RAD Episode 240 The Darkness 2
Birdman embraces the DARKNESS and leaves you with his thoughts on the Darkness 2! Who thought ripping people in half could be so satisfying
The Darkness II
Players: 1 Player Offline
Publisher: 2K Games
Genres: First-person Shooter, Horror
Publisher: 2K Games
Genres: First-person Shooter, Horror
Release Date: October 7, 2011
Developer: Digital Extremes
MSRP: $59.99
Developer: Digital Extremes
MSRP: $59.99
The Darkness II takes place two years later in the life of Jackie Estacado, the current wielder of the darkness who has used his powers to become the Don of the Franchetti crime family. He has been unable to shake the thoughts of his dead girlfriend Jenny since he contained his supernatural powers and now the Darkness "wants out". A sudden, unprovoked attack on Jackie’s life heralds the start of a full-scale mob war, which has clearly been orchestrated by some outside force. The assassination attempt reawakens the Darkness, sending Jackie on a trip to hell and back as he discovers the mystery of the attack and motivations of the Darkness itself.
Darkness II Gameplay Trailer is Bloody, Spoilertastic
Posted By Austin Yorski about 1 year, 11 months ago
I didn’t know Steve Buscemi was in this game!
As the headline states, you may not want to watch this if you don’t want to have the first The Darkness spoiled for you.
Today was a good day for trailers. The Darkness II is looking far better than the first one, which was pretty disappointing (although it did give Yahtzee his trademark imps). Continuing the bloody adventures of Jackie Estacado, the gameplay trailer also introduces a disfigured villain who wants his darkness powers, and—wait… did the trailer just spoil the bad guy’s death too? Yo, Digital Extremes, leave some surprises for the final product please.
Anyway, in case you haven’t heard, The Darkness II’s main selling point is “quad-wielding” which is exactly what is sounds like. Two guns and two parasitic demon tentacles, all perforating baddies. It looks pretty awesome in action, as do some of the new finishing moves. Also, and correct me if I’m wrong, but is that The Black Angels on the soundtrack? Perfect.
The Darkness II will be available for PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 4th in North American and October 7th in the UK.
The Darkness II Review
Eat Your Heart Out
Sage Reviews: The Darkness II
A game based off of a comic book co-created by Garth Ennis. This is gonna be a bag of sugar and sunshine, ain't it?
RAD Episode 240 The Darkness 2
Birdman embraces the DARKNESS and leaves you with his thoughts on the Darkness 2! Who thought ripping people in half could be so satisfying 
Sage Reviews: The Darkness II
A game based off of a comic book co-created by Garth Ennis. This is gonna be a bag of sugar and sunshine, ain’t it?
The Darkness II Review
Posted By Austin Yorski about 1 year, 3 months ago
The Darkness II Review
In the gaming community, the original Darkness is a title perhaps most well-known for inspiring the “minions” of Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation. True, it also included the touching scene wherein protagonist Jackie Estacado and his girlfriend Jenny shared a rare moment of romantic normality, but such beautiful subtlety is easily forgotten by many. Taking a hint from just such tendencies, Digital Extremes decided to abandon all subtlety for the sequel, making The Darkness II a gory thrill ride from beginning to end.
| PROS | Quad-wielding, Imaginative execution animations, Mike Patton |
| CONS | Some repetition, A few minor glitches |
| WTF?! | Everything The Darkling says, does, or… excretes |
Before diving into the story or gameplay, it’s important to first address a shift in game design between the two Darkness games. The first installment was a relatively open game for its genre, with minor puzzle elements and an emphasis on staying hidden in shadows in order to take your enemies by surprise. The sequel is much more linear–although there are breaks between levels–with far less puzzle and stealth trappings. While this would equal “dumbing down” for most franchises, The Darkness II actually benefits immensely from this, as it provides a much more focused experience. Linearity isn’t always bad, folks.
This shift is also important because the game leans pretty heavily on the first one for its emotional core. There is a “Last Time on The Darkness” you can watch to bring you up to speed, but unless you actually played it and came to care about Jenny, expect to be underwhelmed by Jackie’s motivations. That isn’t to say it doesn’t try to make you care, but you do lose a lot of the heart if you never personally sat on the couch with your girlfriend and watched TV together (yes, that happened). Other than that, The Darkness II has a simple plot about a bad guy who wants the hero’s power so he can become a God. Although there are certainly memorable moments along the way, the story isn’t anything too remarkable.
Something very bad is about to happen to their hearts and/or anuses.
The core of The Darkness II is Jackie Estacado’s ability to “quad-wield,” or fire two guns whilst also using the titular Darkness to mangle, dismember, and mutilate his foes. On console, this manifests in having shoulder buttons that correspond to each of the four available weapons, while PC users get left and right click for their guns, the mouse wheel for slashes, and keys for picking up and executing enemies. Obviously, the controller setup more accurately reflects Jackie’s setup, but it does leave him with “jump” and “execute” mapped to the same button, so occasionally you’ll find yourself hopping in place when you’d rather be shoving an eel down somebody’s throat. These things happen.
Once you get a hang of the controls of your preferred system, The Darkness II becomes incredibly empowering. One minute you’re hurling fan blades through a gangster’s head from 50 yards away (thanks to generous aim assist), the next minute you’re tearing through a mob of cultists with an AK47, until you finally get overwhelmed and have to summon a black hole to devour everything that is trying to murder you. It’s dark, violent, and satisfying in a way that probably hurts Jack Thompson somewhere deep inside. This game earns its M rating.
