NYCC: Hands-on with The Darkness

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.