Reviews// The Darkness II

A few hours in, supernaturally powered up baddies pop up and the difficulty level takes a sharp upturn. Indeed, there were sections where the increased ability of enemies to shoot me in the face felt a little unbalanced, but on balance I'd have to say that the difficulty fell short of overly-punishing.

The use of light also gets more interesting. (If you couldn't be arsed with the preview/didn't play the first game – the Darkness doesn't handle light very well. While exposed to direct light you can't use your Darkness powers, you won't recover from damage and you won't be able to see much of anything). Where in earlier parts of the game you just need to keep an eye out for lights and shoot them out before you can be corralled or drawn into a bright spot, later on enemies start using it against you and things can get really frantic. Spotlights are shone on you and flash grenades are hurled your way, with the blinding effects doing a very good job of promoting panic.

Although pains have obviously been taken to avoid bog-standard, massive-demon style boss fights, the boss encounters do have a slightly old-school feel to them. They can also feel a little frustrating, but not quite frustrating enough to make them a major grievance.

The plot deserves a mention. It's not one of those 'omg, storytelling in video games has finally come of age!' plots, but Paul Jenkins (who's had a lengthy run writing the comics) has done a pretty solid job of crafting something entertaining, complete with enjoyable characters. It's a shame that their mouths don't do a very good job of matching the sounds coming out of them...

Minor lip-sync gripes aside, The Darkness II is a good-looking game. Digital Extremes has put aside the bid for realism Starbreeze made in the first game in favour of a cel-shaded look in the vein of Borderlands. It's a nice nod to the game's comics' origins, and it does a fair job of maintaining the... 'adult' feel of the franchise. The game doesn't have quite the same atmosphere as its predecessor, but you couldn't really accuse it of being sanitised.

Vendettas is a co-op mode that complements the main campaign nicely. Svend's spent a fair amount of time writing about it here, so I'm not going to go on. I will say, however, that it makes a nice counterpoint to playing as Jackie. It focuses on volume of enemy rather than making them tough. Vendettas is faster and more frenetic as a result.

Pros:
+ Strong blend of shooter and brawler gameplay elements.
+ Interesting use of light, which offers depth beyond your bog-standard kill-'em-up.
+ Vendettas offers a different flavour of gameplay.
+ Strong story.

Cons:
- Less atmosphere than the first Darkness game.
- Occasionally lacks balance.

SPOnG Score: 8.5/10