E3: The Darkness II First Impressions

While at E3, we had a chance to check out the upcoming sequel to “The Darkness”, which was released back in 2007. Although not perfect, the original did spark enough interest in the gaming public to warrant a sequel. Developed originally by Starbreeze, and based on Top Cow’s Comic Book, the series now has a new master, Digital Extremes. This is the same studio that partnered with Epic Games back in the day to bring us titles such as Unreal and Unreal Tournament, so you know the game is in pretty good hands.

For those who are not familiar with the series, the game puts you in the shoes of Jackie Estacado, an Italian-American who’s now the Don of the Franchetti crime family based on the actions from the first game. Two years after the first game, Jackie is minding his own business when a hit is put out against him which provokes an all-out war. Barely surviving, Jackie must once again use the powers of the Darkness to find out who attacked him and why the darkness is so eager to take control.

The art style that the developers decided to go with in this game is a comic book style that they call “graphic noir”. Since “The Darkness” is based on the Top Cow Comics, the team read a bunch of them while developing the game to give it that same art style. Basically what the art team did here, was go in and hand paint all of the art to give it that graphic novel feeling. This all seems to have paid off from what we saw in the demo because it did give us a vibe as if we were flipping through the comic book. I think that it’s safe to say that you get that Borderlands feeling when looking at the visuals.

When the demo first started we were told that Jackie has figured out who had put a hit on his life and that he has tracked the ancient organization called “The Brotherhood” to an old abandoned carnival where he must try to kill the leader named Victor Valentai. One of the biggest problems that Jackie is going to have with this group, besides the fact that they want to kill him and steal the powers of the Darkness, is that they know how to actually fight it.

As Jackie started walking around and looking for a way into the heart of the abandoned carnival, he received a flash back of his girlfriend Jenny (who was murdered in the original game). Confused by not knowing what was going on, Jackie yelled out “Wait”, only to be antagonized by the darkness for acting like a baby. You quickly get a sense of what kind of relationship the darkness and Jackie are going to have as you play the game and what kind of dialogue you should expect from the both of them.

Now as I said before, The Brotherhood know how to fight the Darkness so this is going to bring an interesting element into the game. You can’t just shoot everyone and have the dark tentacles at your side rip everyone to shreds. As you fight your battles you’re also going to want to take cover and perhaps shoot at street lamps, car lights or any other light source shining at you. The light weakens the Darkness which makes you extremely vulnerable to attack, so one of your first priorities should always be to use the cover of darkness (no pun intended) in order to be most effective.

We were then shown a Darkling, a little nymph like creature which we were told plays a major role in this game. He helps you fight the enemy just like your demon-arm tentacles do but he is adds little more to that. As an example, one area where he really stood out was when we saw Jackie approach a gate, he discovered that it was locked and there was no way in. As we took cover from heavy fire from a set up ambush, the Darkling jumped into a van and blew through the gate allowing Jackie to progress further into the level.

Another part that quickly became apparent as we watched the demo is how creative you can get with the way you kill your enemies. Besides just running around and gunning them down, you now can also grab them with your demon arms, a move that is called “claw wielding”, and rip out their spine or even simply rip them apart in half. All of this can make for some pretty gruesome moments in the game as all the blood gets splattered across your screen. But in a way, I feel it helps bring across the kind of dark, twisted brutality you can expect when playing a game called “Darkness”.

The developers seem like they also had a little bit of fun with the names they gave some of these brutal deaths. Ripping out the spine of an enemy is simply called a “Spinal Tap”, while ripping an enemy in half move is called a “Wishbone”. And when you use your demon arms to wrap around an enemy until the body explodes… well that is called the “Anaconda”. It’s good to see a team have a little fun with their game, yet keep it serious enough to make it interesting.

As you kill enemies and eat their hearts (yummy! -ed), you gain what’s called a dark essence which in turn can be used for upgrading or buying new powers. You can’t just do this at anywhere in the game though, as you first have to find a shrine which is always located somewhere within the level. Once at the shrine you will have access to the talent tree which has four different branches, the ‘Weapon’ branch, the ‘Mystical’ branch, the ‘Demonic’ branch and finally the ‘Gun Channeling’. Here is where you can now spend some of those dark essences to make yourself even more powerful.

Darkness II looks like a very interesting, and dark title. With the release date schedule for this fall on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, we are sure to hear and see more of this game in the near future.