The Darkness II is a ten year old reminder of games that no longer exist
Contemporary video games could use more than schlock. In the age of Sony prestige, grimy exploitation revenge (see Terminal of The states: Part II) also equally gory sword and sorcery (meet God of War) get advertised equally high art. Even when schlock does show up, it tends to exist arch or overly self-aware, cheapening the outcome. In some sense, there are more small-scale video games than e'er, but "B" games have practically ceased to exist.
x years ago, these kinds of games were on the pass up. The side by side console generation loomed. Time devouring titles similar Destiny were but on the horizon. In retrospect, information technology'south very piece of cake to see the shape of games to come. Increased hardware capabilities means increased manpower and fourth dimension spent on game product, which means fewer games get fabricated, which means every title has to be a huge return on investment. At the time though, the time to come probably felt more than open.
The Darkness Two concludes with a sequel tease, a large bet that never paid off. But fifty-fifty before its ill-advised end, it feels like a game caught between past and futurity. It's a linear, level-based first-person shooter, based on an infrequently remembered comic book, with but 3rd amounts of lore. These games just don't exist anymore. Despite The Darkness II's multitude of flaws, it makes me miss them.
This sequel picks upwardly shortly later the last game. Jackie Estacado is the head mafioso of a cartoonish Italian crime family. With the help of The Darkness, an ancient demonic strength inherited from his male parent, he killed all who stood in his way, but only after his beloved goth gf Jenny died. For two years, Jackie has kept the Darkness suppressed in the chambers of his heart. After a mysterious Brotherhood attempts to take his powers from him, information technology awakens again. Jackie's quest for answers will drive him into the shadows of conspiracy and into the heart of The Darkness itself.
The result is an extraordinarily goofy and cartoonishly gory FPS. In addition to Jackie'south dual-wielding mafia ways, The Darkness calls up two demon heads. The left one can grab far away items, eat hearts to recover health, and scoop upwardly vulnerable enemies. The correct tin slash obstacles, and slice upward foes. This is arguably where the game is the most forward-looking. It shares a surprising amount of Dna with Doom (2016), for example, relying on weakening enemies to perform executions that will grant ammo or health. It also has tech trees and collectibles for upgrading abilities.
At first glance, it is overstuffed, but it ends up feeling surprisingly elegant. Every single power has clear use and I ended up using all of them. It helps a great deal besides that none of the upgrades are vague per centum points on stats, just rather divers abilities that change how i plays. It also helps that the main method of getting upgrade points is killing enemies. Executions and eating the hearts of tough enemies will grant higher scores, assuasive you to spend more than on a darkness power afterwards on. It adds a layer of meta decision-making that gives even pocket-size encounters some fun weight. The game is as well accordingly grimy, taking a sadistic glee in the dismemberment of human beings that I honestly find kind of refreshing. Gore can be fun.
Frame for frame, The Darkness 2 looks better than its predecessor, forsaking desperately aged Xbox 360 realism for a cell-shaded mimic of its comic book origins. The animation is sometimes stilted, but it rarely ventures into the uncanny. The backdrops are legitimately gorgeous. They are a painted blue, New York starry night, melancholy and moody. In trade, though, the sequel loses the hazy surrealism of its predecessor. The previous game's WWI sequences, in which Jackie attempts to go the darkness under control by diving into the trauma nightmares of his veteran granddad, are stark and haunting. It pulls on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as much as the hazy horrorscapes of the first ii Playstations. For a minor Xbox 360 shooter, the game conjures some legitimately frightening and unsettling images. This game'southward replacement is an asylum, where the game pulls some forgettable and ablest "what is existent" pastiche. It's a far less striking setting, and the game feels that loss at every plow.
The Darkness 2 also lacks a down-to-earth quality that its predecessor had. The first championship may take been a game almost being a absurd gangster with an evil demon, but information technology was also a game about getting cookies with your aunt or watching the entirety of To Impale a Mockingbird on a tiny CRT with your girlfriend. The game had a tiny subway network and a loose affiliation of New York clichés who get little side quests. Sometimes the game is virtually reading a map to observe the right address to visit. There'south a pleasing commitment to mundanity in-betwixt bouts of carnage that is generally absent-minded from the sequel. However, in that location'due south a surprisingly resonant dimension here as well. Jackie is rich now; Of course he doesn't take the subway. Of course all the people he hangs out with are lackeys.
In keeping with this schlocky tone and inspirations, The Darkness II does have some wanton cruelty. A sexual activity worker helps Jackie enter a brothel run by the villainous Brotherhood. The game leers at her, then kills her offscreen, and hangs her corpse in the groundwork of a lengthy cutscene. The villain is disfigured and disabled. Fortunately, the game doesn't describe much attention to information technology, but the subtext is notwithstanding unpleasant, normal human traits made into inhuman attributes of the manifestly villainous. It'south also worth noting the multiplayer co-op "vendettas" way, which is unsurprisingly populated by a set of racist stereotypes.
Women die around Jackie constantly, implying that Jackie'due south proximity to this fundamental evil leads him on ever-escalating destructive quests of revenge. Which then further necessitates the use of The Darkness. The very mechanism the game advertises itself on is likewise explicitly diabolical; the high scores and executions of the game further the Darkness' power. The game constantly emphasizes that Jackie is never really in total command. The thrill of power only draws him deeper into a fierce habit. Furthermore, as long as Jackie's bloodline continues, the Darkness will accept a host. This places Jackie into a cycle of patriarchal violence, passed from male parent to son, throughout all of human history.
The alternative is an idealized femininity. Jenny is at once a tired trope of a dead adult female, motivating the rough man on his revenge spree. She likewise represents the life Jackie might have had, if the darkness had not taken it. Jackie, in a sure sense, wants to exist Jenny. He wishes he was dead and she was alive. Information technology's the kind of fabric that is rife for simultaneously sarcastic and earnest queer readings. Is the conflation of femininity with virtue misogynistic? Absolutely, simply the game nevertheless falls into some interesting subtext. None of it is specially deep, and it is occasionally callous, but information technology does have some real seize with teeth.
In some sense, The Darkness II is a mediocre game. It'due south a bargain bin shooter released in an age of them. It's corny, deeply silly, and foundationally rough. Fifty-fifty in list its flaws, I experience near nothing but adoration for it. Information technology's probably easier to honey at present than it was then. Perhaps that is a adept sign. Of all the games of its kind, The Darkness Two has some staying power. If you want a reminder of what games were, and could be, not and then long ago, yous could do far worse than this jolt of silly schlock.
Source: https://www.gamepur.com/features/the-darkness-ii-is-a-ten-year-old-reminder-of-games-that-no-longer-exist
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