NYCC: Hands-on with The Darkness
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Feb 26th 2007 at 7:11AM }
Warning: This video contains scenes of extreme violence and gore. It ends with a torture sequence which may not be appropriate for the faint of heart. Viewer discretion is advised.
Top Cow's ultra-violent, ultra-cool comic The Darkness is heading to the PS3 and Xbox 360 in the summer, and attendees of New York Comic Con were treated to a special playable preview of the game. The game comes from the developers of the equally dark Chronicles of Riddick on ye olde Xbox, and it looks like Starbreeze is about to deliver another equally compelling and original FPS game. Just like Riddick before it, The Darkness looks to not only borrow from the license, but add a great deal of depth to it as well.
The playable build at NYCC offered both single and multiplayer components. The single player demo certainly started with a memorable bang. You're in a Hollywood-style car chase: your comrades are wildly shooting around you, as cars are being flipped, crashed into, and destroyed in a cornucopia of chaos. Although it's basically an on-rails segment, it feels truly engrossing: you have control over your character's view, but you'll have to fight the wind and momentum of the car. It's really quite spectacular.
Once the intro sequence is over, you'll be treated to some standard FPS fare. With a twist. A very big twist. You've become possessed by a mysterious something, and you'll find these beast-like tentacles reaching out of your body. These entities have a mind of their own, and it's clear that they are hungry for violence. A particularly gory scene has one of these extensions literally bite off half of someone's head. Ouch.
These arms are part of your newfound Darkness powers. Not only will you be able to pierce through objects, but you'll also be able to lift up objects, like cars, and throw them at your enemies. You can extend your limbs and enter the view of your extremity for some stealth kills. And even cooler, you'll be able to summon Darklings, AI-controlled partners which revel in brutal savagery. It's not uncommon to see them horrifyingly mutilate an enemy's body. You have a lot of abilities, and it can be somewhat daunting to try to access them all. I'm sure the final build, with its in-game tutorials, will be a lot more accessible. One neat touch is that your character's abilities can grow in power over time ... as long as you keep on eating human hearts. Yum!
The controls are solid, and the dual-wielding was an especially nice touch (left and right triggers correspond to each hand's weapon). The multiplayer featured some very fast gameplay, as players are free to switch between human and Darkling forms. It certainly evokes a similar feel to Alien Versus Predator. Too bad it seems like everyone dies very quickly in said mode.
With some truly cinematic presentation, and a compelling gameplay premise, The Darkness has the potential to deliver a fun FPS experience come late-May. Although I didn't get as much time with the game as I'd like, the very little I played showed a great deal of promise. The game launches on both Xbox 360 and PS3 with Live and Network support respectively. Don't forget to check out the video as well: it includes some gameplay footage from the show demo, and some excerpts from a developer Q&A session. As a bonus, you'll get to see a clip from one of the game's cinematics: a torture sequence that certainly won't be for the faint of heart.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Blam! @ Feb 26th 2007 7:23AM
I like killing!
livestOne @ Feb 26th 2007 7:44AM
Well the enemy A.I isn't going to win any awards,(which could potentially make or break the game for me) but it still looks decent enough. I'll have to keep my eye on it.
EdZ @ Feb 26th 2007 7:48AM
Big black multiple-red-eyed extensible dog heads? Very Hellsing-esque.
Joe @ Feb 26th 2007 8:00AM
Single best FPS I have seen on the horizon. Starbreeze shut a lot of people up with Riddick I am sure this game will also make a lot of people shut up too.
Julian Weisser @ Feb 26th 2007 8:09AM
I played both SP and MP and came away with little more than "meh." The controls are annoying.
Grizzly @ Feb 26th 2007 8:14AM
I loved Riddick, one of my fav games on the first xbox. Defiantly going to pick this up.
Pragmatick @ Feb 26th 2007 8:17AM
I am so looking forward to this game. I am not so much on the gore side, but at least it looks good and is technically well done. Chronicles of Riddick was an awesome game.
FSK405K @ Feb 26th 2007 8:46AM
Doom with a very long arms? Btw, love the "DO NOT CAPTURE FOOTAGE" bug. Also, there aren't pain centers IN your brain...no touch nerve endings in there.
Jake @ Feb 26th 2007 9:38AM
"It's not uncommon to see them horrifyingly mutilate an enemy's body."
I'm sold.
JJC @ Feb 26th 2007 9:56AM
i think the game looks pretty sweet. oh and if you were still alive after having half of your head bitten off, im pretty sure that you would scream too. maybe not because of the pain, but because of the shear horror of having your head half eaten.
NukeAssault @ Feb 26th 2007 10:01AM
I only got to play it for a short time while i was there. I really want to like this game... But i didint like the controls too much. I suppose it would take some time to get used to, for me atleast. The animation is fantastic though.
Anonymous @ Feb 26th 2007 2:26PM
Meh. The scary part is the uncanny valley.l
Negative Ghostrider @ Feb 26th 2007 12:16PM
I don't mind too much violence in games and I'm a HUGE fan of Chronicles of Riddick, but that game pushes it a bit too far. I don't think I could enjoy a game like that. I don't think I'd want to even desensitize myself to that level of violence.
And here I thought playing Resident Evil 4 and the Hitman games were bad enough.
Kwipper @ Feb 26th 2007 12:39PM
I can't wait to play this game, and to think that this is coming out on both the XBOX 360 and the PS3, I am finding less and less reason to buy a PS3 these days.
gigatwo @ Feb 26th 2007 11:14PM
"3. Big black multiple-red-eyed extensible dog heads? Very Hellsing-esque."
Yes very much so. However, the Darkness comic actually came out a year before Hellsing. The Darkness is my favorite comic from the western hemisphere and Hellsing is my favorite manga, so I'm not about to argue which is the best.
austenw @ Feb 27th 2007 11:43AM
I'm most certainly not the type to blame video games on violent acts and all of that stuff. But if this game isn't proof enough that video games desensitize you to violence, I don't know what is. I mean think about it, if you say you really want to play this game after watching that trailer you literally just said that you can't wait to use dark powers manifested into dark monsters that enjoy ripping people in half. The guy in the video actually said his FAVORITE picture was the one with an emaciated horse with apples and water right in front of it but it can't eat because it has no mouth anymore. How disturbing can you get? No I will not play this game.
BerkleTed @ Feb 27th 2007 12:42PM
If you don't like violent video games, don't play it. But I think this game looks awesome and I plan on getting it. To me, the violence is a fantasy and a release. There's no way video games like this desensitize me to actual violence.
austenw @ Feb 27th 2007 5:04PM
I'm curious what the difference between "real violence" and graphically photo-realistic violence is. How do you justify the difference between the two? If someone actually shoots someone, and captures it on film, and then recreates the exact same scene in 3d graphics that are so realistic, one can hardly tell the difference. Where is the difference in being desensitized to "fake" violence and "real" violence?