The Darkness 2 helps me with my anger issues but is it a fun game?

 

 Oh how I missed tearing up poor fools apart with my Darkness powers, I'm so happy a sequel was made to The Darkness but am I still happy after playing it?

  This time around Digital Extremes took development duties on the Darkness 2 and it shows. It's been 2 years since the events of the first game and Jackie boy is now head of a mob family. He was able to contain The Darkness for these 2 years but of course something happens and The Darkness is out and ready to play again. The controls are alot better this time around, gone is the horrible auto aim from the first game, the shooting mechanics are alot tighter and what you come to expect from your shooters today. You can still dual wield weapons and on top of that you have your Darkness powers. In a way your now quad dueling that's right, two guns and two darkness powers to use how you see fit.

  I loved how your powers work in this game you can grab almost anything and use it as a weapon. Or you can rip off a car door and use it as a shield, while you shoot people then you can toss it into a poor fool and watch him get cut in half. Oh yes this is a very gory game, you will rip peoples heads off, impale them to walls or literally rip them in half. Your a powerful destructive force and it's oh so fun. You collect essence from killing enemies, which you can level up your powers and unlock new abilities. Like sending swarms of bugs to attack enemies or forming black holes to suck them all up.

  This time around there's more of a variety of in enemies, as you fight The Brotherhood, who know how your powers work and try every annoying way to kill you. From blinding you with bright lights, to teleporting all around you, honestly they slowly took the fun out of the game and so did the boss battles. Listen game devs, if you can't make a boss battle be more then a "hey run around dodge the bosses attacks then you spam all your powers till their dead battle". Please don't do it! on top of that they have the nerve to shoe-horn stealth bits into this game. Why the hell do I want to play as a little demon who can only take down guards one at a time and must climb through vents. Does that sound like fun to you?!

*Deep breathes*

  The real saving grace of this game is its narrative, there's alot of subtledetails through out and you feel like poor Jackie is losing his mind when he starts to see his dead girlfriend every where. I kept playing through because I wanted to know what the hell was going on and I just enjoyed ripping people apart. Sadly I missed the parts where you can walk around small sections of the city like in the first game. You have some moments like that in this one but they are rarely meaningful like they were in first game. Also the game is cel shaded this time around, mimicking the look of the comic book more. It's good but not great and I kinda miss the realistic dark look from the first game. Clocking in at around 6 hours, The Darkness 2 is a fun game but sadly far from perfect or memorable like the 1st one. I hope they can get it together for the next one because The Darkness is a cool universe that has alot of potential to be a greater game.