Darkness Returns
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The Darkness II will once again give us control over one of Image Comics’ more interesting anti-heroes, Jackie Estacado (now voiced by Nolan North).
Where the last game had Jackie becoming the next vessel for The Darkness and learning how to control his powers as he seeks vengeance for his girlfriend’s death, this time around, Jackie is the head of the Francheti crime family and isn’t nearly as clueless as he was before.
By no means is he in charge of The Darkness though. In the intervening years, he has suppressed the use of the supernatural creature and kept it in check. That is, until he narrowly escapes an attempted hit and The Darkness is able to reassert itself again.
With better control over his supernatural abilities, Jackie’s attack capabilities has been upped quite a bit. The biggest change is what Digital Extremes has dubbed “quad wielding.” This is the ability to not only use your evil tentacle creatures to grab, throw and otherwise maim enemies, but also dual-guns as well. What results is an interesting series of possible combos that allow for both close-to-mid ranged attacks with your monsters to more accurate, long-ranged attacks with your guns. This also means that The Darkness II ups the ante as far as blood and violence is concerned.
During the E3 demo, we got to see Jackie take on a new enemy. This long-existing secret society started off merely trying to rid the world of The Darkness by bringing light to whomever is the current host of the creature, but it has become a bit corrupted over the years. Now, they wish to harness The Darkness and force it to do their bidding. What’s bad is, they know The Darkness’ weakness, light.
This means that you will not only have to deal with the normal light-based dangers in the environment that strips The Darkness of its powers, but also the weapons that the enemy has at their disposal, including light-grenades.
Besides the changes in gameplay, the visuals also get a bit of an overhaul. The world around Jackie looks much more like the original comics and really sells the off-balanced, slightly other-worldly feel that was such a big part of the original work. Overall, The Darkness II promises a lot for both fans of the first game and the comics on which it was based.
