The Darkness II
Preview
Embrace the Darkness
by Justin Snyder
previewed on X360
Quad-wielding your weaponry
Once you are able to use The Darkness, the game’s “quad-wielding” mechanic comes to light. And it is glorious. Jackie’s guns are mapped to the triggers, and The Darkness arms are mapped to the shoulder buttons. You use the left arm to grab and throw objects, as well as grabbing weakened enemies to perform executions. Grabbing poles to impale enemies against walls and using dumpsters, newspapers and trash cans as weapons is really satisfying. Sometimes thrown objects don’t go where you are aiming, but that was a very rare occurrence in my time with the game. The right arm is used as straight melee, directing swipes with the analogue stick. You can also combine the uses of the two arms, grabbing enemies with your left arm and swiping them with the right to kill them. The executions are fun, but the offerings in the demo are not varied and the animations soon grow old. Hopefully there will be more options in the full game, but this remains to be seen.
Channelling the Darkness
All kills earn the player points, or essence, that serve as the game’s XP system. You will encounter “talent shrines” spread throughout the levels where you can level up Jackie’s abilities with things like health executions (gain health every time you perform an execution) and gun channelling (limited time activated mode where you channel the darkness through your guns for more damage and unlimited ammo). There are four sections to the levelling system, and there is a path through each one that leads to various unlockable abilities. It has a similar amount of depth as your typical action game’s levelling system.
A feature returning from the first game is The Darkling. Instead of having several different Darklings to summon, though, there’s just one vulgar little guy who takes a more prominent role in the game. He shows up early on in the demo, and can help Jackie to defeat enemies. He has some special attacks like urinating acid on them, poking out eyes with his thumbs and ripping out throats. He sometimes leads Jackie to objectives and will point out important objects to the player when they have trouble finding them. He wears a Union jack tank-top, but doesn’t speak very often (he just tends to cackle evilly). This Darkling also replaces the “creeping dark” ability that from the previous title, as Jackie can basically possess him for a short time, and the player can guide the Darkling through spaces too small for Jackie, or to stealthily take out enemies.
Feel the power of the Dark...ness!
The original Darkness was a great single-player experience even with all its flaws and offered some memorable moments. The Darkness II will build on that by finally letting us have full control of the Darkness, and the feeling of power that you have when you dual-wield your pistols while using the Darkness to impale people is astounding. Come February, we will be lining up to see if the game delivers what it promises.
