It appears that the comic books are a source of inspiration for many games lately. Many don't know but the current game has actually been adapted after a 80's comic book called The Darkness written by Mark Silvestri. Like Superman, Spiderman, Marvel Ultimate Alliance this game offers an alternative to real life situations and impersonations by offering the chance of embodying some surrealist heroes and villains that dudes like Silvestri thought off.  

The plot isn't more special than any ordinary mafia game. Some close buddy of yours (big daddy mob, uncle Paulie) tries to kill you (promising highbander Jackie) and deprive you from what you love most (your girlfriend). As an act of revenge you go out on a killing spree to punish the bastard. All this happening on your 21 birthday. The story gets a substantially burst of appeal, along with the infusion of a so called damnation. Coincidently or not this curse becomes active exactly on the day Paulie tries to murder Jackie. The root to this damnation apparently lies in the deeds of Jackie's grandfather, who fought in world war one. To save himself, Jakie has to die on holy ground. Suiciding a couple of times isn't an option. He respawns to life each time (after he descends into a WW1 envisioned hell) if he commits this sin.

Being in constant fight with every light scattered throughout the game (in order to manifest your darkness powers) becomes sometimes more important than the story itself. The darkness power you obtain from the shadows and dark is essential when dealing with large groups of enemies. A mobster possessed by demons what can be wronger?

The four available darkness weapons, which are not necessarily designed just for carnage. The demon arm is similar somehow with the the gravity gun found in Half life 2. You can do all sorts of things with it: kill the lights or the bastards, pick up , move or throw objects, unlock doors...

The ancient weapons are used against monsters that respawn. Darkness energy will drastically drain when used. So use them carefully.

Creeping dark is very intense used at the beginning of the game. It has many uses: stealth kills, puzzles solving, unlock doors, creep around unaccessible spots, collect goods, climb walls, devouring hearts...

Black hole is the ultimate darkness weapon though. Its strength depends on how much darkness power you got. It will suck anything around in a mercyless vortex even it's a bit exaggerated the impact it has on the enemies. The game is way to easy on the final stages.

An additional help given by the forces of darkness comes under the form of some brutal little creatures called darklings. Although they have a will of their own, they exist to help you out in any situation. You have to spawn them from darkling gateways (visible only when the darkness is manifested).They are a lot like you, light haters, so watch out this aspect when releasing them into the scenery.

Bersekers are vicious little beasts that use just about everything they get their hands on, as weapons. Useful when lots of enemies are around. They are a funny/sick combination that like to dress up with whatever wearable item they find.

Light killers have the mission to remove every source of light you come across, needed for manifesting your darkness. They walk around with a battery on their back short-circuiting electrics around, only after that they 'work' on the nearby enemies.

Kamikaze darklings are very useful when lots of enemies are around. They will run into crowds of enemies and blow themselves up, clearing the way. While gunner darklings make use of gatling guns to unleash a devastating firepower on enemies.

It isn't all perfect as it sounds. There are a few glitches with the kamikaze and the gunner obstructing or affecting your health. A.I. problems in one word. To cut off the over aggressiveness of the darklings, from time to time they have funny sayings, actions and outfits, an idea very similar in concept with that from Codemaster's Overlord.

Boosting the darkness power is a must, in order to not have difficulties in progressing to the final chapters of the game. To do this, you just have to collect the hearts of the killed enemies. The animation of this act (as the demon heads battle each other for the heart) is pretty nice but kinda disturbing ritual. Even the four horsemen of Apocalypse are present in the game when Jackie descends to hell. But they will not look as you might expect (which isn't surprisingly). Because the prior image you've had of them was also a subjective one. Hard to have objective opinions when we talked about unwitnessed happenings.

Leaving the darkness powers away for a sec, you still have at disposal the typical human arsenal of weapons: pistols, revolvers, guns, machine-guns, uzzys, riot-guns...useful in the first instance but not on long term. The respiro moments from the subway stations makes this sadistic game more digestible. Nice to see the developing team has recreational activities too.

