The Darkness II Catch-All

Very awesome.

2K Games says 2007's critically-acclaimed console action title The Darkness will get a sequel, with Digital Extremes stepping in to take the reins from original developer Starbreeze Studios.

Like its million-unit selling predecessor, The Darkness II will be a first-person shooter starring Jackie Estacado -- now the boss of his organized crime family -- who wields an ancient power. The story and universe are based on a supernatural horror series of comic books from Top Cow.

Very excited about this. The Darkness wasn't a perfect game but was very unique and had a great premise and mechanics. I'm glad to hear that it actually sold not just well enough to get a sequel but well in general in seems. I'm a little worried about Digital Extremes being the developer. I thought Dark Sector was OK but nothing special and that's definitely been their best effort in recent years. I hope they end up keeping the depth and weirdness that made the first game so charming.

And it's coming to PC. That's nice.

Woot! Been waiting for the sequel a long time. I loved the first one.

No Mike Patton = No sale.

Confirm that and I'm in

The first one was quite a surprise with the various ways they handled the story from a first-person perspective. That seemed to be Starbreeze's influence though, I hope it can maintain that from Digital Extremes.

Thin_J wrote:

No Mike Patton = No sale.

Confirm that and I'm in :)

Ditto. No Starbreeze either has me worried. I'll remain cautiously optimistic but will probably wait for the reviews.

I'm probably the only guy that played more multiplayer than single player on this one. I bought it, intending to play the single player, and ended up only playing the multiplayer sessions that Clemenstation organized a couple times. We had some fun with it, but I wouldn't call it good.

Sheesh, I thought the multiplayer was terrible (from my first impressions at least - it seemed tacked on like almost every other SP game that tries a MP experience). Do yourself a favour and play through it if you still have it, it gets pretty twisted at certain points.

Well, colour me pleasantly surprised. Story-wise, I hope that they bring in one of the comic writers.

Swat wrote:

Sheesh, I thought the multiplayer was terrible (from my first impressions at least - it seemed tacked on like almost every other SP game that tries a MP experience).

The MP was indeed terrible, but it had a certain kitsch appeal. Remember lag stutter? Remember spawn camping? Remember insane host advantage? The Darkness has all of this stuff and more more MORE! I had fun, but I was the host.

Anyone else play the Xbox demo? I was going in expecting dated xbox visuals but it looks like they really did a good job with giving the game a 3d cell shaded look. Fits well with the source material and the animations are brutally awesome. The demo is weirdly paced with some exposition and rail shooting but once you get control of the darkness it takes off.

This went from off my radar to maybe picking it up (on the PC) at release.

DL'd it at the same time as Amalur but haven't fired it up yet. The kids at neogaf seem to really like it. I played the first Darkness demo last week and was really pleasantly surprised by that, so my interest level is raised for this title.

TrashiDawa wrote:

Anyone else play the Xbox demo? I was going in expecting dated xbox visuals but it looks like they really did a good job with giving the game a 3d cell shaded look.

You ain't kidding.

I nabbed the demo based on your post and was taken aback by how visually stimulating it was. Going with a hybrid cell-shading/realistic look was a brilliant move that looks to have paid off. The game is fantastic to look at.

Wasn't aware that there was a skill-tree leveling system or Bulletstorm-lite kill scoring system.

Any pre-order deals floating around for the game?

I finally got a chance to try the demo out and speaking as a huge fan of the first game, my opinion's mixed. They nailed the cell shaded look pretty well (it was really dark for me but I think that's cause my TV needs to be calibrated) and the voice acting seems pretty good. The combat felt clunky to me but I think that might be because I was trying to play it as most of a fast-paced game than it really is. I pre-ordered this on a special $39.99 deal last Summer so I'm going to try the demo a couple more times. I'll probably keep the pre-order anyway though, I liked the first one a lot and even though they seem to be going in a different visual and narrative direction here, it looks like there's a lot of neat stuff in there.

So I replayed the demo on PC and it looks better, runs better and the controls feel a lot better. The way they bind the demon slashing to mouse movements is very satisfying. I had this pre-ordered for the 360 at a special price I got last Summer but if 3 other people want to get in on a 4 pack, the price is basically 4 for the price of 3 so the discount for us all would come out to less than I'd pay for the 360 version. It would come out to $37.50 each. I'm willing to handle the purchase and gifting. My 360 pre-order price was $39.99 but in truth, I'll probably buy it on PC regardless. Anyone else want in?

Actually playing the demo right now. I took a pause to ask about something in the demo that I knew I'd forget to ask if I didn't take a quick pause. In one of the opening cinematics, in an area where you have limited control of your movements,

Spoiler:

when you sit down in front of the two girls at the fancy restaurant-- does the girl get shot (and I believe a car crashes into the scene) if you don't push the mouse button? I pushed the mouse just to see if I had any input control with it and the one on the right instantly got shot. I was so surprised to have any miota control of the scene that I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't just hit the mouse button-- if she still got shot.

