The Darkness II - Playstation 3

Do you like comics? Do you like atmosphere? Do you like having two demonic tentacle heads protruding from your back that allow you to whip, grab, dismember, and look bad ass? Welcome to The Darkness 2. The Darkness 2 has a great story that loosely continues from the first game, don't worry there's a quick reintroduction by Johnny, but the game also grows on its own in many ways. Being possessed by this evil being you switch between realities, questioning your sanity as you try to discover why a secret group is searching for the Darkness. Along the way you relive past painful memories, protect your turf as a mafia boss, and literally destroy people in some of the most horrific scenes of dismemberment and butchery. Killing and eating hearts, yummy, will add to a counter of Dark Essence that you can use to unlock more advanced powers and bonuses. This gives the game a nice balance of action and attributes, allowing you to specialize and eventually master, all of the four talent trees. The action itself is done well, a mix of gun fighting and Darkness powers that can get pretty challenging on the highest difficulty towards the end of the game. You can always press select to show you the next location and the game auto saves enough that you never get frustrated with having to replay a long sequence. The voice acting and the care given to the characters is top notch and for those of us who appreciate it, very rewarding. The single player campaign is not too long depending on difficulty level and your level of expertise, but I found the story and atmosphere so refined that I thoroughly enjoyed my play through and recommended it. Also of note is the Vendettas campaign. There is a 4 player online co-op that intertwines with the single player story filling in some back story. Overall Vendettas is a fun diversion with friends but a little repetitive. You don't get to play as the main character Jackie, instead one of a set of four mercenaries that each have a personal weapon infused with Dark Essence. It's a cool story and Digital Extremes did a great job creating a world that feels true to its premise and rewarding for those who want to live it. Great characters like Johnny whose rants are hilarious as much as they are insane and the ever grunting Chief are some of the reasons everything resonates so well. The Darkness 2 is the best FPS I've played in a long while and it's definitely worth the time for someone who wants to go beyond the yearly mediocre call of duty.

I loved the first game, then again the The Darkness comics are one of my favorites to read. First off, they changed the art style to be cel-shaded. This, as it turns out, was a great choice as it does have that comic book feel while you play. The graphics in general aren't bad, although it is sort of rough around the edges. There is a small amount of texture pop-in, but definitely not something that ruins the experience. The sound, in my opinion, is excellent! I play with my surround sound turned up and the immersion is great. Granted when the game launches from the XMB, during the intro bit the sound cuts out for a second or two, I haven't run into any other sound problems. Some others have noted that the PS3 has to check trophies, but it does not take too long so they should stop complaining. The story is superb with a somewhat predictable, yet sweet ending. Let's just say if they make a third game, it will be even more epic story wise. Anyways, the characters are well done, and by the end I absolutely HATED Victor, the main bad guy. Content wise it offers about five hours of gameplay, give or take depending on difficulty. There are four difficulty levels, but no one should have problems even on the hardest level, Don. Back to content! After the story, you can choose to do a New Game + where everything carries over from your previous session. Besides that, there is another mode called Vendettas where you can pick one of four characters to use for mini missions. Each character has their own set of powers to level up which if you want to max out should add a few hours to your overall gametime. Bottom line, I highly recommend this game. I paid $60 for it, and don't regret a single cent.

I initially downloaded the demo from Playstation and was hooked with those few minutes. I then ordered this right away; it arrived when Amazon said it did. As for the game itself, plenty of violence, plenty of shoot-em-up, but the major downside to this is the campaign is EXTREMELY SHORT! I finished it in a couple of hours. Definitely not worth the release price of $59.99; but it is what it is. I gave this game three stars for the type of gameplay that I enjoy. You don't have to be a wizard at games to get through this, it has several levels from easy to really hard. Funny at times, and 'dark' most of the time. Graphics are unique in the fact that they look like just a comic book (there is some lag at times, nothing major). I recommend this game.

