The Darkness II is set to hit store shelves on Feb. 7, in all its quad-wielding glory. The follow-up to 2007’s “The Darkness,” this second installment aims to up the drama and the action. It will try and accomplish the first by making the game more story-focused. The second the game’s developers have addressed by adding two extra playable demon arms.
Okay, let’s backtrack a second. The Darkness games, for those who don’t know, are based on a series of comic books that center on the exploits of gangster Jackie Estacado. Jackie, to say the least, has some issues. For one, he’s harboring a dark force called the Darkness, which makes him exceptionally strong but has the downside of being, well, evil. The Darkness thrives off of violence and is on no one’s side but its own: For example, in the first game (spoiler alert!) , it forcibly restrained Estacado and made him watch his girlfriend’s murder.
In the second game, Jackie is still spinning from the emotional hits he took in the first installment and is trying not to tap into the Darkness’s power. Lucky for the eager player, he doesn’t hold out for very long. Early in the game, Jackie gives in and two new Darkness appendages pop out of his shoulders. Keep out of the light — by sneaking around or just shooting out bulbs — and they’ll double your options.
This new game dynamic, called “quad-wielding,” lets players fight with two guns (in Jackie’s human arms) while slashing and grabbing with the demon arms. Twice the arms, in this case, does mean twice the fun. Players can, for example, weaken an enemy with gunfire, then grab the enemy in one arm and perform a brutal execution move to finish him off. Players can collect life essence from their victims to level-up a few different ability trees for some customization.
Fans of the first game should know that this is not a simple rehash. The game also has a completely different look, moving toward a graphic-novel style of art rather than the realistic graphics in the last game. And although there’s no doubt that the game retains its gore and violence, the developers have tried to make that violence fit in with a more fleshed-out narrative.
In the hands-on session I had with 2K Games, a grieving Jackie was hallucinating and the game blurred the lines between which scenes were real and which were all in his head. He’s also recruited a sidekick — a small imp called the Darkling, who’s been promoted from a mere summon in the last title to a guide with a personality in the second.
It wasn’t clear from the small taste of the game I had how well “The Darkness II” will balance its gory shooter action with a more nuanced story, but it should be fun to go along for the ride.
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