Our number 5 game is another FPS. But while the last one was a game attempting to shine a light on mature subject matters, this one prefers to stay in the dark.
#5: The Darkness 2
The Darkness 2 was a game that appeared… and disappeared fairly quickly: A sequel to the 2007 game by a different developer. The Darkness 2 was more streamlined compared to the first one: focusing on intense gun fights and crazy powers.
And for that The Darkness 2 succeeded, delivering on challenging battles thanks to some great enemy variety. By giving the enemies ways to hurt or get around the player’s demonic powers, allowed the designers to keep the game challenging no matter how powerful the player became.
While there were a lot of great and stylish games that came out in 2012, The Darkness 2 was one of my favorites. The comic book styled shading lent itself well to the over the top combat of the game. Combat being one of the most enjoyable experiences I had all year. The developers did a great job of making the player feel powerful with the darkness powers, while still challenging them with a variety of enemy tactics.
The Darkness 2’s big problem was its length, at only a few hours it was one of the shortest big budget games to be released in 2012. The developers were hoping that the excellent multiplayer mode would make up for it and even hinted at additional content in the menu.
Sadly while the co-op mode was great, the lack of a meaty single player campaign left the game with a very small community, too small for the developers to put more work into DLC campaigns.
That’s really a shame as given the popularity of games like Left 4 Dead or Payday: The Heist, great co-op titles are in. And the story while not as emotional compared to the first one, moved along at a good pace. The co-op was a great time and playing with several friends, watching everyone just tear up the place with their powers was fun.
While The Darkness 2 did turn out alright, like several other games from THQ in 2012, it didn’t earn as much as they wanted. At this point given the shaky responses of both The Darkness 1 and 2, a sequel continuing either the story of the co-op style campaign is slim at this point. And given the problems facing THQ it’s anyone’s guess at this point if we’ll see a conclusion to the story.
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