BRIEF The initial Darkness was the very first paid-for (not coming with the box) PS3 game we purchased way back in 2007. It didn't get much play at the time because the kids were still small and the sound effects alone were enough to terrify them. Kids are older now, they played the first installment already and Darkness 2 appeared on a birthday wish list. The game is a fun rampage shooter game to get through and play again if you are bored. The graphics, sounds and animations are a giant improvement and make the game look like a living comic book. While beautifully executed, the game feels incomplete since the story is way too short considering the creativity in writing and gameplay. The ending was not as fun as it should have been - if 'fun' can be associated with the game total gruesomeness, and the Vendettas should have had a bigger and longer role since the characters had fun personalities and powers. The Special Edition comes with a nice Darkness 2 art poster, two extra powers for story mode, and an alternate costume for the darkling. These are nice things to have but do not really help in the grand scheme of the game. In other words, whatever you can accomplish in the Special Edition is achievable in the regular game as well. ATMOSPHERE Playing 'The Darkness 2' is like living inside a horror movie with you cast as one the monsters. You are Jackie Estacodo who is the Don of the the mafia in New York. The show opens with an assassination attempt by an mysterious group. You/Jackie survive by awaking your evil super power, the Darkness which you have repressed for three years. You use this horrifying power to investigate why 'the Brotherhood' is trying to kill you and why you are haunted by visions of your girlfriend who was killed in front of you years ago. PLAY Unlike the first installment where you could freely go wherever you wanted, the story mode in Darkness 2 is very directed - that's why I'm comparing it to a movie. Side-missions are gone but hunting for artifacts is introduced. Artifacts come with a boost of essence which you use to get new powers and power up your darkness abilities. They also come with little stories (not bedtime stories though) that relate to the Darkness' role in history and the Bible. - Guns The gun-fighting in the game is unique. You would generally get weapons and ammo from enemies killed in the game. You can only hold three weapons at a time, which you can toggle using the d-pad. You can hold one assault rifle or shotgun, and two pistols. Something that I liked was you can shift between using one pistol for accuracy, or dual wield guns so you can cover a wider range of enemies in front of you or fire off a clip from one gun and keep shooting with another. There is a wide verity of guns but the ammo for one type matches with a another. For example, you can collect the ammo form a discarded twelve gauge and put it into a riot shotgun. In combat shooting and aiming is very smooth, but a tad unrealistic since there is absolutely no recoil and the scope does not move at all while shooting or aiming. - Powers While shooting is a big part of the game, the really fun part comes with the Darkness Powers. They are fueled and improved by the 'essence' which you get after killing an enemy or from artifacts (ahhhhh). The various powers are accessed on pillars of essence and are purchased on a skill tree system. You start the game with the classic tentacles but unlike the last game where they were only good for eating hearts and for singular powers, the tentacles play a vital part during combat. One tentacle is for slicing and dicing, the other is for grabbing and throwing, and holding up car doors and other things for cover. unlike the previous game . They are also used in one of my favorite parts of the game, the over the top, and extremely gruesome executions - I'll leave what happens there to anyone's imagination. - Darkling You only get the one berserker like darkling in Darkness 2, but he is a lot smarter and you can throw him if you need too. The darkling is now a legitimate character and plays a vital part in the story. There are also a few parts where you play as the darkling and crawl through vents and use your claws as a knife and act like a mini assassin. ONLINE In the online mode, Vendettas, you play as one of the four Darkness powered hitmen (actually one is a woman) hired by Jackie to help him fight the Brotherhood. They each come with their own darkness powers, also skill tree based, and have a darkness artifact, each with different powers and executions. There are two online modes: story and hitlist. The story mode consists mostly of fighting trough hordes of bad guys (badder than you?) and fighting bosses in medium to large environments while you communicate with whomever is in charge at the time by phone. The story is the same for whatever character you are playing as but the phone banter is well written and quite funny. 'Hitlist' is more for leveling up and fun. You play through a story mode level and finish at the boss. Both modes can be played with friends, but they have to choose a character not yet chosen. ___________________________________________ NOTE: I would not play this game if or when children are around. -- >> Brush your teeth, it's the law! <<

