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.
RAD Episode 240 The Darkness 2
Posted By Birdman about 3 months ago
Are you ready to embrace your dark birthright and unleash the demon living inside you?
Also can I interest you in a low interest credit card?
Thought not!
In today’s edition Birdman returns from his grave to check out THE DARKNESS 2. We pick up the story of Jackie Estacado 2 years after the original game and things are not going so well for our mafia boss as people are out to kill him…again! The Darkness 2 takes what made the original good but does have what it takes to make the game truly great? We turn off the lights and let the blackness seep into every corner of the room and open up our inner sadistic bastard. The Darkness lets you do everything from ripping people’s heads off to throwing lamp posts into people’s torsos and oh yeah you can shoot guys too!
Birdman switches off the night light and get the Darkness envelop him!
Will this be a great sequel or should we just turn on the light and forget it ever happened?
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Music
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The Darkness theme 2
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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 Y. about 3 months, 2 weeks 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 OutSage 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.
- February 12, 2012 at 12:05am
According to BT, this game is equivalent to Skyrim.
Different strokes for very different folks.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 got the game with this review being the final factor on to buy it or wait for the price to go down. Have to say I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. Even been reading the comics and got the first one at Gamestop for 8 bucks. Seems I’m going all in with the Darkness. Hell might even get ‘I be leave in a thing called love’ by the Darkness at this point.
I wish you could actually download the comics. But as far as ive seen you can only view them online. I couldn’t find an actual download.
Is it comixology that they are using for those? I think I heard that. If so you can download them on a smartphone / tablet. Not so sure bout on a computer though.
I absolutely agree that the game is awesome. I found it to be WAY too short though. The main campaign should have been twice as long. Still, it’s the best game I’ve played in the past two years, I enjoyed it even more than Deus Ex: Human Revolution and that game was an absolute masterpiece in my eyes. The ending was odd, yes, but I liked it. I really hope the game will do well in sales, I want that sequel!
Good show but I have to nitpick a bit – sorry
a: all the characters apart from Johnny are allready in Darkness 1 and all of them have a decent introduction – which is missing for a big part in 2
b: the art style REALLY put me off – the first one was in my opinin way more fitting because the dark places actually were dark (so much better shadows and lights) (also you got nightvision(saw the outlines of stuff when it was completly dark) – the graphics in 1 also seemed to fit more to the comic than the “comicy”-graphics in 2
c: the skill system actually cripples the darkness more than make it awesome – in Darkness 1 the Darkness learned to do stuff A: by story and B: with certain amounts of hearts (like lifting a car etc) – only 1 Darkling is a joke – destroying lights in Darkness 1 was a much easier and smooth process than in 2 (and you had to do it way less) – and fuck that stuff where everything goes super bright when you step into light – that was so damn annoying + why can’t you put the darkness away? (this was an option in the first one)
d:Story: Spoilers included:
There are some awful plot holes and retarted moments;
How the fuck did the darkness get a hold of Jenny? She just died and the Angelus using her as a host was kind of a plot hole too
HOW the fuck (again) does Jackie survive beeing in a freaking Iron Maiden without the darkness WHILE getting roasted alive?
and: HOW THE F… (once more) doesnt get Jackie that hes in the Darkness World again? He was in there multiple times in 1 – so why doesnt he get it?!
-
they re-use scenes of the 1 one like beeing nailed to a cross and getting pummeled or the “light-fucks-you” (only in darkness 2 that happens about 3 times the amount it happens in darkness 1)
Sorry for this Wall of text but – yea…