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The Darkness


Hero-of-Time

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Darkness.gif

 

On his 21st birthday, the awesome and terrible powers of the Darkness awaken within Jackie Estacado, a mafia hitman for the Franchetti crime family. With his new powers, Jackie is able to wreak terrifying havoc on his enemies. Jackie must learn to fully command the Darkness so he can take back control of the Franchetti family, which is ruled by his uncle Paulie, a despicable man who is almost universally despised.

 

 

Features

 

-Based on the comic book The Darkness, created by Top Cow.

 

-Game story written in collaboration with acclaimed comic author Paul Jenkins

 

-Experience extremely intense cinematic action in this gritty, first-person, action-adventure game with a horror twist: you are the horror!

 

-Varying manifestations of the Darkness allow you to devour, impale or implode your enemies.

 

-Cannibalise the corpses of your slain victims and transform them into Darklings, impish and hilarious demonites that commit unspeakable acts.

 

-The absence of light feeds and replenishes the Darkness so seek the shadows wherever possible.

 

-Fight your way through the dark and seedy underbelly of New York City as well as the ethereal realm of the Darkness.

 

-Play as Darklings in online multiplayer games and face other players in traditional multiplayer modes as well as all-new innovative game modes.

 

-Developed by the team behind the award winning, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.

 

Preview

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player.php?id=20455&type=mov&pl=game

 

I remember Flinky saying awhile back that we should start using the other console board more, kind of like what the Wii board is like with a topic for all the major games rather than crammed into the 360 Discussion.

 

Takeo and Daft have started it off well with 2 of the up and coming big games for the 360 so I thought I would set one up for the next big hit which arrives next week....The Darkness.

 

Discuss away!

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Heres a review from 1up...

 

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3160484

 

If you'd have guessed a few years ago that in 2007, Splinter Cell would feature a fugitive on the run out in the open, while the latest summer blockbuster action game would have players battling in shadows, you'd have been called some filthy names around these parts. It's not like the concept makes sense -- shadows are for hiding, not fighting. Right?

 

The Darkness -- developer Starbreeze's follow-up after making its name with The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay -- is a first-person shooter where you use the lack of light to your advantage. You play Jackie Estacado, who quickly earns the ability to generate semisentient tentacles from his back, Doc Ock-style. But to make this happen, you have to spend a few seconds in a dark area -- and you're going to want to do this a lot, because the tentacles give you some pretty amazing powers. They allow you to create black holes that suck in enemies and toss them around like they're in a giant blender, take out lights in a stabbing motion, sneak ahead and along walls like a snake to areas you can't reach on foot, pick up and toss around objects, and so on. On top of this, when you have the tentacles "on," you can absorb a lot more bullets than normal, so you're going to want to fill up your Darkness powers frequently.

 

It's this concept of creating shadows and moving into them to fill up your powers that determines the flow of the game. If you see a door up ahead, you're going to want to take out all the lights near the doorway to prepare. By the time you earn the black hole ability late in the game, you feel like a total badass walking into a room -- step inside, point at a group of enemies, and shoot the hole their way to watch them flail around helplessly. But once you use up all of your Darkness power, you have to wait and refuel in the shadows; even though there are plenty of chaotic scenarios, it never gets to the point where the game breaks. You can also use this power to spawn Darklings -- demonic critters that attack on your behalf -- from various points in the environment, so you can prepare a nice little team before entering some of the more challenging areas.

 

With this kind of setup, you may be expecting a full-on shooter, and while that description isn't terribly inaccurate, The Darkness features more downtime than you might expect. Moments like taking the time to sit on a couch and snuggle with your girlfriend and visiting your aunt remind me more of something like Indigo Prophecy than anything you normally see in shooters, and the open city requires you to spend a decent amount of time traveling through different parts of town using the subway system.

 

Like Riddick, the main story here won't take you long to get through (it's in the 10-hour range), but because of the game structure, you can spend time getting lost and messing around in the wrong parts of town if you choose. There's not a ton to do besides receiving "track this item down" missions from characters in subway stations and using your tentacles to pick up objects and mess with the game's physics -- this isn't the easiest thing to do if you're the type who likes to stack objects in piles and then use those to climb to secret areas, but it works and occasionally rewards you with bonus collectibles. But the feeling of running around town works pretty well, and you really get to know this version of New York by the end of the game.

