The Darkness starts strong, very strong even. Installed on the back seat of a convertible of collection, Jackie Estacado and two of his acolytes are pursued by an orde of hungry cops, all launched at high speed in a tunnel in full work. A story of money gone wrong apparently, and here they are with a gun in their hands defending their skin against a rogue gang. A beheading and a few gunshots later, the vehicle swerved violently after hitting several struts in a row. Emerging miraculously unscathed from this swerve, Estacado slaps a last kiss to his accomplice big brother and rushes into the dark alleys of New York. The game can finally begin. Jackie is above all a teenager who polished the benches of the Saint Mary orphanage after the death of his parents, when he was still only a kid. Jackie is the guy who had a cop at the age of 14 and who doesn't give a damn about society and the codes that govern it. Jackie is also Jenny, the love of his life met in the corridors of the orphanage, probably the only ray of sunshine in all his years of hardship. Finally, Jackie is also Paulie Franchetti, her adoptive father, her uncle, the Don, the daron what. With him he is going to kill a lot of people, a lot of guys especially, to establish his power over the whole city. But one day Franchetti will turn against his spiritual son, suspecting him of wanting to double him in his drug and greenback trafficking. That's why Estacado finds himself with a contract on his head, on the eve of his twenty-first birthday. The moment chosen by the darkness to manifest its existence in the spirit and the veins of the ch'tit, a bad habit taken since the dawn of time. Without explaining too much to you why and how so as not to spoil the surprise, The Darkness is not only a story of struggle for influence, but also of family, self-esteem and love in general. A mixture of genres at times indigestible, which flies us from left to right, but which we savor while ignoring the sometimes brutal transitions. Afterwards, it's just a matter of taste. Alternating between sci-fi and pure Italian action, The Darkness takes the risk of favoring one aspect at the expense of the other. It shoots as much in both worlds. Phew!
What the hell ?!
Like any good self-respecting FPS, The Darkness gives pride of place to gunfights. With a gun in each hand, Jackie is quite easily respected by the thugs who swarm at the bottom of the buildings, especially with the auto-targeting which favors the headshot in a crude way. To be deleted in the game options, of course. On the other hand, we also note that it is necessary to empty its loader on certain enemies, the cops in particular, to put them on the ground. Bullet proof vest ? Yeah, but it should have been specified in the instructions then. To scroll his artillery, a simple pressure on the cross is enough - right or left -, but as much to tell you right away, you are not likely to wear it out for two good reasons. The first is that in the end, The Darkness turns out to be very poor in types of guns (shotgun, uzi, assault rifle...), most of them coming out of armories in the very last hours of the game. When we know that the others Current FPS offer about thirty firearms, it's stingy. The second reason is that most of the time we find ourselves shooting with the basic weapons, the water pistols that your accomplice gives you at the start of the game. effective at mid-range, especially since ammunition for these poor relatives is easy to find. Up to you. In any case, the shooting phases highlight poor management of collisions in The Darkness, because it is not uncommon to shoot in the heart without the presumed victim being hit by the bullet. Anecdotal in easy, but infuriating in normal since it necessarily eats ammunition. The damage system is inspired by current production, namely to collect a certain number of bullets before collapsing on the ground. To recover, just take cover and wait for the vision to clear before returning to battle.
Its originality, The Darkness draws it precisely from the darkness, this evil voice that gnaws at Estacado's soul. Modest like a virgin, the demon hates the light. Part of the concept is therefore based on the destruction of any light source that could prevent the devil from feeding on darkness. We feel there the stuffed blow, not marketing as for The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, but bogus anyway; pretending to be Sam Fisher by screwing up a bulb or a neon every two meters, that's two minutes. It would probably have been necessary to opt for a less restrictive phobia that does not chop the pace. Once plunged into darkness, Jackie can let out the tentacles of darkness by pressing LB, two large appendages then coming over her shoulders, ready to bite into the first heart that comes along. These tentacles, the young man will be able to use them in several ways, always via the cross. The first is to crawl like a sticky slug to surprise his opponents, but also to get into conduits or passages that are too narrow. You can also use it to move so-called heavy or bulky objects, or even break down a brick wall if you guess a secret passage. Finally, you can also create a black hole - a bit cheap, it's true - to suck up your enemies whose bodies won't be sent to another dimension; good news for collectors of hearts, essential foods to inflate your power gauge and intensify the power of darkness. The hunt for throbbing muscles only lasts for a while, because once satiated there is no longer any reason to eat more. Except out of greed.
Kill'em all !
