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The Darkness

Reviewed on: Xbox 360
Available on: Playstation 3, Xbox 360

The Darkness left me stunned, I had no idea what to expect and from the word go it hit me like a tidal wave.

Players: 1 Player
Genre:
Release: TBA

Developer: Starbreeze AB
Distributor: 2K Games

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Just recently Australia Gamer got a special invite for a sneak peak on Take2�s next First Person Action game. I headed up to the north of Sydney to drop in and meet the very humorous Sneza and Lee who would give me a quick update with the latest on The Darkness.

The story is based in New York around a mafia hitman from the Franchetti crime family, his name is Jackie Estacado.. *speaks in an Italian accent* and don�ta you a forget it. Its Jackie�s 21st birthday and the dark powers within him begin to awake. Jackie�s Uncle Paulie rules the Franchetti family; unfortunately his uncle is a despicable and disgraceful man who gives the Franchetti family a bad name. Jackie feels obliged to personally deal with his Uncle Paulie and to reclaim control of the Mafia. As Jackie continues down his path, he discovers more and powerful ways of using his terrifying powers to rain havoc and horror on those who step in his way.

The Darkness is based on a comic book created by Top Cow and written by Paul Jenkins. Starbreeze were able to gain full cooperation from Top Cow and agreed to work on the title, which could be this year�s finest First Person Action game. Although it won�t be easy to claim with competition against Halo 3 and Bioshock (another Take2 published game). This game is also developed by the same team who brought us The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.

As we get comfortable in the boardroom we start off by watching the E3 2006 and the TGS 2006 trailers of The Darkness. After watching them you�ll get a better understanding of the unique gameplay techniques The Darkness uses. Now with that out of the way, let�s get down to business.

The game shortly boots up and we begin the very first page of the chapter known as 'the tunnel'. The following will all be in game within a first person view aspect. The screen blanks out at first but slowly begins to focus in as Jackie wakes up. He�s hearing begins to focus in as he tries to listen to the men talking to him from the front seat of a car. As you he looks around you notice that you�re in the back of open roofed car as the driver pushes his way through Lincoln Tunnel traffic under New York City. The guy in the front seat gives you the low down on what just previously happened. I wasn�t listening in much on what the guy was saying becuase I was mainly paying too much attention to the nut job recklessly driving and ramming cars out of the way as he pushes through traffic.

As he�s abusing every driver, honking his horn and hitting cars on the way you wouldn�t be surprised that the cops on the side had noticed. The chase is on! We begin to pick up more speed in the tunnel as we weave through the traffic dodging trucks and blocked lanes. The man in the front passenger seat loads his pistol as he shoots at the cops behind us. We take a quick turn putting us in danger of hitting on-coming traffic. A truck comes down the tunnel at high speed and slams his breaks causing other cars to crash while one car flips right above us! We switch back into the right lane while noticing the cops gaining speed on us.

As the man in the front shoots the cops he gets a lucky shot and causes the cop car to turn into another blocking the lanes behind us. The road gets a little bumpy and causes the guy in the front passenger seat to lose his balance and hang out the side of the car. Suddenly we pass a truck at high speed as his head smacks into the side of the truck splashing blood everywhere. Jackie takes the front seat and kicks the headless man on to the road. The driver takes a quick shortcut into a tunnel which is under construction as we make our getaway. Jackie is handed a machine gun and takes his sweet time to load it because of the bumpy ride. And wouldn�t you know it; the workmen at the site take aim and open fire on us as we pursue our escape. So this is time for you to lay some suppressing fire and eventually come to an end.

Why were the workmen firing at us? Is this just normal NY behaviour or was there something plotted against these guys? There was certainly something fishy about all that.

The scene I described to you above is unbelievably awesome to witness. What I watched, listened and experience in the intro was impressive enough to be a blockbuster movie. It certainly does a great job of getting both yourself and Jackie involved by grabbing the most of your attention. What I really liked first up was the controls: the entire trip you were able to freely move the camera around but and as soon as something important happened the camera would automatically point you to the action (eg: the car flipping above your head, spotting the cops) and it works great.

The second demonstration Lee and Snezana had for show was called Grinders Lane. In this mission you had to hit Uncle Paulie where it hurts: the drug labs. Also within this mission I had the opportunity to play and further understand the new techniques introduced in this game. It starts off by exiting a subway station. I noticed somethings around the station were locked by gates which I found out later you're able to unlock them by completing a few side quests in the game. Unlocking these gates will give you other missions to help upgrade and expand Jackie�s dark powers.

The controls worked the same as any fps out there but with a slight auto aim system built in to help you shoot enemies and lights. Why lights you say? Shooting lights is a main tactic in this game which will help you charge your dark powers, confuse your enemies and keep hidden. In the dark Jackie is able to spawn two dragon-like creatures from his arms which you control as well as dark creature minions known as Darklings.

For now, Jackie is equipped with 3 powers: Demon Arms, Creeping Dark and Darkness Vision. I got to play around with two of the powers, One which would allow me to attack enemies by stretching out what looked to be a tentacle and piercing them through their bodies and the second one which would pick up large items to throw, protect or bash your way around. But don't forget you must keep your powers charged by keeping away from the light.

The Darklings are very cool, at first you start with one Darkling but you�ll be able to earn up to 12+ of those bastards with different personalities and abilities. The first one Jackie has seemed to be very humorous in what �it� did. It loved attacking the enemies by surprise and hack sawing them with an old rusty saw with a grin. Very juicy and detailed to watch, I just loved it. After reaching the last room you quickly glanced through a glass window on a locked door. There were some heavily armed men inside as well as a stack of cash on the table, Jackie�s objective was not to steal the cash.. but to burn it with a fuel can we found earlier in the game.

There were multiple ways of clearing out this room. You could either 1) Sneak around to the next room, crawl through a small crack in the wall and use your tentacles to grab the men and kill them 2) Shoot the men through the window 3) I can�t remember and Snez is going to kill me for this 4) Shoot the lights out in the room, spawn a Darkling and let him do the dirty work for you while also unlocking the door from the other side.. politely I might add. So as you can tell, the Darklings will become very useful during the course of the game.

Before I sign off I�ll quickly mention one of the coolest things I like about this game. It�s called the 'execution' as it involves Jackie killing the enemy up close in a unique and most satisfying way. When you get close to an enemy and pull the gun trigger you�ll automatically commence the execution which can vary in many ways and perform them at random.

Some of the moves Jackie performed was head butting the guy unconscious which followed up by shooting him continuously on the ground. Another one Jackie did was to stick a gun up a guys throat and blow everything to the roof (very detailed) and another one had Jackie shoot a guy in the leg then follow up with a hard punch in the face. Very Cool :)

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