Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Darkness 2

I just bought The Darkness 2 and it's awesome! You play as a mob boss named Jackie Estacado, and you have a demonic entity inside you called the Darkness. You have a variety of powers, but it basically comes down to Doctor Octopus, Venom and the Punisher all in one. You also have a lot of guns. What I like is that it's an FPS that's really about the story instead of squeezing in weak bits of plot in between shooting terrorists as an ordinary soldier. And the fact that you can use 2 darkness tentacles, plus either 2 small or medium guns, or 1 big gun, makes the combat a lot more interesting. One tentacle is pretty much the slashy stabby one, and the other is the grabby one that either grabs people, weapons, or parts of your surroundings to use as weapons. But it's pretty violent; every kill has the potential to look like a Mortal Kombat fatality. So it's not for everyone, but if you can handle that, I recommend playing it. The quad-wielding really makes the combat (kombat) interesting since you can either just shoot people, or you can do things like impale them on a piece of scenery, or use a car door as a shield and then throw it like an enormous throwing star. Or you can just slash them with one demon arm, then grab them with the other and perform an execution. You unlock them as you go, but the ones I've done so far are called head whip, anaconda, and my favorite, wishbone. There's also an element of it that reminds me of Splinter Cell a little bit, since before and during fights, it's always best to systematically destroy all the lights in a room, since light disables your darkness powers. The multiplayer is also fun. It's a series of 4 player co-op missions that tie in with the main story, playing as either an angry Scotsman, a Japanese assassin with a sword, a sharpshooter or a voodoo guy. They all have their own darkness power and darkness-infused weapon. For example, the angry Scotsman has an axe that he throws that magically flies back to him, and he can temporarily summon Darklings, which are manifestations of the Darkness that look kinda like weird little goblins and attack people. Jackie also has his own ever-present Darkling comic relief and assistance in battle. You even get to play as the Darkling for a short amount of time. It's a pretty good game.

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