It is often when faced with a hugely disappointing warm pint on a warm day, after waiting so long to be able to sit in the garden enjoying the sunshine with a cool beverage that I turn to my inner rage. It’s often that I wish I too had a 20 foot long barbed tentacle to impale the barman on and wave him around like a child’s toy shouting “Frahahargh!” and other incomprehensible expletives, drawing his ebbing attention to my less than adequate drink. Alas, I must quash my tantrum by playing the latest from Starbreeze – The Darkness.

Although some of the story has deviated from the original, The Darkness is based on the comic of the same name by Top Cow Productions that features a modern day mafia hitman called Jackie Estacado who’s hopefully about to reach his 21st birthday. You start the game being hunted down by the mafia’s don, “Uncle Paulie”. Upon tracking Paulie down you’re set upon by goons, which fortunately enough is when a voice enters Jackie’s head calling itself “The Darkness” takes control of Jackie, giving him unearthly appendages and supernatural powers, thus enabling him to wipe out the hitmen.

Jackie now has the arsenal he needs at his disposal to track Paulie down. However, all that power comes with a price. Duh duh duuuuh. Ahem.

The first thing that grips you about The Darkness is that it’s very cinematic. From an opening high-speed car chase with destruction and death from all angles, to unleashing a black hole of destruction to engulf your enemies, you get that constant ‘film’ feel; at times its very Film Noir, and quite appropriately so when based around a Mafia scenario. The Mafia overtones are always there too, whether it’s the people you meet in the street or the little chats we have Jackie while the game loads from one area to another. The credits are constantly rolling while the intro finishes off and the music comes to a close. I imagine this is all to fall in line with the look and feel of the comic, which I think they’ve done really well. I’m loving it.

So, what to be said of how the game plays out? I think it’s largely going to depend on your playing style and perhaps a splash of ‘the other games you’ve played’ as to whether you get on with The Darkness straight away. You’ll make your way around from situation to situation, and for one thing there’s plenty of action. Unless you get lost, which can happen at first, but you’ll get used to it. The map system’s not particularly brilliant at telling you were you are in relation to the section you’re in, but this encourages you to look for road signs and such. As you progress through the game, not only will you get access to new weapons, but The Darkness will become more powerful and open up new abilities for you too. Oh and you’ll get these cool little dudes called the Darklings - more on those critters later.

We all want to play this game for the ‘cool’ factor, everyone wants to have special powers and crush their enemies in a variety of colourful ways. This, in a sense, is the first problem. Who wants guns!? I mean I’ll go play Mafia if I just want to run around with a Tommy and blast at things. No. Me? I want the tentacles and stuff.

It’s with that in mind that your first little bout of frustration will be in having to wait for your powers to get better, but hey that’s the point of an engrossing storyline is it not? You start with a limited ability to sneak kill people by becoming an un-glorified version of an Alien and stalking up to enemies, which is clumsy and limited as to where you can go with it even at later levels. So yeah, you’ll have to get used to your guns for a while, but then once you get your Darkness Guns, Dark Tentacles and Black Holes you’re not going to look back. Which brings me to another problem.

I can never remember to use the guns at this point! I just want to split, gut and eviscerate my foes because it’s a lot more fun flinging bodies than shooting them! The main problem with this style of play is that The Darkness also acts as a shield for you. As it might sound, going into the light will harm it, and getting shot wont do you much good either, so, put that all together and what do you have?

Running around a corner with The Darkness out, trying to tentacle-spear your enemy but discovering that there’s a light on and he’s shooting you, so ooh quick shoot out the light. NO the tentacle’s gone for the light. Argh he’s shooting me. Oh the Darkness has failed. Quick run towards him. Ah! Out of ammo! No! Run back to the dark! Too late. Dead.

Damn.

Yes, getting the balance between trying to go for the “Cool factor” and “Shooting the moron in the head” is a fine art and one you’ll struggle with, but I’m sure you’ll get to grips with it eventually, particularly since the AI is the worst part of this game without doubt. For all of the great graphics, cinematics, gameplay design and storyline, the one thing that lets it down is the seemingly gormless cretins you’ll be dealing with. Add to that a decent amount of auto-aim and you can pretty much bag any situation in the game so long as you don’t start trying to be all Jon Woo about it.

Ah, the Darklings that I mentioned earlier. They need a little mention, surely? Well yes I already said I was going to. Anyway, along the way in gaining your powers you’ll be able to summon little helpers throughout the game. They come in the form of the Darklings, who for a simpler way of putting it are little goblins that come in four flavours. Not that I’m recommending you lick a Goblin. Or anything that someone’s told you is a Goblin.

The Beserker is your first summon which mainly runs around hitting things, but can also move objects from time to time. How he kills your enemies will depend on which outfit he’s wearing. More of these can be picked up on the way.

The Gunner is your second summon, she (yes apparently they have genders) is probably best used as your crowd control as has a minigun strapped to her back. Sending her in willy-nilly will get her killed fast as it takes a while for the gun to power up.

The Kamikaze blows things up, and him with it. Enough said.

Seeing as the light hurts you and the Darklings, the Light Killer will take out lights along the way with a large battery on his back that discharges electricity. He wont mind frying a few goons along the way too.

Don’t get me wrong about the little gripes throughout this review, generally they’re small ones. The story more than compensates for it. Without spoiling it, the point where you’re sat in a church… yeah. Owch.

All in all the game rises to a crescendo of dark powers, dark moods and dark little green dudes. As far as the single player storyline goes it’s a winner, but for me the added multiplayer content was merely a bonus and adds little to the game. Hopefully you’ll find something there to take your fancy. Personally, they’ve left it open for another one, and I can’t wait for a sequel and hope that all the little bits that felt unfinished get a solid going over for a solid second in the series.