The Darkness II Review

How far will you go for a loved one? For Jackie Estacado, he will go through fire & brimstone for Jenny. The Darkness II is a lot better than the first and takes the brutality to whole different kind of  level. Be prepared to brace The Darkness once again.

Not played The Darkness? Good, as it was mediocre at best. The Darkness II heavily improves from the unplayable, The Darkness. You can finally put those tentacle flesh-eating machines to proper use in this sequel, and they are 10x better in the brutal department. Being able to quad-wield with these puppies and firing two weapons simultaneously makes you feel like a god, and it does. The Darkness suffered with clunky controls, lack of detail and the variety of dispatching your foes. The Darkness II improves in all those departments, but it does have its problems.

The Darklings was a big thing in the first Darkness game. You could summon four different types of Darklings from gunner, lightning to berserker. (Forgot the other one) Darkness II only has one Darkling, so you can’t summon any other, which was a huge shame. The Darklings are funny, and it’s the only source of humour from this game – unless you count the brutal killings, then you have a problem. Going back to your arsenal. You can upgrade you’re weapons and Darkness powers. You must earn the required dark essence, which they can be gained from killing people + in different ways & finding relics, which can offer around 300 or 500 dark essence, so its worth to explore around.

The Darkness II takes place two years after the events from The Darkness. Jackie, keeping the Darkness at bay, until one unfortunate night, a mysterious organization appears to cause havoc. Jackie only has one option. He must free the Darkness to overcome this big threat. And by god does the plot of this game drag on. I won’t be going into any spoilers from this game or the first, so don’t worry about that. The problem with the plot, is that it dangles you like bait on a fishing rod, thinking that the end of the game is near. When a game goes from being enjoyable to becoming a chore to proceed onwards, then you having problems, and sadly The Darkness II had that effect on me. You will learn on what The Darkness does to its host, and I do like the lies/confusion it gives. I applaud the game on top merits because of that, as it’s very inventive.

The game looks better and more colourful, even if its main theme is to be in darkness. The graphics have a comic book flare to it, which I really like as well. The voice acting is perfect, especially when you meet a character called Johnny. The Darkness II is an overall better game then? Yes, it is, but taking away the summoning of the Darklings, was a shame, and how easy the game was as well.

I now come to the co-op campaign. It’s up to four players and you can play as one of the 4 unique characters that each capable of wielding weapons infused with Darkness powers. You will notice that the actions of this campaign will in fact help Jackie, so, in a different perspective. It’s fun and great, but when playing with complete utter strangers with no communication, it become boring, stale and just another add-on attachment to add longevity to the game.

I like the Darkness II, as it plays great, looks great and brilliant with the voice acting. Being able to quad wield, throw objects, impaling enemies and a whole lot more adds more spice to the game. The first game wasn’t a great impression of the powers that you had. It felt like it was lacking in the department of creativity with the powers you process, and the Darkness II definitely offers that sense of realism with the powers you hold. The Darkness II is blood-thirsty work.

(8/10)