The Darkness 2

Before we start this The Darkness 2 review, I have to ask this question. Where the heck is my Darkness collection? The two Darkness games released during the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 era were awesome and they loved to repackage and remaster games so why did these two fantastic games get ignored? Hopefully, The Darkness will show up again, but until then let’s take a look at the less celebrated second game.

The Darkness Takes And Gives

One of the best aspects of this game and the one that came before it is the story. The story is about the head of a mob gang, Jackie. Jackie lost his girlfriend in the last game and was nearly taken over by the demonic force that is The Darkness. He manages to suppress it and things are going ok until a hit happens and he has to call on the Darkness to help him out.

The story in The Darkness 2 feels a lot more dramatic than it was before. It has a great twist where Jackie is in a mental asylum, although not as good as the War twist in the first game. Jackie has to go to hell and back and in between all of this we have a pretty cool gangster story as well. It is most certainly a story you will want to play from beginning to end.

Shooting And Slaying

The gameplay is very similar to the first game. It is mainly a first-person shooter where Jackie can make use of many different weapons. The big difference here though is that Jackie can use his Darkness powers. You have these tentacle things and they can do all kinds of different moves. Eating hearts, slaying bad guys, breaking stuff and you even have a little Darkling that will assist you. The Darkness is powerful, but it cannot deal with light, so you are forced to shoot things like streetlights.

The Darkness 2 also has some RPG elements to it as well. You have four different skill trees that you can use and you also have a basic XP system in play as well. These keep you moving forward and I felt that you unlocked things at a decent pace. The game overall plays very similarly to the first one and that was the problem most people had with it back when it was released.

Comic Book Style

One thing that is very split down the middle in regards to people liking or disliking The Darkness 2 is the visual style. It looks very different from the first game and this is because they have gone for a cell-shaded, comic book style and I for one think that it looks fantastic. Yes, it is very different from how that first game looked, but in all honesty with you, I would have much preferred that the first game looked like this rather than this one looking like the first game.

The original Darkness was praised for the voice acting and it is just as good here. The performances of the main characters, especially Jackie are amazing and it helps get you more invested in the story. The relationship between Jackie, The Darkness, and the Darkling is great and that is mainly due to how the actors portray them.

Pros:

• The story is very well done
• It has amazing voice acting
• Using The Darkness powers is a whole lot of fun
• I liked the new comic book art style that the game went for
• It does also have a multiplayer mode that is pretty fun

Cons:

• It does not change much in terms of gameplay from the original
• The shocking twist is not as good as it was in the first game