ran through The Darkness 2 on PS3 again.
I hated the switch in style when it first came out but they're both amazing games.
From Metal Gear Solid 4 and Lost Odyssey to The Darkness and moreMarc Morrison counts down the top 8 games that need a modern port.
As good as The Darkness was as an action game – and it really was quite good – its most iconic moment didn’t involve dissembling mobsters.
Jesus BeaArthur, how do you have time to review so many games?!!
was my biggest complaint as well. I think I had more fun then you with the darkness powers(the black hole made things too easy) but, the environments were repetitive and confusing. I remember running around completely forgetting where I had to go at times. This made parts of the game a chore. I remember saying at times, "screw this ... I'll just do this later" and then I would get up or play something else.
I thought the story was awesome though. The voice acting really did help bring you in. I loved going to the darkness realm. I thought that was the better part of the game, I wanted to see what happened next and came back to that part I had previously thought to be a chore.
All in all, I wouldn't give the game anything more then .5 more then you did. I bought it because I play game slow and liked the demo. It's one I'll probably just trade back for another game. I was happy I played it though.
fenderputty...that is the problem with a lot of games. When you actually get into it you find out how flawed it is. That is why I try to get as much info as possible before I buy a game. Too many of them are rental worthy at best.