Customer Reviews

The Darkness

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I first downloaded the demo from the playsation store and couldn't put it down. I finally picked up a copy and was impressed with what else wasn't featured in the demo.

You play as a mafia hitman double-crossed and looking for revenge. Your character has also been cursed with some sort of demonic possesion, adding some extras to the gameplay. The game itself is very dark and gothic. Reminds me of Underworld or Spawn meets Max Payne. Gameplay itself pans out like a John Woo movie.

The controls are very basic, and more ergonomic than other FPS on the PS3 to date. You will need to use your various demonic abilities to advance passed locked doors or clear a path, etc. But there was never a point it became too overwhelming or frustrating. The demons you can summon are much more of a novelty. Aside from the handfull of times they are needed to open a locked door or clear a path, you can use them as a forward scout to look around corners and attack opponents from behind or flank enemies you're engaging.

The multiplayer is surprisingly good. It's extremely fast paced like Quake. By far the best feature is being able to swap from human to demon form with one button. Humans carry the firepower, where the demons are extremely fast on their feet with only a melee attack to defend themselves. Online multiplayer comes with all the gameplay you'd expect in deathmatch, team deathmatch, CTF, etc.

One final thing worth mentioning about this game is the violence. You would assume any FPS would have it's share of gratuitus violence, but this game is very over the top. Game developers seemed to put extra attention to the blood and gore spilled out of an enemy after unloading so many rounds into him. There is also a type of execution move offered at anytime you sneak up behind an unexpecting AI in the story mode. It enables a small variety of random kills like putting the barrel of your gun into their mouth or just simply unloading both pistol clips into the opponent's chest. It's very overkill and extremely graphic.

Overall, the gameplay is a very solid 5. The offline game is very addicting, and the online multiplayer is a nice change from standard FPS. The only reason I gave the overall game a 4 is because the demo was a bit misleading. Not all the gameplay takes place in a New York underworld setting. I was very surprised when it takes a turn to a completely different time and place. I much prefered the gritty shooter the game started out as. The other half played is still visually stimulating and fun gameplay, just not what i expected or really interested in.

I highly recommend downloading the demo in the very least.

Cool game, kept reminding me of the old Max Payne game especially the way your enemies hear the slightest noise from you and all come charging in and you bury them. This game is definetly an experience...get close to your HDTV and crank up the sound and enjoy. The minute you blow someone away at point blank range with your 12ga you'll be in love. Great sound, graphics and blu-ray finally comes to town with really big levels with lots of nooks and crannies. You have several powers of darkness at your disposal along with conventional firearms so it makes for a great time. This game is money well spent. Here's my beef with it. Granted I haven't played it all the way through. First the darkness creep power is too easy, it alone almost has basically got me through the first half of the game. But it never gets old so that's kind of good. Second, why do I have to shoot an enemy 37 times from 10ft away with dual handguns? Especially when they're head shots!! The only other minor thing is you can't see your health bar. You just die after so many shots. One cool thing I was really impressed with was the cutscenes! Really cool how the main character narrates and moves through the story for you. And the load screen animations with the main character are cool too. Good game, go buy it.

I am a big fan of first person shooters, mostly playing games like socom, hitman, medal of honor, etc. The darkness is the second PS3 game I have purchased, resistance being the first. I really loved this game. The graphics and music are great. The gameplay is open-ended in you can decide how to react in certain situations and can decide to take on side missions. The environment is interactive allowing you to smash and shoot stuff, throw cars, turn stuff on and off. Becuase of all this, gamers who normally don't get into first person shooters will definitely like this game.

I normally don't get into the stories in video games, but this one is great. The story is just as much fun as playing the game.

Overall great graphics, great environment, great story, great FPS gameplay. Not a long game to play, but you will want to play it more than once. Definitely one of my favorite games. Check it out you won't be dissapointed.

Forget what bad reviewers have to say on this, here's how it really is.

An OK game that can be really good if you give it a moment.

