The Darkness: Heart of Darkness
Company: 2K Games
The Darkness takes the cult-classic comic series that started in the mid 90's and brings it to interactive media with a bang. It looks like your ability to control Jackie Estacado and his dark birthright in order to get revenge on his Mafia family will be satisfying to any fan (whether devout or casual) of the books. Though the developers at Starbreeze Studios had to change the origin story for Jackie a little, they enlisted the help of The Darkness comic writer, Paul Jenkins, to rework Jackie's introduction to his dark side in a way that shouldn't make fans too mad and make it better suited for video games.
For those readers unfamiliar with The Darkness's powers, suffice it to say that this Otherworld creature has many abilities that will help Jackie get revenge on his family for betraying him, and those powers are more effective the darker the area is. So it's no wonder this license fell upon Starbreeze Studios (known for Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, where dynamic and destructible lighting were a must). Here again, Starbreeze uses the destructible lighting effects to let Jackie expand the area where his powers can be effective, as well as few more features to their lighting engine that allow them to create very large and complexly lit outside locations. Of course, it isn't just the lights that are destructible. It seems like everything from the walls to the street signs and lights can be taken out (and picked up by The Darkness' tentacles) in this title.
Of course, Jackie's powers over The Darkness aren't just regulated to the giant flying tentacles he has, even though the ability to pick up objects and use them as shields while shooting his guns is pretty impressive. He can also summon Darklings to run around and cause mayhem with him. Darklings are short creatures that are born from the Otherworld. There are about a dozen different varieties of these little buggers, and as you progress through the game, not only do you get more Darkness powers, but you also get the ability to summon more types of Darklings. Much like Jackie's Darkness tentacles, Darklings don't like the light, so if you want your little henchmen (as well as your more supernatural powers) to be really useful, you will have to get in the habit of taking out overhead lights a lot.
The Darkness not only has an interesting anti-hero, and great looking graphics, but it also has a solid cast of voice-actors. Playing as Jackie is Kirk Acevedo from Oz and Band of Brothers, while the voice of The Darkness itself is done by Mike Patton from the band Faith No More. An interesting thing to note is that according to Starbreeze Studios, by having Mike Patton do the voice for the otherworldly creature, they didn't need to do any real post-processing on his voice to get the dark and creepy sound they needed. Another vocal talent of note is Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose as Jenny. The Darkness ships with a ESRB rating of M and should please fans of the comics, as well as the general gaming audience as more than just another licensed shooter/action title.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: The Darkness Official Home Page Starbreeze Studios Home Page
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