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The Darkness - Hands On Mini Preview
Chris Leyton
19/06/2007
2K Games and Starbreeze Studios' adaptation of the cult comic is nearly upon us...
Following the demise of Majesco's aspirations in the home console market, it seemed as though their confirmed adaptation of Top Cow's The Darkness was doomed to walk a lonely path through a rather fitting videogame purgatory. Fortunately for fans of the cult comic, an eager 2K Games with a chest full of cash and an eye for acquisitions soon picked up the rights to the adaptation, paving the way for the release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation3 later in the month. TVG recently took a look at a near-finished copy of the game
First-person-shooter fans unaccustomed to The Darkness will be content to know that the game picks things up from the beginning, chronicling the rise of the comic's central protagonist, Jackie Estacado. Brought into the mob at a young age as an orphan, we'll resist from revealing too many plotlines or details in fear of 2K Games' lawyers; but as you'd expect from the guys who gave us Riddick, a strong sense of atmosphere and an engaging plotline are crucial components to The Darkness videogame.
From the onset, it's evident that The Darkness comes from the same team who gave us the critically acclaimed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay. Beyond the obvious theme of darkness playing a central role, it's the depiction of a living, breathing subway full of New Yorkers that reminds TVG of the diverse range of inmates that populated Butcher Bay - unfortunately the streets outside appear far less populated. Often they'll provide nothing more then crazed ramblings or to ask you how you are, but occasionally a character will provide one of the many secondary quests that feature throughout the game. There's a high level of interactivity featured in the game, with the option to engage in street games, pay b-boy dancers to perform, dial phone numbers to unlock additional content and much more. One of the slightly more gimmicky, but nonetheless pretty neat, aspects to The Darkness is the ability to watch entire episodes of Flash Gordon from the 1950's and other films that have slipped into the public domain on the various televisions scattered throughout the game.
Style promises to ooze through everything The Darkness has to offer, aptly highlighted by the game's explosive introductory sequence that takes place during a seemingly innocent drive across New York. Oh how wrong we were. Within a few minutes you're shooting from the car whilst screaming in and out of traffic; one car crash later and the game promptly begins.
Like Riddick, The Darkness manages to draw the player in and feel as though they are the main character. There's a sense of solidity to the main character that is typically lacking in first-person-shooters, exemplified by being able to see Jackie's arms and legs along with the tidy gun motions that are in place to create the illusion that Jackie is responding to the environment. When Jackie is close to a wall, he'll automatically point the gun up and constantly move them around as he attempts to target opponents. Small, inconsequential details for sure, but they certainly help to lend The Darkness a sense of uniqueness in an overcrowded genre.
It's not long before the game challenges you to acquaint yourself with the darkness and unleash some of the powerful abilities that they grant the wielder. At the tap of a bumper button, Jackie finds himself enveloped in a mass of sinuous tentacles, looking like a deranged interpretation of Marvel's Venom. Requiring absolute darkness to manifest, any signs of light will quickly deplete the darkness energy and make it impossible to use the moves, though fortunately Jackie can take out most of the light sources with a well-placed shot. The initial selection of skills includes the Darkness Shield and Creeping Darkness, respectively protecting Jackie from damage and allowing players to take control over one of the tentacles, scouting new areas, worming through areas inaccessible to Jackie and biting the heads off unsuspecting victims. Devouring the hearts from fallen opponents serves as the means to upgrade the darkness' powers, unlocking new abilities as the game progresses. One of the first to be unlocked provides control over another tentacle, which allows Jackie to grab hold of objects in the game world to use as makeshift projectile weapons. Further, into the game, Jackie will also gain possession of the Darkness Guns... however we'll leave the details on these and the black hole until the review.
Many of Jackie's powers centre upon the Darklings, minions of the supernatural force who'll provide helpful allies with their various abilities. So far, we've come across Berserker, Gunner, Kamikaze and Lightkiller variations, all of which offer a range of different abilities for Jackie to take use of. Summoning them from portals that provide a source of the darkness, their inclusion seems to be slightly clunkier then what we'd hope for at this stage. Particularly there are issues over ordering them around, merely using the X button to give loose directions, whilst the execution of their skills seems to be extremely hit-and-miss - often a lightkiller will destroy certain lights, but sit under another until it's energy is completely depleted. There seems to be a distinct lack of intelligence to their behaviour, which relegated their use during our brief playtest through the initial chapters, though hopefully as the game develops their importance will increase significantly.
Away from the unique abilities of the darkness, Starbreeze Studios look likely to maintain their reputation as specialists in the FPS genre. With a wide selection of firearms covering present and past time periods (many of which offer dual capacity), the extremely pronounced auto-targeting system can take awhile to get used to, but it should hopefully ensure the emphasis is always on the action despite the wide range of skills at Jackie's disposal. Getting close to an opponent will trigger the execution moves, which help to portray the slightly more brutal side of Jackie as he riddles a body with bullets from short range - seems he's not just a misunderstood goth after all. Without the option to run, Jackie can take a little longer to traverse the streets of New York and other otherworldly environments then we'd imagined - perhaps he is just a mopey goth!
Multiplayer modes are promised in the final build, allowing players to compete against each other with a full range of Darklings and supernatural powers. Although we're slightly concerned this will be little more then a tacked-on option, because all console first-person-shooters have to have online it seems, we'll hold of from being too judgemental until checking this mode out in a little more depth.
The Darkness should deliver an ultra stylish and highly brutal first-person-shooter when it's finally launched later in the month. We have some issues over several 'niggles' in the game, but we remain confident that Stormbreeze will iron these out for the final release.
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