If I did a poor job describing it, right after (where I am right now) is the first time you are given directions to shoot at things.

Just curious.

Spoiler:

It's a scripted sequence.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
Spoiler:

It's a scripted sequence.

I thought it might be.

Spoiler:

I just happened to be looking at the girl on the right and clicked my mouse button to see if the demo had finally given me control of my character when the girl I was directing my focus on (girl on the right) instantly got shot. I couldn't tell if I shot her or if the game did (in a cut-scripted moment). It was a nice moment of simpatico.

So I replayed the demo on PC and it looks better, runs better and the controls feel a lot better. The way they bind the demon slashing to mouse movements is very satisfying. I had this pre-ordered for the 360 at a special price I got last Summer but if 3 other people want to get in on a 4 pack, the price is basically 4 for the price of 3 so the discount for us all would come out to less than I'd pay for the 360 version. It would come out to $37.50 each. I'm willing to handle the purchase and gifting. My 360 pre-order price was $39.99 but in truth, I'll probably buy it on PC regardless. Anyone else want in?

I'm in on a 4 pack. I played through the demo twice and really enjoyed it.

Alright cool. I have you and NomacHeretic was also interested. We only need one more! Anyone interested? Cam' aaaaaaaaaannnn!

As an avid fan of the "The Darkness" comics, I was thrilled to see the game come to the PC. Just played the demo on Steam. Looks quite interesting and true to the spirit of "The Darkness", but after 30 minutes, I was motion sick to my gut. Probably the FOV, huh? I wasn't to hot on the controls. A Little too much to digest in that short time. And I never got the slashing down. Picked the "slash enemy in the air" talent, but when I held the middle mouse button down, it just slashed across and the enemy was dead (and halved).

I'll have to wait for a couple reviews and "Let's play"s, before I add this to my list of potential purchases.

Ugh, just need one more for the four pack!

The XBOX demo didn't sell it for me. Graphics are nice. Gameply is fine but X is used for too many things. X to reload, X to eat hearts, X to grab the gun at your feet. I would waste so much time trying to grab a heart and getting everything else to happen instead. Meanwhile B is one function which isn't even needed in the demo. I think I'm going to sit this one out.

Though I do want to read the comics now.

gains wrote:

Gameply is fine but X is used for too many things. X to reload, X to eat hearts, X to grab the gun at your feet. I would waste so much time trying to grab a heart and getting everything else to happen instead.

Just finished the PC demo, and although I love what I've played so far, the "E FOR EVERYTHING" mechanic bums me out. I've never been a fan of "scroll wheel to switch weapons" either, so my jaw clenched a bit every time I needed to swap from single to dual wield.

Deadmonkeys wrote:
gains wrote:

Gameply is fine but X is used for too many things. X to reload, X to eat hearts, X to grab the gun at your feet. I would waste so much time trying to grab a heart and getting everything else to happen instead.

Just finished the PC demo, and although I love what I've played so far, the "E FOR EVERYTHING" mechanic bums me out. I've never been a fan of "scroll wheel to switch weapons" either, so my jaw clenched a bit every time I needed to swap from single to dual wield.

I believe you can use 1, 2, 3, 4 to change weapons as well, though I've already uninstalled the demo. I liked the style and the gameplay, but it didn't grab me and shout in my face to buy it.

I liked the first one well enough while I was playing it, but the ending kind of put me off the game.

I think my biggest problem with the game was that it made out like you had some choice-- the darkness kept telling you "Every time you kill someone it makes me stronger." So I stopped killing people. There was one level where I wound up in a trap and surrounded that I must have loaded five or six times because I thought I was supposed to not kill anyone. Then there was a section where I had to kill EVERYONE to proceed, and I thought "oh, well maybe they differentiate between murder and self defense."

Nope.

Spoiler:

Then it came down to the very end of the game. You have the evil mob boss who betrayed you and murdered your girlfriend at your mercy. You can either let him kill you, and reload and try again, or you can kill him-- which is manifestly the right thing to do-- and then you end up losing control of the darkness.

I've never read the comics, so maybe that kind of calvinist/nihilist-as-a-substitute-for-deep thinking runs through the comic too. But it just pissed me off.

I'm interested in the sequel, but I'll probably be checking out spoilers to find out if they jerk the player around again.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Ugh, just need one more for the four pack!

If you still need one count me in.

So I've got NomadHeretic, Gumbie and Gdawg27 which along with me makes up a 4 pack. Can people confirm they're still interested? If so, I'll PM you all my PayPal address and make the purchase.

I'm still interested.

I'm in

Alright. I pinged NomadHeretic on Twitter about it and he hasn't gotten back to me but I'm assuming he's still in. If not, I'll find someone else. I will PM all you guys with my PayPal address and once I get all the funds in, I'll make the purchase and gift it out. Make sure you've added me on Steam!