The Darkness

The Darkness is an odd duck in a sea of already odd FPS games: a relatively unknown comic book of the same name adapted as a first person shooter with a supernatural twist. You can command the power of The Darkness! Nope, this is not a squad-based shooter featuring that popular modern glam rock band killing enemies with a thing called love, or making them at least feel it, but the darkness: legions from the shadows. With this in mind, you are tasked to put out all the lights you can find like a guy with a fear of a huge electricity bill, which begs the question why are people still using fluorescent lights in this day and age? The beeper explains it.

Anyway, once you're in the dark, you can recharge your darkness powers and use them as you see fit. All the powers have their uses, and they're all fun to use. Enveloping a room in complete darkness will open up a summoning portal which you can call in darklings: fiends from the dark that can help you against your enemies. They have funny one-liners, and even converse with each other if you have more than one tagging with you at the same time. Guns are almost moot with all the powers in your disposal. This makes the game easy, even in the hardest difficulty, but hey, if you're supposed to be wielding the powerful darkness, the game should feel like a piece of cake, right? I can only recall two frustrating sections in the game: one in the very beginning, and one by the middle of the game. Other than that, I think the game should be played in the hardest difficulty.

As for the story and presentation, this game nails a gritty urban NYC atmosphere, and the mob story is pretty nice too. It has one of the best opening bits of any game I've ever played, and while the rest of the story can't quite match that, it sets your motivation across the game. I also liked the sidequests you can do, as they're all pretty short and are entertaining, even though half of them ends up with kill these guys for me. The graphics are great, and I think Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines would have worked well with this kind of look.

When the credits rolled, I was kinda surprised it was shorter than I thought it was, even the final boss took a single bullet. But the experience was fantastic, and this game is now one of my new favorite games, FPS or otherwise.