You control the darkling for a few stealthy throat-ripping sections.
Luckily, as Kanye West once said, “No one man should have all that power,” and the game manages to balance a sense of power with appropriately escalating challenges. Most fights just boil down to Zerg rushes, but the waves of soon-to-be-mincemeat find new ways to disarm and de-power you as you progress through the campaign. Your most constant foe is light, so finding streetlamps and enemies with spotlights right away is always the first order of business, followed by removing armor, tearing away shields, and finally cracking their rib-cage open to get to the creamy nougat center.
Combat is further deepened by an upgrade system which allows you to augment your weapons, executions, and Darkness powers. More points for improvement are gained for more brutal kills, but unlike BulletStorm’s similar system, The Darkness II doesn’t reward experimentation. Executions always yield the most dark essence, so expect to see the same animation so many times that you question your basic assumptions about video games desensitizing you to violence. That said, the animations are nice and the powers you can unlock are pretty awesome, so it’s worth the repetition.
8/10
The Darkness II Review
Eat Your Heart Out Sage Reviews: The Darkness II
A game based off of a comic book co-created by Garth Ennis. This is gonna be a bag of sugar and sunshine, ain't it? RAD Episode 240 The Darkness 2
Birdman embraces the DARKNESS and leaves you with his thoughts on the Darkness 2! Who thought ripping people in half could be so satisfying-
February 12, 2012 at 05:42am
Great review and spot on score. Bought and played through the game yesterday. While it can be completed on hard quite easily, it manages to provide an enjoyable experience from start to end.
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February 12, 2012 at 12:05am
According to BT, this game is equivalent to Skyrim.
Different strokes for very different folks.
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February 12, 2012 at 12:17am
Well, BT’s scale is descriptive. An 8 isn’t just a numerical value, it means “Awesome.” Both Skyrim and The Darkness II (in the opinion of their reviewers) are awesome. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re equivalent, especially since they’re from such dissimilar genres.
Also, the text of the review clears up a lot of the subtleties of score that a number can’t convey. I believe I made it pretty clear that TD2 is an 8 in an “action movie” way, whereas Johnny’s review of Skyrim says the game is an 8 within the context of its own ludonarrative niche.
I hope that helps
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February 12, 2012 at 01:20am
I understand what you’re getting at and I respect your opinion and integrity as a journalist, but essential to the identity of a ratings scale is that it is based upon an objective measurement, and as such the scores are also relative to one another in terms of value. (though with only ten available scores and so many good games an 8 describes a wide field of quality)
Johnny has opinions different from your own, and it seems that mine differs from both of yours.
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February 09, 2012 at 10:42am
“Digital Extremes decided to abandon all subtlety for the sequel, making The Darkness II a gory thrill ride from beginning to end. ” I was on the fence about buying this game, but that sentence sealed the deal. If it doesn’t have the great story and atmospheric elements of the first one then I’m not getting it.
I’m glad they’re making it more linear as the open world parts in the first just meant you’d get lost or bored.
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February 08, 2012 at 08:46am
“Digital Extremes decided to abandon all subtlety for the sequel, making The Darkness II a gory thrill ride from beginning to end. ”
You know I picked up the first Darkness out of the bargain bin and for that price is was well worth it.
And it was worth it for those little sections of being with the girlfriend or watching cartoon clips on a hobos TV.Everything else I didn’t much care for. The fighting was pretty bland, the powers were almost useless because you hardly needed to use them so as a mechanic I felt it wasn’t implemented very well.
I will be getting this game just much later.
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February 08, 2012 at 07:31am
I’m disappointed to hear about the story. In fact, it kind of sounds like the game took a hit in creativity more than I would have liked.
Will still be picking it up on Friday, though.
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February 08, 2012 at 05:02am
It’s a pleasure to hear that the game was impressive. I loved the demo and have been looking forward to playing the full game ever since. It’s especially good that we PC gamers won’t get left out this time around. As a huge fan of the comic I was disappointed that the first game was console exclusive.
I hope that the 7 hour playtime was for a really rushed play through though. I want to enjoy this game, savor it, take it slowly, quite likely play through it several times. And yes, slaughter and laughter all the way. The entire franchise has always been about dark humor, so nothing to be surprised about how funny this game is despite all the violence. I can’t wait until the game arrives in my mailbox!
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RAD Episode 240 The Darkness 2
Birdman embraces the DARKNESS and leaves you with his thoughts on the Darkness 2! Who thought ripping people in half could be so satisfying
Sage Reviews: The Darkness II
A game based off of a comic book co-created by Garth Ennis. This is gonna be a bag of sugar and sunshine, ain’t it?
RAD Episode 240 The Darkness 2
Birdman embraces the DARKNESS and leaves you with his thoughts on the Darkness 2! Who thought ripping people in half could be so satisfying
I haven’t played the first Darkness, but from what I’ve heard and seen, it looked like a relatively average shooter that tried to have a different mechanic and just didn’t stand out. That being said, this trailer has perked my interest a bit, so I’ll probably keep an eye on it, as I do with many things.
I’m going to admit I never liked the first Darkness game. I found it boring, looked awful, and voice acting sounded weird to me. I am hoping this game will change my opinion of this studio, but I’m not holding my breath exactly. Still I am gonna hope for a demo if they will release one.
Looks pretty decent. I only played probably near half of the first, then I got bored with it and sold it. Maybe this will help me regain faith in this.
Plus I am kind of impressed with the cel-shaded-esque look. Should be more promising than its original bleak black ambiance.