ON THE NIGHT of his twenty-first birthday, something happened to Jackie Estacado. In just a few short hours he went from being a small time Mafia enforcer to being…something else. Bearer of a dark legacy passed from Father to son at the moment of conception. A fate which leads to the Father dying within only a few minutes of the act itself, as the Darkness passes down to the next male in the line.

But what is the Darkness?

Well, according to the comics, it’s one of three ancient powers that have existed since before time itself. Carrying on a never ending cold war for reasons that none of the three (the Darkness, the Witchblade and the Angelus) seem to neither remember, nor care about. According to the game…well, it’s never really explained. Likely because Starbreeze (the same team which brought us Escape from Butcher Bay) are planning to into more detail with their planned, but as yet, unconfirmed, sequel.

The game itself is a pretty straightforward first person shooter. Or, at least it seems so at first glance. However, as events progress, and the Darkness itself is added as a weapon in you Jackie’s not insignificant arsenal, the game starts to show a number of interesting, and inspired, personal touches. For example, if you move close enough to an opponent (or even a civilian if you so choose) a tap of either fire button (one for left weapon and one for the right) will instigate a random execution move. Something which, unlike in many games, can be performed whether the enemy is aware of your presence or not.

Also, the Darkness itself offers a few nice little innovations. Such as the Demon Arm which you can use to skewer opponents, break lights (your power is the Darkness after all) and even lift and throw objects such as dustbins and cars. The Creeping Dark, which can scout ahead for you and pick up otherwise unreachable items, open doors, and dispatch enemies without you even needing to come physically within sight of them. And a shield which replenishes when in dark areas (hence the Demon Arm being so useful for breaking lights) that will protect you from harm. This is not an exhaustive list of what the Darkness can do, but should at least give you an idea of just how useful it is.

To begin with, all you have is Creeping Dark and the shield. The rest of your abilities being earned over the rest of the game. Including four types of Darklings (little demon chappies) which can help you out both directly by fighting along side you, and indirectly by clearing debris (Kamikaze Darkling) and opening locked doors (Berserker), as well as offering some light relief by their idle chatter as they go about their demony business. Considering that the game as a whole is extremely dark and oppressive in tone, they can really help lighten the mood when it gets it bit too overpowering.

As well as offering in engrossing single player experience, the Darkness also has the usual array of multi-player modes like Capture the Flag and Deathmatch which seem to have borrowed somewhat from the AvP series in that you can choose to play as a Human, or Darkling, with the option of automatically changing back and forth between the two at each death. Unfortunately, I can’t comment on how well the game works online as no-one ever seems to make use of it. Which, I suppose, speaks volumes in itself.

However, don’t let this put you off. The strength of the plot (putting aside the extreme differences between the game and the original comics) will keep you hooked from the opening cinematic of a real time car chase, to the climactic showdown with Uncle Paulie Franchetti. Like the Half-Life series, and to an extent Butcher Bay, the Darkness is entirely devoid of fully rendered cinematics. The entire game rather taking place in real time, and allowing the option of looking, and often moving around whilst key events are playing out.

This could lead to some people missing certain things, but if you are the type to be too impatient to sit still for a couple of minutes then you would probably be mashing the X button to skip through the cinematics anyway. And I would strongly advise you not to do so in this case. The voice acting is top notch, and the scripting is excellent. The scene in the Church, when Jackie is at the mercy of Captain Shrote (NYPD) is chilling, and not something to be missed.

Given that this is now a relatively old game, being one of the earliest additions to the Playstation 3 and X-Box 360 library, the quality of the visuals are a testament to the skill of the staff at Starbreeze (before this pretty much a PC exclusive company) though it does show some degree of being overly polished and shiney because of the current, idiotic craze for High Definition in favour of photo realism. But the quality of the actual animation, in so far as the way things move when you interact with them, more than compensate for the irritating glare.

To but it simply. The Darkness has elevated itself from a bog standard first person action adventure to a masterpiece of the current gaming generation. The various environments are dark and melancholy, and in the case of the demon world trenches of World War One just plain disturbing. You will find yourself beginning to wonder how Jackie manages to remain such a relatively nice guy surrounded by all the crap he has to deal with in his daily life. Then you will think back to Jenny and it all seems to make sense.

Graphics 8.5/10
Gameplay 9/10
Audio/music 9/10
Plot/Scripting 9.5/10
Overall 9.5/10