E3: The Darkness: First Impressions

The Darkness - a comedy rock band, a Top Cow comic, and now a game from the minds that brought you The Chronicles of Riddick. We take a first look.

A joint collaboration between Majesco, LA Comic publisher Top Cow and Swedish super-developer Starbreeze, The Darkness sees the latter's exceptionally solid 'Riddick' engine receive a significant technological boost.

It's something of a visual boost, thanks to what seems a trio of special effects: high-res texture implementation, soft shadowing and parallax mapping - a technique that's similar to good old bump mapping - only more "real-looking". Basically, a lot of the stuff you saw in the Unreal 3 tech demos - except this Starbreeze's own, homegrown tech wizardry.

So what's the story? It goes something like this. Jackie Estacado is a Mafia hitman, part of the Franchetti crime family helmed by vicious cousin "Paulie". On the eve of his 21st birthday, Jackie is suddenly possessed by the terrifying and spectacular powers of the Darkness. From reading the comic, we also remember that he can't have sex or he dies. Looks like there won't be any nookie in the game then.

The game is still fairly early, being a year away from release - but already we're reliably informed that it's shaping up as to be an extremely promising follow-up to the seminal Chronicles of Riddick game.

A blend of first and third person action, the game is currently being described as a 'spiritual successor to Riddick', with some suggesting that the title will be friendly to fans of Riddick and the excellent Deus Ex - kinda funny, as some have mentioned that Warren Spector cited The Darkness as his "E3 Game of The Show" - despite having only seen the trailer.

Sadly, the trailer is all that was seen of the game at E3, but our spies are working their hardest to get more. We have a plan of action, and you'll be the first to learn more. Or to put it another way, you won't be left in the dark for long... (groan).

Hanz Onmakoch
Contributor, Kikizo Games