If there’s one buzzword to use among the industry lately, it would have to be "adaptation". It seems lately there’s at least one of these going on, either a book is turning into a film, a movie is turning into a comic, or a comic turning into a game, and so on. Unfortunately, most of these titles usually end up in the bargain bin within months, due to companies just not putting all efforts forward. This doesn’t seem to be the case with Starbreeze Studios, creators of the acclaimed title The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, who has once again stepped up to the plate with The Darkness, a first-person action-adventure title based off the original comic book series, with a feature film coming soon after. As with most adaptations, the one thing that most people will nitpick about is consistency: will it stick to the source material’s roots, or will it just go off and tell its own story? That doesn’t seem to be the case with this game, as Starbreeze is borrowing its story from the "Resurrection" series of comics, written by Paul Jenkins. I was fortunate enough to get behind doors over at 2K Games at E3 and get a demonstration on just what this title has to offer, so continue on to see just what all the buzz is about.
So just what exactly is The Darkness? I’ve certainly never heard of this series, and I’m sure many others who are reading this article haven’t either. So for the uninitiated, The Darkness is a very mysterious and devastating power that’s pretty much been around since before man even came into the picture. After possessing a particular person and being with them all their life, this power is eventually passed down from father to son, with the original carrier dying. Enter Jackie Estacado, a mafia hitman for the Franchetti family, who just so happens to discover that on his 21st birthday, he is the new carrier of The Darkness! Using this newfound power, Jackie has a few scores to settle with his many enemies, especially his uncle Paulie, a despised man who has taken over the Franchetti family, a position Jackie seeks.
Back in the real world, I along with several other people are currently sitting in front of a demo of The Darkness, with a couple of folks from Starbreeze gladly walking us through and explaining all of the various features the game has to offer. We start the demo with a scene involving Jackie and "The Butcher," a cleanup man sent to dispose of the bodies that Jackie’s already taken care of. It’s here that the demonstrators point out a new technology called VO-CAP that’s been implemented, which in a nutshell, allows developers to record voices while at the same time capture motions ranging from facial expressions down to body movements. This sounds all fancy and technical, but from what I saw on screen, it didn’t seem to stand out any more than your average shooter. But I was optimistic, as this was an early build, and there was plenty of time yet for the team to get the kinks out and get it going by next year.
Suddenly, The Butcher tells Jackie to run back inside, as the cops are on their way to the scene. It is here that the demonstrators decide to focus on The Darkness itself, and the powers it wields. We’re told that while the demo build we were seeing had at least all if not majority of the powers unlocked, it wouldn’t be the case at retail, and we would have to gradually earn new powers as we progressed through the title. Gazing around the empty kitchen, the first thing I notice is the excellent lighting, and how dynamic it was. That was soon short-lived however, as Jackie quickly shot out every light source in the area, making the place pitch black, something the player will be doing a lot. By surrounding yourself in the shadows, Jackie gradually gains strength for his powers, allowing him to summon little creatures called Darklings, little minions that come equipped with various weapons, such as hacksaws or jackhammers. It was pretty obvious what these little guys’ role was, and we were soon to find out, as one of the game’s many scripted events unfolded, with the cops bashing in the nearby wall and nudging their way inside with their armored vehicle. Pulling out his dual Desert Eagles, we were soon shown a brief firefight between the cops, Jackie, and The Darklings. We watched as the Darklings went to work, pulling out their hacksaws and jackhammers, going to work on the unfortunate folks, hearing their cries of horror, unaware of just what they were dealing with.
Outside, the battle raged on as the demonstrator showed the awesome might of The Darkness, wrapping his gigantic tentacle around objects such as trash dumpsters, or whole police cars, and just throwing them across the street, using it as a shield, or simply slamming them into any unfortunate authority figure in his way. It was obvious who was running the show, as indicated by two large-headed creatures on both sides of Jackie, their teeth just gnashing away, hungry for more. Moving on through the demo, we duck inside a building, only to find yet another unfortunate victim. To show this, the demonstrator did what anyone else would do and summon a large portal to the world of Darkness, sucking and swirling him along with any other various interactive objects such as chairs, cans, papers, and anything else in a big swirl of fear and horror... then poof, it’s gone. Everything seems to go well for Jackie until we suddenly come to the one thing that can stop this powerful demon: a chain-link fence. While we could just as easily barge through, the point of this was to show that there are multiple ways of going about these situations, sort of like puzzles. Ducking into the nearby alley and shooting out the lights, the demonstrator decides to have one of the big-headed tentacle creatures slither up the wall and enter the nearby shaft, slithering to the other side. The controls looked like it would take a bit to adjust for this part, but we eventually popped out the other side, next to the cops who were waiting. Unfortunately, the only thing they soon found was the sharp end of the creature’s teeth, who then unlocked the fence and slithered back to Jackie.
This was about the extent of the powers shown in the demo, which is rather disappointing, but also good, because it makes you wonder just what else The Darkness has up its sleeve. Also interesting in the demo was something that the developers called Darkness TV. Using various radios and televisions throughout the game, Darkness TV allows players to view what’s happening in the game at that point in time, allowing the story to unfold in a different manner, similar to Audio Logs often seen in other games. The demo showed two people talking about the game, until a Darkling decided to crawl up and change the channel to a different channel showing Popeye. This showed that Darkness TV allowed full-blown TV shows or movies in the game, which could lead to some interesting features, perhaps streaming content off the Hard Drive? It was around here that our time with The Darkness was unfortunately up, and we were thanked for checking it out.
Aiming for a 2007 release, or so we were told, Starbreeze looks to have another winner on their hands among comic and future movie fans alike. Also planned is a form of multiplayer on Xbox Live, but as to how this would be implemented, we were left in the dark, figuratively. Listening to comments about Riddick, Starbreeze promises a longer game this time around, with no cinematics, instead opting for all real-time scenes, due to their "hatred" for cutscenes. But let’s be honest here, while the game looks like it plays nice, at this point of time, the visuals could use a bit more working, with plenty of aliasing to be found. Also to be worked on are the voices, they just didn’t seem to be real, but rather lacked in emotion, as if they were read from cue cards. Another glaring similarity I found while watching the demo was how similar it was to Riddick, using the whole dark/light theme, but who am I to complain? Riddick was fantastic as it was, and as they say, more of the same is always a good thing. As it is though, The Darkness is easily shaping up into a title that will be a must-play for years to come, and with over a year to develop at this point, I’m pretty much certain that Starbreeze can do no wrong.