In addition to her supernatural gifts, Jackie can call on the darklings, a kind of moblins always ready to carve up corpses, or to make them. In darkness mode, luminous portals are revealed, and that's where the critters come out. Once located a few meters from the burrow, you must select the type of darkling you want to use. They are four in number. The first, the naughtiest, is the Massacreur. Very effective when there are people to knock out. Next comes the Gunner who does not hesitate to shoot anything that moves, including you if you are in his line of sight. The Kamikaze, as its name suggests, commits suicide upon contact with the enemy. Finally, the Light Killer which is responsible for removing all sources of light from the surroundings. Practice. That said, darklings remain very primitive in their behavior, and are not very brain-sharp. Therefore, it is not uncommon to see some of them voluntarily place themselves under a light bulb when nine have just been destroyed. Ditto for the combat sequences during which it may happen that some hide behind the player, without lifting a finger. In short, there are dozens of little anecdotes like these. Truth be told, it's like the game's AI; guys trying to get around you when they're already in front of you, that's not serious at all. That said, we particularly like the strategic aspect that the developers wanted to give to the darklings. In fact, it is impossible to exit several from the same portal; that would be too easy. In the first hours of play, we must therefore choose wisely the one that best suits a particular situation. Well seen. Well seen also the possibility of then calling several depending on the number of portals that are in the same room.
The Darkness, it's not only a story of gunfights, but also a story of missions to accomplish. You spend most of your time in the metro, which then becomes a kind of improvised hub where phone calls and low-voiced discussions in the toilet allow you to display the new objectives to be achieved. You always know where you're going, and you have to be strong to get lost. If the indications provided by the indicators are not enough, you can always turn to the automatic terminals which carefully dissect the route to be taken. In addition to the main quest, a host of side missions are also available, just to bolster its list of bonuses. If shooting down the members of an enemy gang or a witness about to spill the beans are great classics, we really liked the bento box, unfortunately poorly exploited. It's true, the side missions are short and addictive, to the point of sometimes abandoning your own vendetta to settle the affairs of others. Just stop for a few seconds in front of an NPC for it to spread its life to you. Others won't even hesitate to catch you in the act, having studied your CV enough to know that you are the man for the job. The other side of the coin is this impression of linearity, of monotony in the action which suddenly loses intensity, since we mainly go from point A to point B, possibly to point C but that's all . Adrenaline sterile round trips that play against the game.
The F.E.A.R.ness
Not as gorgeous as Gears of War, The realisation of The Darkness none the less excellent. It's clear, he has a face of FEAR this one, especially in the Beyond where the artists of Starbreeze have relied heavily on chiaroscuro, an art that often comes up in this kind of atmosphere. A huge battlefield, torrential rain and lightning furiously illuminating the sky, we revel in such a spectacle. But that's not all. At the time of facing these soldier-zombies whose hearts must be ripped out so that they do not resurrect, Jackie is taken by vision and not very welcoming faces crackle on the screen. Plunged into the darkness with the helmet screwed on the ears, one is not serene. Another sequence: Jackie's return to the Saint Mary orphanage. Again, Estacado sees himself as a child, playing with Jenny in the yard and swearing undying love to each other. He enters the establishment, and Franchetti's future henchman announces to his lover that he must leave the orphanage. Cut ! We can't really realize the immensity of New York and its surroundings, since the game splits up the neighborhoods without really giving us the opportunity to visit them in continuity, as in a GTA for example. But the developers seem to have respected the vastness of the city, even if the streets are surprisingly empty. There will always be a few passersby wandering around, a few henchmen trying to stick a bullet between your eyes during one-off missions, but nothing else. No traffic, or even crowds, nada. Was it to allow the game to gain in fluidity? May be. But the bet is not totally successful because it sometimes happens, even often at the end of the game, that some slowdowns are cruelly felt. The facial animations, and particularly those of the hero, have been the subject of careful work which adds credibility to the whole. Lips a little more mobile, and it would have been perfect. No CG to report, just cut scenes that punctuate the narration and make up the loading. All this in 1080p.
How not to mention the exceptional work provided on the sound aspect of the game? The musical themes are magnificent, falling into the classic then into hard rock, into the melancholic then into the nervous. But the most impressive remain the voices, that of darkness more particularly. As Florian pointed out in our preview, it is the musician-actor-singer-composer Mike Patton who hides behind the voice of the evil one. A disturbing, bewitching, formidable and delicious voice which we gorge ourselves on without restraint, and which reveals all the complexity of the boy's spirit. A killer on its own. Since we congratulate the vocal cords, hats off also to those who fed the dialogues with their villainous, innocent or vengeful intonations. At least it lives in the subway. We inevitably listen when the tentacles fight over a piece of heart, the darklings come out of hell or a wooden door slams against its frame. The Darkness is not a long and difficult game to finish. For the experts of the genre, between eight and ten hours of play will be necessary to draw the curtain. Once the solo is completed, custom dictates that we turn to the multi. There, the game keeps a low profile despite the online, the fault of arch-classic game modes. If we already know the indestructible deathmatch, capture the flag and team deathmatch, we will take a deeper look at the shapeshifters. In fact, this mode allows you to turn into a darkling during the game, a good excuse to express your murderous impulses. Quick and difficult to target, they nevertheless have a fragile life bar and cannot carry a weapon. The trick is to cleverly alternate human/darkling to frage when the situation allows, and dodge at high speed when things get tense. One can be treacherous, we grant you that, but the specimens encountered on the network have no mercy. When the connection is established, there are always one or two servers pointing to green. As soon as there is lag, however, it becomes unplayable. The maps are small. Let's bet that Starbreeze will rectify the situation by putting downloadable content on the PlayStation Network.