Being the 'nth mafia game on the market, the script and the implementation have to be really good in order to stand out when compared with other titles. The fact that there are way to much subliminal (sometimes directly exposed) messages in this game: darkness here, darkness there, awesome powers this ancient force gives you, the light is now my enemy, with darkness on you are protected from any damage, death cannot reach us..... might be a method to enrich the experience, but a poor one i think. I don't know if these are accurate reproductions of the original story from the comic books, but if you are easily suggestible, you might get some new behaviour "power-ups" after playing this game. I am sure the game will be acclaimed and praised for its unsurpased violence and gore though.

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Gameplay:72

A minus the game has, is the relatively short length of the script. No more than 12 hours will take for an average player to see the end credits. Adding to this minus the high redundancy (pretty frequently visits to the same area) affects the playing mood occasionally. Movement in this accurate reproduction of a fractionate New York is done terribly slow. You can't use cars or other means of traveling. Just longer distances are covered by subway.

A plus that we haven't seen recently in any games, stands in the masking of loading times with Jackie's monologues. Monologues that try to justify some of his acts. Undoubtedly bypassing the waiting times with nicely put together cinematics was the scope of this.

I really liked the fact that there aren't any noticeable disproportions between the enemies you come across. Every enemy has the same damage-take system. Even though some special forces units wear kevlar helmets and shields, decent shots will still kill them. Rather than getting nervous over killing enemies with artificially increased level of difficulty, the level remains in normal bounds all the time.

Lots of extra content and side quests are available. You can unlock them by either dialing phone numbers you found scattered throughout the game or by helping Npc's with their troubles. Manipulating the creeping death is a bit bothering. It's not a very well implemented concept. Climbing walls, air vents sneaking, or attacking enemies aren't easy undergoings but it's still a nice feature though.

The game tends to get boring at times even if it has some really nice gameplay features that will certainly amaze most of you. Maybe it's because Max Payne influence, or maybe because of abusive Splinter Cell elements (like killing every light around), i just don't know.

Graphics:80

Probably the game was developed for the Xbox 360 and then it made the transition on PlayStation 3. This or the developing tools of Xbox 360 are more easier to work with. A fact we already know. I say this because on PS 3 version of the game some aliasing and ruff edges problems can be spotted; load times are bigger too. A situation that shouldn't happen, at least from the technical specifications comparisons.

Eg: The movies that stand for the loading bars on both consoles (in which Jakie Estacado says what he has on mind) load differently. Even though is just for a few seconds, after the movie ends the loading bar still makes its appearance on the PS 3.

The PS3 console has an increased processing power due to its seven asymmetrical processing processors and we know that the PS 3 has 1.8 Tflops compared to the Xbox 360's 1Tflop. So that clearly shows for what console the title was initially developed or optimized. Anyway, don't expect the same level of detail to be seen on the PS 3 version also.

The diversity of locations bodes well in comparison with mostly urban based scenarios found in games like Max Payne, Mafia an other titles. Descending in a WW1 looking hell every two chapters casts away the monotony of killing same enemies or from visiting similar places from only one universe. Basically ,dualism, is the word of the day in this title. Art style of menus has the needed 'stick to play' factor and uses very well elements from the game itself.

Sound:75

The rock soundtracks from the chapters of the game where Jakie is fighting mobsters in New York completes nicely the doomy hellish ones Jackie brings when he feels and acts suicidal. Voice acting is surprisingly good (few games excel in this area). Loading times are replaced with impact monologues of Jackie which have an additional role of hiding the loading times. The sound effects are not necessarily impressive, but they do their job.

Multiplayer:75

The online dimension of the game has some nice touches to it, but things like huge lag at terminals spoil the experience almost completely. Playing as a darkling is very dynamic although it's a fairly short experience due to their vulnerable nature. On the other hand playing as Jakie or some other mob is pretty unspectacular but far more effective when using the impressive weapon arsenal you've got at disposal. Game modes such as: team deathmatch, capture the flag, shape shifters, survivor games, last human (survivor only) are available to be tested.