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The Darkness Preview for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

The Darkness Preview for PlayStation 3 (PS3)

Real anti-Heroes work with the Shadows! The Darkness comes!

April 23, 2007 – The Darkness possessed Mafioso Jackie Estacado is well on his way to your home console in the coming months. For those of you who haven’t been reading along with the rest of us, I’ll gladly reeducate you. The Darkness is a Top Cow comic book being developed by Starbreeze. The protagonist of this story is Jackie Estacado, a young Mafioso, who on his 21st birthday became cursed with the power of the Darkness. Now, as the overwhelming power of the Darkness resides in you, you must learn to harness its power while keeping it from taking absolute control over you.

The Darkness screenshot

The setting for this game is very far from Sesame Street, introducing you to a dark and foreboding New York City setting. As Jackie Estacado, you’re free to roam the streets with little restrictions, and it has been announced that the East Coast city will only make up two-thirds of the sixteen hour story mode. The rest of the game will take place in a location the developer ominously described as “worse than hell,” which could possibly be the apartment complex I currently reside in.

The game begins with an action oriented car chase through a series of twisting tunnels as before, but what’s new is the upgraded engine being used. With the foundation of the game near completion, it is obvious that a lot of time has been dedicated to polishing up the graphics and visual effects. Small but noticeable touches have been added such as the Matrix like trails that follow behind your bullets and a natural blur effect as you hectically look around. Despite being a first person shooter, even Jackie himself has been given an overhaul. Jackie’s slim gothic like figure has been replaced by a more masculine form.

The Darkness screenshot

Starbreeze has also given more detailed information on the mysterious dimension known as the Otherworld. Starbreeze has stated that the Otherworld will make up about a third of the game’s content. The Otherworld is a place that Jackie will dip in and out of occasionally as he attempts to handle his new powers and fight the Darkness for control of his own body. The struggle for Jackie to maintain his body is manifested through a World War 1 setting, where undead soldiers relive their horrible experience over again. Though Starbreeze will not give away the entire purpose of the Otherworld out of fear of spoiling the heart of the story, It is obvious that it is a means for Jackie to increase his Darkness powers. In the Otherworld, when enemies are shot the depths of their Darkness is exposed. The darker the exposed area is dictates the amount of Darkness power you can receive from absorbing them. The absorbed Darkness from enemies is used to increase Jackie’s Darkness powers and upgrade attacks. For example, Jackie’s demon arm, which is used to impale enemies and destroy crates, can eventually be strong enough to toss cars like G.I. Joe action figures.

Let’s not forget about one of Jackie’s many unique features which is the ability to summon the Darklings. The Darklings are short in stature, gremlin like creatures that are used for many specific tasks, killing being one of them. What is really intriguing is that the Darklings take on the characteristics of the victim they came from. For example, if you feed on the heart of a kamikaze pilot from the Otherworld, the resulting Darkling will run up to its foes and explode on contact with no remorse. Yet, you shouldn’t expect your Darklings to do all the work for you because their dark presence is cast out by the light. Fortunately, The Darkness within draws strength from the shadows and also grants you the ability to see an outline of your enemies in the dark. Many strategic steps can be taken with the ability to see in the dark, as you could easily shoot out the lights in an area and make easy prey of your enemies.

The Darkness screenshot

Jackie isn’t just some punk that can only defend himself with supernatural powers either. Depending on your proximity and current weapon Jackie will perform dynamic attacks on close enemies. When enemies are close enough, Jackie will perform a knee attack or fire his gun point blank in a fashion very similar to the “Gun-Kata” technique used in the film Equilibrium. Starbreeze openly admits to being inspired by the film and using its technique in the Darkness game. Aside from just looking really cool, the Gun-Kata like techniques is used to prevent players from needing to overcompensate when turning to shoot nearby enemies. Hence, you won’t need to rotate 360 degrees in order to shoot a guy just to the left of you (I’m looking at you Doom games of yester-year).

Once you’ve had your fill of the sixteen hour story mode you can ham it up with friends via online. The multiplayer online experience is intentionally simple but intense gameplay. You play as either the human or the Darklings and some modes of play allow you to switch between the two for specific purposes. The humans can wear armor, and use guns while Darklings are exceptionally fast and able to scale across walls. Most online players will be familiar with the available modes such as death match, capture the flag, and team death match. Survivor mode is The Darkness own personal take on the traditional mode. Everyone starts as a human except one player whose job is to kill and transform everyone else into Darklings, hence the last one alive is victorious. Another mode of survivor puts everyone as a Darkling except for one being a human. The single human is the only one that can score points. As one of the Darklings you must kill the human to become one yourself and then attempt to kill all the other Darklings to win the match. At this point, the online mode isn’t complete yet but is coming along very well. I’m confident that by the release date many online players will find themselves anxious to linger in the shadows. Cheat Code Central will keep you updated on The Darkness as it continues to creep from out from the shadows in late June.

Features :

  • Based on the comic book “The Darkness,” created by Top Cow.
  • Varying manifestations of the Darkness allow you to devour, impale, or implode your enemies.
  • Summon and command an army of Darklings, impish and hilarious demonites that commit unspeakable acts.
  • The absence of light feeds and replenishes the Darkness so seek the shadows wherever possible.
  • Play as Darklings in online multiplayer games and face other players in traditional multiplayer modes as well as all-new innovative game modes.
  • The use of Gun-Kata techniques inspired by the film Equilibrium to take down your enemies quickly

  • The evil power of Darkness

    January 26, 2007 – The Darkness is a comic book series created by Top Cow Productions which had mild success in the early 90s. The plot focuses on a man named Jackie Estacado, a man blessed (or cursed) with the power of The Darkness. As if being possessed by darkness wasn’t enough, Jackie has also lived out a majority of his life in the mafia, as a henchman. As you can imagine, the comic has some pretty dark, gritty themes, and developer Star Breeze has taken the task of bringing the series to life for the PS3 and Xbox 360. In combination with Jackie’s dark mafia lifestyle and unimaginable dark, The Darkness seems to be coming along as a great and innovative game.