Con: you fire with the R2 buttons instead of the traditional R1 buttons. If 1/4 inch of finger placement is too much effort for you, you shouldn't own a PS3.
Pro: The R1 buttons feature different attacks so you can shoot and use special attacks.

con: Darklings aren't that powerful, helpful.
pro: this might be true in the beginning for all those that will give a game 5 mintues before declaring it a "bad game". Level up and they will level up with you. All the damage they take from light is also greatly reduced when you get the "light killer" darkling, 3/4 through the game. My only quarrel with darklings is that they'll kill innocents that you might not want dead yet.

Con:shooting out all lights. You power is in darkness so you are limited when standing in the light. Being set in almost current day setting, there are lights everywhere. And the lights respawn upon entering or exiting areas.
Pro: Deal with it you pansies. If everything in the game was set to your greatest convenience, it would be no fun at all. it was meant to be realistic, and I find it to be that very much so.

Con:loading screens and wait time is about a minute or two between areas.
Pro: a neat concept during loading screens is that the main character tells little stories or just hangs out singular streetlight purgatory. A novel idea instead of just having you wait and watch that load bar slide slowly to the right.

con: other things between action gameplay. The way things work is you go kills some people, talk to some people, kills some more people, talk to more people. This cuts down on the actual amount of gameplay during the game, and adds greatly to the "walking around" factor. you also cannot attack anything during this inbetween time in the subway stations.
pro: this is only done to increase the idea that your character is a real person with an actual live besides offing mobsters and police.

side notes: the darklings deface the dead: urinating on as well as knocking the bodies about. When you enter the theoretical hell, the bad guys have warped or skeleton like faces, and the good guys are all stitched together. Not to mention, the game flashes guys on the screen then takes them away just to mess with you. The voice of demon: darkness, is a bit disturbing as well.

personally, I really enjoyed the game. Wish it had more unlockables, and I could see an updated installment having much more to offer. Don't be pissy about the game price. I picked up a used copy from gamecrazy for less then $16 WITH the 1 year replacement warranty.

When I say this game is not for kids I don't mean for the reasons of the violence & language. I meant it in a good way because this game is for adults in respect that a child's mind would not understand some parts of the game that the creators built on. The creators were successful in their attempt of getting in the mind of the main character Jackie. This game actually reminded me of an interactive movie. **Spoilers** I thought it was really neat how they included a part in the game where you actually hang out with Jenny (girlfriend) at her apartment. It built her character in the game for the tragedy that occurs later. It was also neat how it actually included ghostly flashbacks from Jackie's childhood at the burned out orphanage. Good stuff... This game covers a lot of different themes that make it interesting. For what I mentioned above it gets 5 stars from me. The graphics & controls were good too.. Even the Imps included good comic relief..

This was not a game I originally was dying to play, but after Lair was pushed back, I was really in the mood for a new game, so I decided to give this one a try. The graphics on the PS3 version are GORGEOUS!!! I was expecting this to be a fairly mindless killing spree, but was surprised to find a great story, and characters that I actually cared about. You are also given the option of taking on several mini-quests during the game, similar to those of Oblivion. While these don't really add to the story, they do reward you with some pretty neat bonus features. Some of the complaints about this game I've heard are 1. very offensive language. 2. Darkness powers not that great 3. game too short. All I can say is that the language is in keeping with the setting, since most of the people you are involved with are in the mob. Anyone who says the darkness powers are not that great do NOT know what they are talking about. They do take some time to master, but once you do, they are AWESOME!! While I did finish the game in a week, I thought the length was just right for the story. One thing I've not heard anyone mention, was something that I just happened across while walking through a subway station during the game. I noticed a music video playing on a TV that was in a shopping cart beside a homeless woman asleep on a bench. When I stopped to watch the video, I noticed that I could change the stations. From that point on, I noticed that many of the TV's you encounter offer this. You can watch actual cartoons, music videos, and even big clips from classic movies. While in the girlfriend's apartment to celebrate Jackie's birthday, if you simply stay, you can watch the 1st 30 minutes of To Kill a Mockingbird. I am currently playing back throught the game to try to catch a lot of the other TV programs I missed, that I noticed in the game credits at the end. If you are not offended by harsh language, and some pretty bloody violence, this game will NOT disappoint!!! Go out and buy it right now.

