Jackie can also summon Darklings to do his bidding. These hilarious little buggers are imps that appear out of a little portal and each of them (there are four) serve a specific purpose. Darklings hate light, so keep them out of light! Light is baaad, darkness goood!
The initial Beserker is an all purpose attack and assist affair as he can unlock doors and attack enemies, whereas the Kamikaze darkling is a hilarious bearded looking chap who is effectively a walking time-bomb waiting to go off. The gunner is a specialised attack darkling armed with a huge minigun, and lastly there is the Light Killer, whose purpose is to well kill all light emitting devices around him and can harness electricity.
The Darklings provide most of the game’s humour and can be hilariously comical at times. At one stage after a big battle in which I had used a gunner darkling, I turned around to see him urinating on a dead man before looking up at me, and running off for more enemies to hassle. It was enough to make me snigger for a good few minutes.
The Darkness has a rather nice open-ended feel to it as you are free to visit the various districts in the game, which are all interconnected by a fully functional subway underground system. You will spend a fair amount of time here, walking back and forth through various subway stations, whilst chatting to key NPC’s who offer you a number of side quests, as well as information on the game’s main plot. Sadly you cannot attack anyone in these stations with your Darkness powers, which will disappoint a few bloodthirsty gamers out there who like to cause nothing but chaos…and then later realise that they require the services of the NPC they just killed!
So your uncle Paulie wants you dead and has all his men on shoot-to-kill orders against you. He’s been slowly losing his mind lately, turning on friends and attacking his own men as he slides into madness. A few of the old school retired gangsters who also serve as your informants have stated that Paulie is slowly losing his mind and must be ‘removed’, before he kills someone close to Jackie. Throughout the story Jackie is on a mission to confront and stop his uncle Paulie whilst at the same time trying to work out the origins of the Darkness and how to stop it from making him also insane.
The shooting element of the game is a bit strange and takes some slight adapting to. Auto aim is enabled by default, which I hadn’t realised and that was enough to ruin the better part of a few levels as I was wondering why crosshairs kept auto-snapping onto my enemies. Running into a room with guns blazing very rarely works and you’ll be more or less dead pretty quickly too, so you’ll either need to take timed pot shots, or simply utilise one of your dark powers, which is a lot more gratifying.
Your firepower supply consists of a mix of dual pistols, rifles, shotguns, and Uzi’s. Your enemies are rather relentless after being shot and keep getting back up even though they’ve been shot a good couple of times in the chest, headshots are the key to properly downing your enemies, oh and ripping out their hearts…this title is a bit gory in that respect.
The main characters in this game are really well done. Jackie’s girlfriend Jenny for example looks hot, has a good voiceover actress and you really get attached to her. The same can be said for the other characters in the game. The Butcher who is the mafia’s body disposal man also serves as a key informant, and then there’s your darling Aunt Sarah amongst quite a few others.
There is a really neat early in-game moment where Jackie pops over to Jenny’s apartment as it is his 21st Birthday, so she has a cake for him. Moments afterwards she calls you over to sit down and watch TV with her, which gives you a choice - do you watch TV or just walk out and continue with your mission? If you decide on the former then you’re forced to spend a few minutes watching some TV before you earn the easiest 10 gamerpoints you’ll ever earn. Choosing the latter sadly has no affect on Jenny’s emotions towards you.
