As a teen, I was intrigued by The Darkness. Well, The Darknesses to be exact as I also liked the band with the same name. but let's focus on games. Something about this 2007 game from Digital Extremes seemed cool. Maybe I read a glowing review of it in some Finnish game magazine, maybe the box art just looked intriguing, maybe I wanted some edgy shit... I dunno. I didn't have a PS3 or 360 back then so I didn't actually play it but clearly the game stuck in my mind since I had to buy it for my Series X once I finally had some way to dig into some Xbox back catalog. And now that I have played the damn thing to completion I don't have to wonder what this game is like.
The Darkness is okay.
Well alright, saying that doesn't make for much of a review and one-sentence-reviews do gloss over important stuff like actual argumentative critique (who knew?). Let's try again.
The Darkness is a first person shooter with wild, creative ideas, tons of noughties edginess and pretty uneven gameplay.
In the game, you follow Jackie Estacado, a contract killer who gets framed and hunted by his mafia and police on his 21st birthday. Coincidentally, on the same day Jackie also becomes a super-powered tentacled killing machine with the help of an entity called The Darkness (voiced by Mike Patton, no less). The story is a pretty interesting and wild ride of crime, revenge and supernatural horror even though the writing is pretty bad at times. The game tries to be cool pretty much at all times and this sometimes leads to wincing at the dialog and sometimes actually works for the game's favor.
Dark, edgy story calls for dark, edgy presentation. In this regard, The Darkness more often than not succeeds. Whilst the characters have this Bethesda-esque kooky stiffness, the environments with their urban decay and uneasy feel are good at creating atmosphere. The game is fully voiced, which is nice to see, and the voice acting is mostly good with some silly overacting here and there. The music is a mix of more moody pieces for exploration and pumping metal music for action parts. The music changes dynamically, so once enemies are not present, the music quiets down and vice versa. This is a nice touch whilst not perfect in its implementation: often the music quiets down a bit too easily and starts again once an enemy comes into range.
For just flexing, I guess, the game also has a few pop songs that play on the radio in a few parts of the game. These are super catchy. I always like when developers to stuff like this. Another thing I like are fake advertisements and posters, and the Darkness also has some funny ones. There's for example, a poster for a drug-themed movie called Stampcollecting (it's a super clear riff on Trainspotting once you see it).
Jackie's superpowers give the gameplay a unique flair that sets The Darkness apart from other shooters. Jackie can call out the Darkness with the left shoulder button, and with its power Jackie can, for example, withstand more damage and create OP black holes that draw enemies in. At select spots you can even summon demon minions to help you. True to its name, The Darkness needs darkness to function so in battles you actually need to look for shadows or shoot the lights to get more dark areas.
The superpowers also are used for puzzle elements a few times. Jackie can use the Darkness' tentacles to grab onto items and also control one of the tentacles directly to sneak-kill enemies or go through tight spaces to unlock doors. These were a nice touch but not that often utilised. Controlling these puzzle-friendly powers is also really janky so probably good riddance. A few of the puzzle moments are really badly explained and are a pain to do so I had to look up a walkthrough a few times. One especially was so bad that I though the physics engine had messed something up and softlocked me in a room but no... It was just a mix of bad design and bad implementation.
In addition to to the superpowers, there's also typical gunplay that is mostly funtional but nothing special. The exceptions to this are 'executions' that you can do if you get close to an enemy (kinda like glory kills from new Doom games) and the first weapon in the game, double pistols. These pistols feel brutal to use and are surprisingly powerful even late in the game. Other weapons feel weirdly underpowered. You would think later game weapons would be better but many of these just feel a little off. The game has a quite generous auto aim, which is nice, but it can also be quite finicky at times.
Also, one thing to note is that the movement in this game is super slow. This is doesn't affect combat that much but in exploration this is pretty annoying since you need to move from place to place a lot in this game.
Even on normal difficulty, the game can be pretty hard. Enemies can kill you in pretty much a second if you end up in a wrong spot. This can be frustrating, and the autosaves can exemplify this. A couple of times I got into an autosave at a spot where there were tons of enemies attacking me. As the game can be quite frustrating, it's good that it doesn't overstay its welcome too much. I beat the game in around 8 hours I guess.
When playing the Darkness, it is cool to see how inspired the makers were when making the game. The game does a lot of interesting things but is hampered quite a bit by overall jank and clumsiness. I don't regret playing the game but it certainly wasn't a mythical classic that I sorely missed out on back in the day.
I already have the sequel bought so we'll see how I like that one when I get around to it.
