The Darkness II Review

THE STORY
the story starts 2 years after the first game,Jackie has taken over Uncle Paulie's position as the leader of the mob and also it has been two years
since he used the darkness powers.After he gets attacked in a restaurant by "The Brotherhood",a secret organization founded by Miguel Estecado
(Jackie's ancestor) to take the darkness for itself and kill Jackie in the process.
They are led by a limpy guy named Victor Valente.
The way they want to take the darkenss out of Jackie is to use the Siphon,a staff like weapon created by the Angelus,and also Jackie starting to halucinate about Jenny
the story BY FAR is better than the first game's story and its the best thing about the whole game
there's a lot of twists,characters,action and a sense of emotional touch throughout of the game
its not the best story ever told and surely the voice acting isn't anything special at all
Jackie's new voice is okay,almost every other character uses a Italian mobster accent and the darkness's voice is absolutely horrible
while its the same guy that voiced the darkness from the first game,he sounds like he is puking something every time he spoke in the game
and by the end of the game,his voice becomes obnoxious.
In the first game,he was scary,creepy and more mysterious while in this one
he is obnoxious,overexaggerrated and annoying
other than the mediocre voice acting,everything else about the story is good except that its too short

so for the story
9.5


THE GRAPHICS
i dont like the graphics in The Darkness II
its not that they are bad in textures,detail etc..
its the way its presented
while the first game used realistic graphics and it was more creepy
THIS game uses cell-shaded look
while its the best cell-shaded game so far,its also a stepback from the first game
now the devs said that the game is made like this to feel like you are playing a interactive comic book game
since the darkness is based of a series of comic books made back in the 90s
this is the problem
if the first game was made in cell-shaded look
i would have been fine with that
BUT since its made using a cell-shaded look after the first game was made in a realistic type of graphics
it overall hurts the graphics department,but other than that
the graphics are mostly good

so for the graphics
7.5


THE GAMEPLAY
the gameplay has been refined from the first game and its better but at the same time,it has few step backwards
the good thing about the new gameplay
you feel like a badass,the new darkness powers you get from killing enemies and stuff to upgrade your darkness powers is epic
the shooting is cool and it also has something called "quad-weilding" where you can use two weapons with your two hands and you can use the darkness snake heads to be badass
you can get stuff like a car's door and metal pipes and throw at the enemies or do some bloody executions and with the right head,you can
slash and rip enemies in half,you can also rip the hearts out of dead enemies from the first game and now it replenishes your health
the guns are cool,the enemies get stronger as you go in the game and has a variety in the enemy department and you can do some pretty badass stuff.
the bad thing is that this game is way too linear
the first one was KINDA open worlded (may i say) and you can use the subways to get around to a lot of places and it was pretty cool
in this one,you have a giant villa that is really small and all you can do is just talk to people
theres no side quests like the last game
while this one is focused on the action more than the last game and the action is excellent
the stuff from the first game that made it awesome isn't in this one ruins the experience
still the gameplay is solid and the quad wielding feature is cool

so for the gameplay
8.5


FUN FACTOR
you will get tons of fun with this game,the story is fucking excellent,the gameplay is extremely fun and the graphics are cool that are made in that comic book style
BUT the main story is 5-6 hours long,which is not that bad considering that there are shooters that are 4 hours *cough* COD *cough*
but also the biggest problem in the length is that the first darkness was about 9-10 hours long.
ALMOST twice as long as this game
but in defence for this sequel,the game has many memorable moments and the story is unforgettable
i would rather have a shorter single player that is really memorable than a forgettable explosion of shit at the screen that is EVEN shorter than this game *cough* COD *cough*
plus if you beat the game,there is a vendettas co-op campaign
for this type of mode,i would recommend playing online,the game gets quite boring a bit if you play alone
the vendettas's story mode is 2 hours long and its not anything excellent but it still is pretty cool to play through
overall,i had tons of fun with this game and its a worthy sequel to the first darkness
both games are equal good in my opinion but in a different way

so for the fun factor
8.0

FINAL SCORE:THE DARKNESS 2 GETS A..
8.0

After all this time, this is what you produce.

I got to say kudos at least for making it somewhat readable this time around.