The late 00’s-early 10’s was a glamorous time period for the first-person shooter genre of gaming for both the PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360. One of the more memorable first-person shooter games from the early 10’s was the Darkness II; which was developed by Digital Extremes and published by 2K Games. The Darkness II was the direct sequel following the first game from 2007. In fact, the storyline for the Darkness II picks up following the events of the first game and saw Jackie Estacado as the central figure within the game. While the prequel focused on revenge against Frank Franchetti along with Jackie learning about his new found dark powers; the sequel sees Jackie Estacado as the leader of the Don of the Franchetti crime family. Darkness II introduces as cast of new playable characters who were apart of Jackie’s mafia including: Inugami, Shoshanna, Jimmy Wilson along with J.P. DuMond. Each playable character in Darkness II have their own distinct background along with dark powers that can be utilized to kill enemies. The “Vendettas” co-op mode in Darkness II was one of the main highlights of the entire game especially it ran besides the main story of the game. The main story for Darkness II revolved around killing off the Brotherhood an ancient society that seeks to control and destroy the “Darkness “ possessed by Jackie Estacado. The Brotherhood was lead by Victor Valente who was the main antagonist for Darkness II.
The main purpose of the “Vendetta“ mode was to find the “Spear Of Destiny” and defeat Hell Beast which was the final boss Darksiders II. Along “ Vendetta” mode 2K Games had added another co-op mode in Darksiders II entitled “Hit-List”; which players were able to swap characters to compete in-game missions across six different locations. Despite, how cool Darkness II looked it fell below 2K Games desired expectations and failed to reach over one million copies in sales. Even though, the story for Darkness II was not quite as intriguing as the first game it’s overall presentation was very impressive. The re-appearance of Jenny Romano from the first Darkness game while being possessed by Angelus was an interesting twist within the game. Also, the backstory regarding Angelus’s history in relation to going to war the Darkness is something that many people may of found interesting. The co-op multiplayer mode along with the balance between reality and supernatural elements of Darkness II were among the game’s overall strongest positives. Even though, Darkness II may have flopped commercially some wonder whether or not 2K Games has plans on releasing a potential Darkness 3 game in the future.
Gaming Hearts Collection 