Who Doesn't Love a Good Dark-Fantasy/Mafia Story?

Unlike Alice: Madness Returns, The Darkness II has more than one thing going for it. It has a cool art style, with semi-realistic elements bordered by comic-book-style thick lines; it has a nuanced story supported by a strong voice cast; and it has multidimensional, varied gameplay mechanics. Unfortunately, many of those mechanics are less-than-fully baked, and a peppering of design missteps ruin the goodwill that the game would otherwise garner from what it actually does right.

From the beginning, it's hard to identify with protagonist Jackie Estacado, and not because he's the vessel for a supernatural darkness monster. The game tries to play up his personal plights - cursed with a power he doesn't want, lost his girlfriend in a mob conflict - but whenever the game actually shows Jackie in action, he's no more human than the monster arms that sprout out of him, and the only emotion that comes out of him is rage. Jackie's no anti-hero; he's just a mobster sociopath. And it's too bad, because some of the storytelling techniques that surround Jackie are actually quite good! He simply isn't deep enough to be properly molded by them.

So then there's the shooting- and arm-grabbing-gameplay. This seems promising at first, since it's more than just pointing guns at things, but like Jackie himself there isn't much water in this pool. Weapon types are limited, precise aiming is a challenge, and the ammo caps are intentionally low, so as to motivate you to switch up gunplay and arm-whip-play. But aiming the arms is even more difficult than the guns, not to mention their short range; and in general, they're just less convenient than shooting mobsters in the face. (To be fair, I think there are other weapons and arm-powers that I haven't played long enough to unlock.)

These systems, limited as they are, would be sufficient to keep the game moving along if not for some significant implementation flaws. The same key is used for consuming downed enemy hearts (for refilling life), and for equipping guns, so it's all too easy to unintentionally drop your gun in a sea of bodies. For some reason, the game tends to think that you want to dual-wield handguns, frequently switching to this mode when you pick up a new weapon; but since right-clicking fires a weapon, you can't aim, and just waste a ton of precious ammo. A big part of the demon arm power is supposed to be picking up and throwing objects at enemies, but levels crowded with ambient debris, and enemies that actually take cover, make it very tough to actually get a clear shot with such objects. And while it's theoretically cool to cripple your powers in direct light, forcing you to shoot light sources as you fight, the tendency of placing lights on or near ceilings just makes this mechanic an annoying matter of looking upward every so often.

There is some good stuff in here, but The Darkness II doesn't get enough right to rectify its basic problems. Luckily, the story of the mysterious limping man is pretty well-telegraphed, so I don't really feel like I'm missing anything by giving up on it.

Progress: On the trail of my attackers.