Dont know why all the hate on this game with luke-warm views- Game is alot of fun the AI Puts up a good fight alot of cool kills plus upgrades- Sometimes i think people are so picky with Gaming now everything must be perfect- After all its just a 59 dollar Game- Stop saying well its not like Darkness 1 YEAH Its Not so get over it- Darkness 2 offers alot of gaming fun so i will give it 5 stars because so many picky people are bashing it because its not like Darkness 1!!! Thanks

Wasn't that difficult; beat the game on easy a few times and unlocks carry over to hard The developers changed a lot including the two evil heads on your shoulders The comic look is great and didn't take away from the gore Multiplayer is fun while it lasts Cons: Shorter than the 1st, not as in depth of a feel as the 1st, no full movies to watch on a tv you can change the channels with. I miss the 1st game mostly and had high expectations for this one. Leaves no real back story on how the end events of the 1st game were dismissed. Sold to gamestop 4 days after release date for $25

This game is awful. From start to finish...the damn game is way to dark, u can barely see anything and the graphics are jus cheasy looking...luckily I didnt buy it when it first came out and didnt waste 60 bucks on it and got it for under 20...but its not really worth that and its so bad its trade in value is jus 7 bucks...LOL.

I had every intention of adding this to my backlog of stuff to play, but since my Jak & Daxter Collection came really late and I don't wanna start anything else til Twisted Metal, I ended up popping this in when I got it. Now, it's not a horrible game by any means, but it's not very good. First of all, I have the PS3 version. The game takes a couple seconds to load up and a minute or 2 to load trophies and settings because I don't think it installs anything to the hdd. Some of the loading times are actually kinda long. Not Rage long but still a little long none the less. My biggest complaint about the game is the lack of variety. All levels play almost the same (there's a few that are basically on rails or walk over here, walk there, run from these guys and escape and 10 minutes later you're onto the next chapter) and are basically fighting your way from point a to point b to get to fight this guy at point c. You do get to control the Darkling, but it's twice and both sections feel quite limited. The enemies do change every other level or so and as you progress through the game and become more powerful, the enemy types also seem to become more tedious. This isn't a bad thing, but they just keep coming and coming. You'll find yourself clearing out an area then walking around the corner and doing the same exact thing. This is how almost every level has panned out. Sometimes you have to chase down a boss...but on your way to chasing down that boss you have to clear out more open areas of enemies! Needless to say, after a few chapters it gets tedious and far too repetitive. Shoot out lights (whether they be hanging above you or worn by random bad dudes), blow up generators, kill 41 baddies, turn around and run to beginning of level through more baddies, possibly a burning building, and hop in your casually-waiting-for-your-return limo or it'll just fade and next thing you know, you're somewhere else. The fact that the campaign is really short really amplifies that repetitive feeling. I hadn't finished the campaign at the time of writing this, but now that I have, I was correct in assuming what I had left to finish was nothing more than kill wave after wave of bad guys and fight the main villain...and end up in Hell but that's only if you chose one of the options closer to the end. Also, I started on the hardest difficulty and I died only a handful of times and still finished the campaign in a little over 5 hours. So, with a really short and super repetitive campaign, you're probably wondering "well...what else can this game offer then?" and well...the game does have a few tiny bits you can replay. After you complete the campaign, you can play it again in new game + mode (which honestly, unless you're a trophy/achievement hunter, you won't want to) which will carry over your upgrades and relics so you can find the remaining ones and try to max out all of your upgrades and get a shiny trophy for completing the game again (which if you're like me, you just changed the difficulty to easy after beating it on Don and finished this play through in under 5 hours). But if the campaign isn't to your liking, then you'll be even more disappointed when you hop into the Vendetta's campaign. These missions can be played either with friends online or by yourself. They run alongside the main story and are kinda meant as a behind the scenes/this is what's going on while you were killing more of these guys in the campaign. But if you didn't really pay much attention to the story (and I wouldn't blame you), then these will feel like more of the same. They're cool if you only play 1 mission as each of the characters that it lets you chose from for these missions, but then you'll realize that you're doing the same exact thing you were doing in the campaign and become bored with it pretty quickly. Luckily, the Vendetta's campaign is maybe an hour long so at least it feels like the right amount of time for what it is. It's not overly difficult and there are gratuitous amounts of ammo boxes laying around so you will never find yourself without enough ammo for the dozens of dudes you'll encounter. Overall, the game isn't horrible but it's just not very fun. There isn't a huge variety of execution animations so you'll grow tired of them rather quickly and the game doesn't really offer any variety of missions in the chapters to really hold your interest for much more than an hour. The co-op missions are just as tedious, but will appeal to anyone who does find themselves really into the story. I'd suggest giving it a rental but with other games on the market that offer a far superior experience and more bang for your hard earned buck, definitely don't waste your time on this one unless you're a hardcore fan of the comics. If you do feel like it's a game you must own, don't shell out more than 20 bucks for it because the lack of content or variety in gameplay is a real downer and will bore you pretty quickly if you're not a fan of the comics. Please note that I am not familiar with the universe of The Darkness and am merely a gamer posting my review based on my experience with the game.

