You Need Me, Jackie!
Page: 1/2
Supplier: 2K Games
Reviewed By: Rogue5
Price: $59.99 (MSRP)
Untitled Document
It’s rare to find an innovative game in the very crowded
FPS genre. In a way, that’s actually what makes great FPS games so special;
their ability to simmer up to the top of some many competitors. Equally difficult
is finding a new intellectual property that holds enough substance and richness
to make an appealing story for a game. Surprisingly, Starbreeze Studio’s,
The Darkness, for Xbox 360 and PS3 is an FPS that offers more than enough original
gameplay elements that it easily outshines many other action FPS games on all
next-gen platforms.
Starbreeze is most widely known for their Xbox game, Chronicles
of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which was also a unique FPS that received
critical acclaim. This time around Starbreeze called upon the revered Top Cow
comic series as the basis for a distinctive FPS. After playing the game, I can
say wholeheartedly that they chose wisely.
The basic premise for The Darkness is that there is an ancient
evil that requires a human host in order to manifest itself in the physical
world. The host in turn receives supernatural powers, most obvious of which
are giant scorpion/monster-like appendages with incredible strength. As the
host, The Darkness won’t let you die either (hence your ability to respawn)
and also allows you to call on its minions, known as Darklings, to help you
kill any opposition. As a result of killing, the Darkness becomes stronger,
eventually allowing you to level up all of the acquired special powers. On top
of that you also have different paranormal attacks, like the ability to start
small black holes which crush any enemies/lights within range.
While this may seem mundane for the average person, the character
you play as, Jackie Estacado, happens to be a hitman for the Franchetti Family.
When Jackie’s power-hungry Uncle Paulie (the family Don) decides to try
and kill Jackie, there ends up being an army of goons trying to kill you. Little
does Paulie know that his nephew was recently imbued with the Darkness powers,
and by trying to kill Jackie, he was basically signing his own death warrant.
Needless to say, the story’s many twists and turns add greatly to the
game’s overall radicalness.
The only catch with the evil entity known as the Darkness is
that, as the name suggests, it doesn’t like light. As such, you’ll
actually lose health if you’re exposed to light sources while your Darkness
powers are activated. It’s the combination of different powers as well
as the need to stay within the shadows that gives the Darkness an additional
layer of depth that traditional FPSs don’t have. Using your abilities
to turn off lights or just hiding in the dark to recharge your health is not
only necessary on the harder difficulties, but actually paces the game out rather
well. Plus everything that comes with the Darkness, which includes some pretty
ambitious powers (like the ability to have one of your Darkness appendages scale
walls and/or perform stealth kills), just works.
