The Darkness is a game of exceptional quality that, while not elevating the bar or showing us the next-gen, entertains.
This is where The Darkness first shines: the responsive, fluid gunplay. While weapons become nearly useless when you inherit more of the Darkness's menacing arsenal of powers, they are essential for your survival until you reach the bathroom where you finally receive an unexpected present from a timeless, sinister force brought to your family by a deceased relative. However, I'll cover more of what those abilities are and elaborate on how they all work soon.
The game is split into five chapters: New York, World War One, New York 2, World War One 2, and the Endgame. Each chapter has more meat to it than an ordinary level you'd find in a game, decorated with plenty of conversation and, as you'd expect from such a violent game, an extreme amount of gore, language, and absolute destruction. To forewarn concerned parents: this is no game for children under fourteen (there's even a mechanic where you can choose to dig into a fallen opponent's corpse and extract their hearts. Collecting these empowers you, can provide you with an achievement after obtaining five-hundred, and can unlock more darkness levels).
After you're lured into the path of a bomb by your plotting uncle Paulie, the don of the reputable (with other organizations of crime, mind) Franchetti crime family, it becomes Jackie's ambition to track him down and seek vengeance for your girlfriend's eventual demise at his hands. With the aid of more supportive family members and friends, Jackie will embark on a haunting journey that will test his patience, control, and sanity.
With The Darkness and his underlings prepared to respond to your command, hacking through mobsters seems to become a simple process. As you advance through your journey, you will obtain more subordinates that you can shape out of the shadow: berserkers, kamikazes, gunmen, and lightkillers. They each have certain uses and can provide invaluable assistance in some situations, such as when you need a creature to extinguish surrounding sources of light as you concentrate on opponents shooting at you. That is what you must do in order to replenish your line of powers: destroy the light, which will devitalize Jackie if he remains near the brightness for too long a time. If you are not able to eliminate these lights, he will be forced to exit his Darkness mode and temporarily lose dominance over the shadow.
Speaking of Jackie's potent Darkness powers, here's how they work: press up on the controller to cycle through your list of abilities (which will expand as you grow in strength), and then proceed normally when you locate the ability you want. RB will then activate the selected ability, and enable you to use that creeper to enter the vent system and open the reinforced door. As you progress further through the game, you even acquire an arm that will launch forward, break through objects, and grasp enemies, as well as a black hole that will kill a large number of enemies in a single room.
Graphically, The Darkness is a treat to behold. The cinematics tend to repeat themselves occasionally, but Jackie's tone, accented with the roughness and passion you'd expect from an average hitman, makes you never tire of him explaining what he intends to do to Paulie/how he wants to avenge the death of his girlfriend. When you're in the actual game, the character models are gorgeous. Environments on the 360 version are particularly sharp, ambient, and full of multiple colors and shades, and the shadows are, unsurprisingly, absolutely fantastic.
Sometimes, however, a game with brilliant graphics fails to provide its audience with sound that is equally satisfactory. Allow these words to precede my praise: I applaud the team for creating such beautiful music and voice acting. Each character is brought to life by their human counterpart, especially The Darkness (although his tone is modified to fit the needs of the producers). The music captures the tension, anger, and sadness of each moment; it is beautiful on all sides.
To conclude the review, I will say this: since the game shouldn't exceed more than ten hours, and the multiplayer is barely worth more than one play (which is one of the game's flaws: the multiplayer option, while allowing you to control Darklings and humans with buddies, feels more tacked-on than it should), The Darkness would be an excellent rental. Personally, I purchased the game, and am still pleased to include it in my home library. However, some people may not think the game is suited for them, and want to test it before they decide to buy it; go ahead. I recommend either, since there are plenty of difficulty levels and a satisfactory number of achievements.
Am I a happy customer? Yes, I am.