WeView Verdict: The Darkness II

It would seem that the biggest issue with The Darkness II was its demo, or at least that’s what I took away from the first three comments on last week’s WeView. It would seem the demo wasn’t enough to convince The Lone Steven, Youles or TSBonyman to put down any actual money for the game. In particular Youles and TSBonyman weren’t impressed, with Youles getting bored of the killing animations despite liking the demo overall and TSBonyman saying they didn’t like anything about it, which is probably as negative as you can get about a demo.

Switching now to those who have actually played the game, XisTG discussed it at some length, although started off by saying that they preferred the original game. Whilst they felt that The Darkness II was slightly better graphically, with it taking a little while to grow on you, they had no hesitation in proclaiming that the first Darkness game had a better story. As for gameplay they focussed on the game’s use of Darkness powers, saying that whilst the tentacles new hack and slash abilities were ok, with “…executions making it all look cooler…”, they ultimately became boring over time. They also found that wielding the tentacles and guns at the same time was “…fun but can be a bit too much sometimes.”

However, on the positive side of things, they did praise the game’s voice cast, and picked it out as better than the first game’s. In fact they enjoyed the voice work so much that they “…kept exhausting all the dialogue options in the game…” which is certainly an interesting way to get value out of a game.

Crazy_Del was also fairly expansive in their view of the game, also praising the game’s graphics early on. In particular they liked the way the cel-shaded art style linked to the game’s comic book routes, a nice touch that I noted myself. Commenting on the game’s plot they said that they “…absolutely loved the story,” although did admit that “At first it can be very confusing but eventually it all makes sense.”

Moving on to a slightly shorter comment we have LTG Davey, who notes that it’s “The only game I have on my current 360 profile that I have the full 1000 gamerscore on.” Given that, it’s hardly necessary to state that they loved the game, calling it “…the sort of game you can just sit down and have a blast playing.” They were fairly non-specific in their view though, simply saying that they loved everything “…from its decent story to it’s brutal gameplay,” which is pretty much the direct opposite of TSBonyman‘s view of the game.

To sum things up this week we have AG2297, who has written a few sentences that literally condense down everything you need to know to make a decision on the game:

Basically, if you want to unplug and just have some fun feeling like a powerful badass going around and destroying everyone and everything then you’ll enjoy this game. If you’re after something more than that from it, then you probably wont.

As for the community’s overall verdict, there was one vote each for Buy It and Rent It. However, Bargain Bin It was at the head of the pack, with four of you selecting it. As for this week’s poll, we see The Darkness II and Binary Domain removed, with Soulcalibur V and NeverDead taking their places. As always it closes at midnight BST, so you’ve got till then to get your votes in.