The game was very straight forward and the scenes were excellent. The thing that held me together throughout the entire game were the tv's. The cartoons were hilarious the my favorite was the "POP EAR" video music channel with my favorite being "PELLE CARLBERG'S" Riverbank. The storyline was very well laid out.

What can I say? You are a demon wielding mob guy. You get little demon creatures with hilarious quotes. You get to stab and eat people's hearts with two demon lizard things. What more can you ask for?

I enjoyed every minute of this game. Unfortunately, there weren't as many minutes as I would have liked. I'm not a hard core gamer, but I was able to finish this game in about 40-50 hours. That may seem like a lot of time, but I usually take my time with games and do all the side quests and other extra stuff I can. If a hard-core gamer were to play through this game, I imagine they could play through the main story in about 15-20 hours.

The good -

Excellent Graphics - the best I've seen in a console game.

Superb Voice Acting - it's so good you forget that it's acting.

Excellent musical score - some very cool metal in the soundtrack, as well as other classical and ambient music that is cued to gameplay.

Easy to learn intuitive controls

The Darkling's humor - pay attention to them. Especially when you have more than one with you at a time. Their back-and-forth dialogue is hilarious at times.

Storyline - very gripping, and even surprising at times, although the Darkness mind parts felt kinda outta place.

The bad -

Too short - I didn't want the game to end, but it did - and too soon at that.

Sketchy Darkling AI - I can't count how many times I was hiding around a corner from enemies and the gunner darkling shot me while shooting at the wall where the enemies were. The lightkiller Darkling is a waste of time - there were several times when I would stand directly under a light, losing my darkness power and the lightkiller would just stand there with me. Finally, when I would shoot the light out, the lightkiller would decide that he was going to destroy the already destroyed light. The Kamikaze didn't seem to care if I was near the enemies that he wanted to blow up - pretty painful at times. The Berzerker was ok.

Those are the only things I could find wrong with the game.

I'm hoping that there will be a sequel to this game, or that at the very least, the developers will make other games like it.

Not only is this an excellent game, I got it for only $30. =)

Other than the psychotic darklings and the too-short story, this is a superb game. If it had only been about 25% longer I would have given it 5 stars.

The Darkness is one of those games that's sitting on the clearance shelves of most retailers for under $10 that not many people know about. When released the game didn't get a lot of attention and sort of flew under the radar of most gamers. I decided to buy a copy since it was recommended to me by a couple of people.

The darkness is based of a comic book series about a young man named Jackie who has demonic powers that are only usable in the dark. The darkness is a being with its own consciousness that is using Jackie as a host. Jackie has a girlfriend named Jenny that is the center of his universe and one of the only things he lives for. Jackie is part of a mob style family that is run by his uncle Paulie and from the start of the game things start to heat up between Jackie and Paulie. Their conflict is the central focus of the game and spread to involve his girlfriend and the darkness itself.

The gameplay is a lot of fun in this game due to the mix of first person shooting and darkness powers. The FPS mechanics are very solid and there are several guns to try out and use but these are not where the real fun is. Jackie's has access to a several demonic powers that are only useable while in the dark. In order to use them Jackie must be in darkness in order to charge them up so the player will need to shoot out light bulbs and smash lamps in order to create darkness. While in the dark, Jackie can regenerate health, summon creatures, impale enemies with a demonic penis (or arm), summon a blackhole of darkness, and control one of his slithering demoic snake like creatures to stealth kill enemies. Each one of these powers are a lot of fun to play around with and keep the game from getting dull.

The Darkness is not a perfect game as I did have some issues that dragged the game down for me. The first I had with the game was finding your way around the city. The directions are often vague and I was constantly wishing I had GPS system or something to help me find where I needed to go next. Second problem was the lack of direction at times. I once was stuck in a room for almost 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get out due to the game not specifying what exactly I had to do to get out of the room. My final issue was the story's pacing issues. There were some very well acted and written sequences in the game that really moved you but these were spread out really far between repetitious levels of shooting enemies.

Overall, the darkness was a fun game that is definitely worth it's bargain price of $10.The story was pretty good, but not something that will win any awards. The gameplay is a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone that likes shooters and game with super powers as you will get a kick out of it. Definitely pick this game up if you are looking for a cheap, fun time.