Darkness 2 Game Review

Introduction
So here’s a game which has been based on a well selling comic book series known as the darkness and written by David Wohl, Mark Silvestri and Garth Ennis.

Now lets start the review of this wonderful game which has been a breadth of fresh air to the fps genre in a long time.

Players who are worried about playing the first game to follow up the story need not worry as this game packs in a recap of sorts at the start of a new game so you will come to know the story of the first game.

Story

This game’s story starts with portraying Jackie Estacado as the protagonist who is the boss of a Mafia Family,he is also the host/wielder of “The Darkness”. The darkness is an evil entity which aims to take over the universe and is slowly eating away its hosts sanity and ability to control himself.This darkness makes Jackie an invincible force in a fight and he is literally resistant to death.

Previously,most mafia families became wary of Jackie’s powers and as to get him pinned down and to gain an upperhand took Jenny(Jackie’s Love) hostage and ultimately killed her in front of Jackie,Jenny was Jackie’s only reason to live and she was the only thing keeping him sane but soon after this event Jackie ravaged almost all responsible and took a huge burden on him(He blamed himself for her death). finally after all this Jackie was able to press down “The Darkness” keeping it locked inside him and not losing control,but as we will see things are not going to go so smoothly forever.

A new faction joins this game whose aim is to acquire “The Darkness” no matter the cost and they will goto any lengths to achieve this goal,and unlike the enemy in the first game these guys mean business and are not even a bit afraid of Jackie and his powers,they are the hunters here and Jackie is the prey.

So what happens when Jackie and these new unknown forces clash, play the game to know more!The game’s narrative is really awesome it helps the game maintain the pacing and also allows the gamer to get attached to the protagonist and his feeling.There are many more twists and turns to this story but i won’t spoil them for you

So Story gets : 8/10


Gameplay

This is the most important aspect of any game and “The Darkness 2” does not disappoint.

The developers have introduced a new element known as “Quad Wield” in this game which comprises of 2 human arms and 2 demonic arms.Human arms are primarily used for using guns and dual wielding them,but the most fun is with the demonic arms which are used for picking and throwing things and using shields and dismembering enemies,tearing,ripping,shredding,cutting,slashing and all kinds of sadistic gory stuff.This game is an ultimate fest for those who like all the sadistic gory stuff like i do .Because of all this most of my time was spent on thinking how to kill my opponents in a way to satisfy my dark side instead of focusing on how save myself from the enemies.This ultimately means how much you are enjoying the game.

Apart from Quad Wield the game has some really cool nightmare and asylum sequences(you will know what i mean by asylum sequences once you play the game).

And this game also features level up and XP system of sorts.Killing your opponents grant you XP and the amount of XP you get will differ depending upon how you killed your opponent,for eg. killing a guy with gun will fetch you just 10 XP while killing him by impaling or tearing him off will fetch you 30 XP. With all this Xp you can buy cool enhancements and ability upgrades which serve really well in the game.The game also has execution moves which fetch you special rewards other than XP like heath ,ammo ,increased power etc etc.

Now you might be thinking doing this a few times is good but doing it again n again will make it boring but that is not the case here the well designed game levels and the light and dark concept helps make this game more interesting. Light and Dark concept means you are not able to use darkness powers in light so you have to use dark areas or get rid of the lights.

You also get the ability to control your dark minion in a few stages to overcome some obstacles otherwise unreachable by the protagonist.You can also interact with most people around you in the game world.

Loading screens in this game have been replaced by narrative sequences in which Jackie narrates his story and what he is thinking to the gamer,this servers 2 purposes, to pace the game and to get rid of the boring static load screens we see in games.

The new multiplayer is very improved with multiple game modes unlike the first game which was rather boring,and another addition is the “Vendetta” game mode which extends your gameplay by many hours,in Vendetta you play as one of 4 darkness mercenaries working for the protagonist and doing his bidding(all 4 mercenaries have different set of darkness powers), this mode can be played in offline as well as online mode .

So overall the gameplay feels fresh unlike any other fps i have played.

So Gameplay gets : 9/10

Graphics

The graphics in this game are powered by “Evolution Engine”,and the graphics are beautiful,please don’t compare its graphics with that of crysis,crysis had realistic graphics and there’s a difference in something which is artistically beautiful and something which is realistic.

This games uses a hybrid shading approach comprising of standard traditional shading with some cell shading elements thrown in.The graphics in this game comprises of dark and light areas and are really well shaded and colored,the light areas are brightly lit(something like mirrors edge) and the dark areas are well dark .This game looks and feels like a comic book with all the cell shading and tradition shading hybrid approach and everything in the game world has a dark outline to it , the same as you see in comics,this was done by the devs intentionally to serve as a tribute to the comics on which this game is based on.

The texture resolution in this game is also very good considering its a direct port to PC.And i dare say this game looks much better than COD.

So Graphics gets : 8.5/10

Sound Track

I am no expert in sound department but by my many years of gaming experience i can say for sure that this game’s sound score is definitely better than what most fps’s pack these days.The sound in this game is not in the same league as that of Halo and Skyrim but it definitely fits in perfectly with the dark theme of “The Darkness 2”.

And btw im a sucker for cathedral kind of music .

So Soundtrack gets : 7.5/10

PC Performance

These days PC performance has also emerged as a basis for rating a game,unlike consoles which have a uniform hardware over the world,PC’s can have millions of different configurations and the success of game depends on how many people buy it and people buy it if they can run it on their PC.

This game is one of the least resource hungry games for the eye candy on offer,the loading sequence in this game barely takes 5 seconds at most,and there is literally no lag at all and the gameplay and animations are really really smooth.

For eg. on my comp with gtx 460 it gave an average framerate of 100+, the max fps i got was 300+ and the least was 60 so this in itself speaks about how well the game performs.Anybody owning a 9600/8800 or hd3850/3870 series card paired with a decent dual core and 2 gb ram will be able to max almost all the settings in this game out.The only thing i noticed were a few bugs like dead bodies falling off floors(this happened once or twice in the final stages of the game).

Also i would like to add this game did not crash or freeze even once.

So PC Performance gets : 10/10 (Your eyes are not deceiving you)

Concluding Remarks

Finally PROs and CONs

PRO’s

1. Awesome dark themed storyline and narrative.
2. “Quad Wield” is very well implemented.
3. PC Performance is top notch.
4. Comic-esq graphics are awesome(personal opinion).
5. Bang for buck innovative game.

CON’s

1. Really short gameplay(depends on the players playing speed but will be between 5-8 hours).
2. Animations could have been improved.
3. Few bugs were present
4. Soundtrack could have been better.

Final Score : 8.6/10 | OCF Advice : Must Try Game!

Even with all the bugs(minor non game breaking bugs) this game rocks you gotta try it,please don’t miss this game, comes highly recommended .

Hope you guys like this review.
Over and Out ghost_z.