    The Darkness screenshot

    As the darkness-possessed mafia goon Jackie Estacado, you have a very large assortment of dark abilities to wield as you see fit, alongside Jackie’s natural obsession for dual wielding hand guns. Both these elements play a large, intricate, and fun part of the game. Let’s start with the basics, shall we? The game itself is, at heart, a first person shooter. Being raised in the mafia life has naturally given Jackie a strong lust for sex, violence and handguns. Being that the focus of the game isn’t sex you’re left with the other two. You will perform your most basic attacks with Jackie’s favorite 9MM handguns, which he prefers to dual wield whenever possible. Jackie’s personal preference doesn’t mean you’ll just be using handguns… as through the course of the game you’ll find weapons like sub machine guns, assault rifles, and shotguns. Unlike the popular Chronicles of “Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay” Xbox game, Jackie doesn’t have any hand to hand combat skills but he does utilize stealth like attacks using the blunt part of his guns.

    Let’s face it though, with the use of Jackie’s dark powers you’ll rarely need to engage with fisticuffs. The Darkness within Jackie grants him strange powers that only seem limited by the quantity of darkness surrounding him or the lack of his own creativity. The game initially starts off with Jackie (you, the player) attempting to exact revenge on his adopted, crime lord uncle. This also serves as the tutorial where you learn to play the game using only Jackie’s guns. It’s after your dear, old, evil uncle begins to finalize a fatal blow to you that your darkness powers mysteriously awaken. Developer Star Breeze has stayed true to the comic and from this point on you’ll have a very impressive amount of darkness powers to pull from.

    The Darkness screenshot

    As a user of the darkness, you now possess great powers and, unlike a web headed hero, Jackie doesn’t use them responsibly. Since the darkness allows Jackie to create practically anything from pure darkness he can exact revenge with minimum effort. Jackie can use the Darkness in order to form strange, demonic-like tentacles from his back. An assortment of uses applies to these gruesome appendages; they can easily be used to flip over obstacles or rip humans apart. In the comic, he even uses his tentacles as eyes that can peer through vents and around corners; I sincerely hope this plays a part in the game too. Aside from the dark tentacles, Jackie can open dark, portal like vaccums that suck everything, including people, into them. I would imagine tactics like that would require a lot of darkness to be in the area though.

    I think one of the most entertaining and useful powers is the ability to summon strange gremlin like creatures known as Darklings. Darklings are wiry, gremlin-like creatures that attack in swarms and with extreme prejudice for Jackie. They have sharp teeth, claw-like hands and monkey-like agility and speed. Despite being dangerous as they are, Darklings can carry close combat weapons. In a demo shown at E3, several of them appeared with weapons like chainsaws, knives, and a drill, after being summoned by Jackie. Each Darkling acts independently also and, much like the comic, has its own personal identity. For example, after ordering one darkling to attack someone, it actually responded, “Forget you,” and reluctantly went on to perform its task. Some even go as far as to do victory dances after defeating foes or randomly urinating on enemies. Thus far, the Darklings by themselves are enough to make me want to purchase this game!

    The overall game also has a lot of technically neat aspects that hardcore gamers will greatly appreciate, thanks to developer Star Breeze. Like the Xbox’s Chronicles of Riddick title, you can shake the camera around as you please during cinema clips. Though it serves no purpose in the game, it’s a nice touch. Also, during a level that places you near a television set, you can watch the previous chaos that Jackie (you) caused in the city. The great unique feature about the television set is that you can also change the channel and watch an assortment of full motion, lengthy videos, like the classic Nosforateu film and Popeye episodes. Star Breeze is currently adding even more intricate features to the television set options – here’s to hoping for some Naruto episodes! The environments are also fully destructible which will make for a lot fun when using your tentacles to toss objects about like an angry Wal-Mart shopper.

    The Darkness screenshot

    The graphics also are running very smoothly. Though it’s still a few months from release, it’s already past the frame rate of Chronicles of Riddick. The texture mapping on people looks excellent so far, and the environment is looking just as detailed, all the way down to the crevices of the brick walls of buildings. Since Jackie’s darkness powers can only be used in the dark, lighting and shadow effects will play a big role in the game. Thus, even now in its early development, light and dark particle effects are very fine tuned and ominous in presentation. You really will feel like a creature of the night lurking in the shadows. Anyone who has played Chronicles of Riddick will know they can trust this aspect of the game. There will also be voice work by HBO series Oz actor Kirk Acevedo, Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under, and Mike Patton of Faith No More.

    Online multiplayer will also be included in The Darkness for those of you who want to compete against others, though your multiplayer experience will not be with Jackie but as one of his many Darkling minions. We have yet to see how this will fully come into play, but there will be up to 16 players. As creative as Star Breeze has been with their previous work, I’m sure their going to ensure an enriching multiplayer and single player adventure.

    The Darkness is shaping up superbly and looks to be another sleeper hit from the developer that brought us Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Not only are they staying true to the comic, Star Breeze is actually making a somewhat lackluster comic seem very much worth picking up and reading, much like how they made Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay more thrilling than the movie. Any company that can take B-list movies or comics and transform them into phenomenal games is more powerful than the characters portrayed in the game itself. So now my next question is…who really is powered by The Darkness?

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