Developer Starbreeze gets a lot of credit for its work on the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, and it's well deserved. The game managed to combine sneaking, twitch gunplay, and a compelling storyline all in one game. Now Starbreeze brings the Riddick formula of atmosphere, violence and narrative to The Darkness, a game based on the top selling Top Cow comic of the same name. Does Starbreeze still have the magic that made Butcher Bay one of the most overlooked games of 2004? Or does it fail?

Players take on the role of Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the mob who hangs unto outdated ideals. Jackie is sent on his 21st birthday by his Uncle Paulie to collect some money from a local bartender and later to do a hit on a construction site foreman. Jackie and his crew bungle the cash collection, so Paulie decides to retire Jackie... Permanently. Unfortunately for Paulie, on his 21st birthday, Jackie inherits the powers of The Darkness. With said powers in tow, Jackie sets out to repay his Uncle Paulie's assassination attempt with one of his own. But what is the Darkness? Is Jackie its master or its slave? These questions and more are answered as you play and unraveling the story is one of the most satisfying elements of the game, so you won't find any spoilers here.

The Darkness isn't a fast-paced game like most first person shooters. Jackie has a slow, methodical gait and the game doesn’t push players down a confined path of scripted sequences and monster closets. The storyline is linear and the next objective is always clear but the world is open-ended, albeit limited in scope. Players can freely explore several sections of New York and pick up odd jobs at subway stations in order to unlock extra content and achievements. None of the side-missions are particularly interesting or difficult, but they do help to build the notion that the player is operating within a living city instead of a closed-set full of enemies and scripted sequences. It’s just too bad that the explorable areas of the city are so small. It’s also a shame that the rendition of Hell featured in the single-player campaign isn’t brought up more often or offered as another open-ended area.

Once players do set about completing objectives to progress the story, they’ll often find there are a number of ways through any given situation. Going in guns blazing is usually the least intelligent option since Jackie is still human despite his otherworldly abilities, but it is possible if the player has the necessary skills to pull it off. More often than not, a mix of cunning, shadowy cover, and one of Jackie’s Darkness abilities will offer the most efficient way forward. Which isn't to say you won't be gunning people down left and right. Jackie isn't helpless and with his twin pistols, he is an expert shot. Special instant kill executions can be done if you get right up in an enemies face. You can also find a small selection of modern firearms taken from the enemies as you progress, but none of them feel like a huge step up in power over the dual-pistols.




Unfortunately the shooting is let down by some underwhelming controls. The auto-aim is a major culprit, as it’s so strong on its default setting that headshots are incredibly easy to perform. Thankfully it can be turned off in the options menu, but doing so leaves players to deal with the awkward reticule accelerating and twitchy movement controls. Those two can be tweaked in the options menu, but it will take a great deal of fiddling with several separate sliders to find a setting that doesn’t feel overly floaty or twitchy. It’s not so bad that it’s a deal-breaker, but it is disappointing given how visceral and responsive the controls in Escape from Butcher Bay were. Thankfully, navigating through all of the Darkness powers and making use of them in combat is incredibly intuitive.

Still, the selling point of the game isn't the guns, but Jackie’s strange relationship with The Darkness. His Darkness powers are his most potent weapons and his only chance at survival against hordes of enemies, but they sap energy and eventually disappear in direct light. This means you have to make sure Jackie himself is shrouded in Darkness to power his abilities. The shadows replace slabs of concrete as the cover of choice in The Darkness and almost every light source in the game can be shot out so players can create their own cover almost anywhere they need it. As such, the combat has a natural ebb and flow to it since Jackie can easily alternate between dishing out offense and hiding in the shadows to recharge his Darkness abilities and/or get the drop on disoriented enemies.