Let's just suppose for a moment that you are looking for the most horrifically gruesome experience that you can possibly get in a video game. If you happen to pick up The Darkness, you have immediately accomplished this goal. This first-person shooter packs a much bigger punch than simply being profoundly disgusting, however, because the amount of ancillary content borders on the obsessive. The years this game has spent in development are evident in every grime-filled crack and crevice of the vandalized New York City environment and each kooky answering machine message (The Darkness' version of collectibles). But the real draw, as previously stated, is an incomparable amount of carnage.
Crushing the Cosa Nostra
Born into a world of violence, Jackie Estacado was a mob hit man for the Franchetti family until his Uncle Paulie turned the tables and put a contract out on Jackie. This is where you come in: stepping into the slick Italian loafers of Jackie in an attempt to bring down your renegade Uncle Paulie. There's one small twist: on the night that you are elected the mafia's most wanted, it's also your 21st birthday... which is also the night that you are granted hellish superpowers that wreath you in inky tentacles capable of unspeakable violence.
From then on, The Darkness becomes an unceasing carnival ride of evisceration featuring a limited spectrum of firearms and a stygian arsenal of supernatural abilities. As your dubious ally, the Darkness has a personality all its own, and as the source of your new superpowers you need to pay attention to its desires... to a point. See, although the Darkness has "chosen" Jackie as its vessel, there is some question as to whether or not it has Jackie's best interests at whatever frigid lump of coal it calls a heart.
As you progress through the game, the conflicting goals of the Darkness and Jackie become shockingly obvious through a series of cut-scenes involving Jackie's most precious personal connections. We don't want to spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that even though the Darkness has gifted Jackie with its ungodly powers, it has an agenda that requires Jackie to be compliant (read: broken like a fussy stallion).
Of course, all of that has to do with the deeper story elements of The Darkness, which are interesting, but most of your time is going to be spent dispatching enemies using a grim array of Darkness-imbued weapons. Literally tearing through mobsters with Darkness tentacles, you also have access to Jackie's wide-range of hit man expertise in the form of execution moves. If you can get close to a foe, you can perform an execution move that doesn't expend precious ammunition and delivers a gut-chilling little show as well.
Our favorite is the one where Jackie blows off the kneecap off of a would-be attacker so that the fool pitches forward just in time to wrap his lips around the barrel of Jackie's pistol; it's vicious beyond belief, but that's the sort of thing that hit men are really good at. Your pistols are the most rewarding weapons to use for execution moves, because they come with a huge variety, whereas other firearms (shotgun, AK-47, M16) only have one or two.