A great sequel to one of the best games ever made

Good product

ゲームはもっぱらAmazonで購入。欲しいゲームを探して、小遣いで購入する。こちらも速攻クリアして売却しましたが・・・。

１作目のダークネスは好きでした。他のFPSにはないグチャグチャな戦闘は自分が強くなった感覚と、アドレナリンどっぷりな新しい楽しさを実現していました。単調な展開は少し退屈でしたが、理不尽な血みどろのストーリーは逆に世界観を良くしていたと思います。今作の２作目。グラフィックは好みが分かれるでしょうが、リアルと言うより絵画的な感じです。音楽はすばらしく、銃を撃つ音は重く良かったです。日本語版が２月２３日に発売ですが、規制内容を見て輸入版を買いました。海外レビューのとおり、ストーリーは短いです。ゲーム中、主人公のジャッキーが語るシーンが多くあるのですが、はっきり言っていりません。また、組織のボスになっている設定ですが、アジトのステージがありまして、それもいりません。ネタバレになるので詳しく書きませんが、ダークネスパワーは現実なのかってな感じで、戦闘をしないステージがありまして、これもいりません。なんか、場面が沢山あり過ぎてテンポが悪くなっています。戦闘の興奮が続かないというか・・・。もっと、戦闘をバリバリやって、淡々とストーリーが進む方がいいと感じました。肝心の戦闘ですが、敵にブラザーフッドとかいうダークネスパワーを知っている組織が出てくるのですが、けっこう強くてダークネスパワーの強さが半減してます。なんか、すっきりしたいのにすっきりしない、テンポの悪い中途半端なストーリーがあって、戦闘があってと残念な感じです。ダークネスパワーのスキルツリーがあるのですが、あまり強くなった感じがなくて、楽しくありません。ゴア表現については、これ以上ないくらいにすごいですが、すっきりしませんね。これで、規制のかかった日本語版は、ゲーム自体の良さが感じられるとは思えません。そもそも日本語版を規制しても簡単に輸入版を入手出来る中で、規制する意味があるのですかね？あると思います？誰が得するんですかね？誰の為になるんですかね？ 他のFPSにはない、ダークネスパワーというすばらしい設定があるのに良さを発揮してません。世界観、設定、ゴア表現は好きなので、もし次回作が出るならプレイしたいと思ってます。なので、次回に期待して星３つ。

Brand new factory sealed game received without any box damage. Wonderful job on seller’s behalf and Amazon’s as well.