William Hartley: The Darkness 2 preview: Dancing in the dark

Friday, April 29, 2011

The Darkness 2 preview: Dancing in the dark

Jackie Estacado is an indestructible demigod. At least that's what the early stages of a recent demo for The Darkness 2 taught me about the game's main character. After unnamed assailants quite literally crash the dinner he had just sat down to eat -- subsequently murdering the erotic dancers he's dining with, of course -- Jackie's hurt pretty badly. His right foot is clearly mangled from the explosion, and soon enough he's being dragged to safety by a fellow mobster, all the while shooting at foes in pursuit.

Thankfully for Jackie Estacado, though, he can take a lot of bullets. Like, dozens. From point blank range. At one point during the demo, I stopped firing back for a full 30 seconds to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the mobster dragging me kept right at his task and, aside from the occasional splash of red on the HUD, Jackie was no worse for the wear. Though a 2K Games rep assured me that Jackie could die during the sequence, the dozens of bullets that had already riddled him didn't do much damage.

After that worrying intro, however, things improved greatly. Jackie was granted the power of quad-wielding and, soon enough, I was using his two crazy snake arms - the titular Darkness -to impale, assassinate, rip, and a whole host of other verbs, all while firing off bullets with my boring hands. Project lead Sheldon Carter with incoming developer Digital Extremes refers to Jackie's arsenal of arms as a "symphony of death," employing two weapons and two arms all at once to engage multiple enemies in a variety of ways.

Gallery: The Darkness 2 (April 2011 Preview)