 

The Darkness takes place in more than just New York, but to say more would be to spoil a decent amount of the story, so I'll stop there. Rest assured, the game has two basic locations, and they couldn't look or play out more differently from one another. You bounce between the two areas, leading up to an impressive finale.

 

The game has its share of minor flaws, though: progression issues (the quality of the boss fights is all over the place, and some areas of the city feel underused), an overall sense of awkwardness to the characters, and multiplayer that feels a bit loose. Also, characters talk with their hands, so instead of standing around when giving a speech, they provide lots of hand gestures. It's a nice idea that occasionally seems to work, but overall it just looks goofy -- especially since a lot of the time, these characters bounce from running around, firing their guns to standing 100 percent still and communicating with hand gestures.

 

The Starbreeze team inadvertently admits that multiplayer shouldn't be taken too seriously, as this mode relies on a gimmick: the ability to shapeshift from a human to a Darkling. As a Darkling, running up walls and jumping -- far -- feels amazing, and it's fun to be able to control these creatures directly, since you can't in single-player. But their clawing melee combat feels loose, and the humans aren't terribly interesting either, since they just feel like weak versions of what you get in the single-player game. For what it is, it's somewhat digestible fun, but it's nothing you should look to as the next big online console game.

 

Perhaps because I've already played a somewhat similar game in Riddick, The Darkness doesn't give off quite the same "this is amazing, and you absolutely must play it" vibe that Riddick did. But it also feels like a more polished game, and the base mechanics work extremely well by the time you reach the end of the single-player campaign. It doesn't quite have Riddick's pacing, due to the open city that asks you to find your own way through, but it presents a better feeling of accomplishment and familiarity by the end.

 

SCORE 9.0

 

Also another video for everyone to enjoy.

 

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/20815.html

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Loving the tellies, spent ages flicking channels on one before settling down to an episode of Flash Gordon.

 

LMBO you done the same as me. I was loving seeing the old skool Flash Gordon series.

 

Just upto where I need to burn someones cash, got the petrol but havent a clue where to go next.

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Is anyone else having problems with the achivements? At one point i got past a save checkpoint, died a little further on and reloaded. When I got to just before where I died, it added another save point and a few achievements that it didn't give me before. I've also just got past the 2nd part of the game, and it hasn't given me an achievement for that either.

 

Just upto where I need to burn someones cash, got the petrol but havent a clue where to go next.

 

I can't remember where the exact room is, but it's behind one of the large shutters, before you get to the corridors leading outside. The door should be locked, and there's 2 goons inside. Take care of them, shoot out the light outside the room, then use your crawler to go through the small window and smash the lock from the other side. The money's in there. Oh, and there's a gasoline tank that you'll need in the small hut outside, next to that area. Hope that helps!

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I can't remember where the exact room is, but it's behind one of the large shutters, before you get to the corridors leading outside. The door should be locked, and there's 2 goons inside. Take care of them, shoot out the light outside the room, then use your crawler to go through the small window and smash the lock from the other side. The money's in there. Oh, and there's a gasoline tank that you'll need in the small hut outside, next to that area. Hope that helps!

 

Cheers bud, I had the Gas already but I couldnt find the cash. I really should stop shooting out all the lights as im clearly missing things that are in my face lol. Thanks again.

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This is easily one of the best 360 games i've played. It's literally kept me glued for two hours straight, i've had to tear myself away from it.

 

Graphically amazing and so many interesting ideas and extras etc..

 

Worth the wait.

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Mines been delivered so looking forward to having a go later and playing through it properly over the weekend.

 

Well played through a little of it and I do like it, but I'm so bad at FPS'. Got to the graveyard bit at the start and kept getting killed. The 3rd time I tried I got shot twice and it was game over. What's all that about?

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I have just tried playing multiplayer on this and its pretty bad, very laggy.

 

Also, been playing some more of single player mode and its starting to get annoying having to go from train to train to get to progress the story. I agree with alot of the reviews, it isnt as well paced/setout as what Riddick was. Im still enjoying it though and I jumped a few times when I was in Hell due to the random pop ups from German soliders.

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