The Darkness is a gritty first person shooter where you take control of comic book anti-hero Jackie Estacado, a mafia hitman for the Franchetti family. You jump in his shoes on his twenty-first birthday during a typical job for the family. Unfortunately this is when his Uncle Paulie decides he wants him dead and tries to put a hit of his own on his nephew. Paulie's attempts are unsuccessful however - and making a trained hitman this angry isn't the smartest move in this death game of chess. Paulie has an entire mob family behind him though, so getting to him isn't going to an easy task for any man. Jackie Estacado isn't just any man though - because on his twenty-first birthday the power of The Darkness that he has inherited begins to manifest. What that means for you is that you can do a whole manner of cool things, as long as you stay in the shadows, because this is where your powers are strongest...

The first thing you will notice when using the power of the darkness is the two dark, demonic and sharp toothed heads that emerge from your shoulders. These don't just make you look menacing - when you are in the darkness they shield you more from the damage of bullets. They also give you offensive powers too, the first of which is the creeping darkness. This allows you to detach and control one of the demonic heads (in a first person perspective), so you can climb through small vents to unlock doors in hard to reach places and even pounce on Paulie's goons if they are in small numbers. While you are using this creeping monster you must also stay in the shadows, otherwise the head returns back to your shoulder in order to regain darkness energy.

When using your powers you will also notice the gaping holes that have emerged in certain locations across the New York city streets, which allow you to summon the darklings that lurk within them. Darklings are much more independent creatures because they are not attached to your body and tend to think for themselves, although their AI is pretty limited. The best way to describe them visually is that they are like a more menacing version of Gollum from Lord of the Rings, and some of them carry different equipment. [How can anything look more menacing than Gollum?! We ought to ring his filthy little neck! Ed].

The first darkling you acquire is the Berserker, which basically hacks and slashes anyone it comes across with its claws, a basic but very effective attack. The second darkling is a Gunner, carrying a Gatling gun everywhere it goes! This is great for some support in large firefights, although it takes a short while for the darkling to ready its weapon, detaching it from its back, so if the enemy is moving around a lot then its effectiveness is limited. The Kamikaze darklings are also flawed, as they are strapped with a lot of dynamite and are not afraid to lay down their lives, even to try and destroy unthreatening doorframes and unarmed civilians! Potentially the best darkling is the one you acquire last, known as the Lightkiller. These little critters zap a bolt of lightening at destructible sources of light, so you can both stay in the shadows more often without you continuously having to shoot streetlamps and fluorescent bulbs to keep using your powers. They can even use their bolts of electricity against your enemies, but don't expect them to be brilliant at it. They often fail to keep up, don't destroy lights frequently enough and again their AI is far from incredible. If you want something done, you are best doing it yourself - but if you can keep them out of the light then darklings are a good way of distracting your enemies' fire from you, so their presence is welcome.

Your other abilities are acquired as your darkness powers increases over time. Another way of increasing your darkness strength is to maintain a nutritious diet involving the devouring of human hearts! After filling an enemy full of hot lead you can walk up to their corpse and press the action button - the demonic head on your right shoulder rapidly extends towards their chest, pierces through it and devours their beating heart in front of your very eyes. The first twenty times you do this will have you smiling with glee (if you like that sort of gory thing) as blood splatters over the floor and the demon emits a huge crunch and gulp as it eats every morsel. There are a few animations for devouring hearts, including one where each head shares some of the tasty treat - but it can get very tedious once you get towards the hundred hearts mark.

Don't worry about this too much though, because there are still loads more cool things to come. For example, if you get close enough to an enemy in a fire fight (with or without using your darkness powers) you can perform an execution move. Just a few of these include tripping your enemy up with a swift leg sweep and blasting them in the face as they go down, or simply placing a shotgun under their chin and re-painting the ceiling in a rather flamboyant fashion. If you don't wish to take the up close and personal approach then you can fire your dual pistols individually or simultaneously using the triggers on your control pad. If you run out of ammo for a pistol you don't reload it, you simply drop it and unholster another one automatically. It's a bit of a strange approach really and reduces any reloading tactics that are used in most first person shooters, but I will let you in on a little secret - I think this game is just trying to be cool rather than tactical! Over time you will also pick up twin machine pistols that spray bullets at a much quicker rate and make short work of enemies. You eventually get to lay your trigger finger on assault rifles and even an old single-shot rifle (but I'm not going to give too much away as to why you get your hands on that.) Finally there's the shotgun and the less that is said about that the better; let's just say I avoided using it whenever possible because it's poorly powered at short range, abysmal at medium range, atrocious at long range and takes ages to reload.

If you are looking for tactics and inventive strategy then The Darkness is probably not for you. It's not only the lack of reloading that reduces the gameplay's appeal, but it doesn't seem to be that enjoyable to use cover. Ducking down behind cars and dumpsters is only done when you are in serious danger and popping in and out suddenly for any quick shots isn't really possible. The best approach is to shoot out a light and move into the shadows, retreating to cover only when necessary. As long as you stay in the darkness enough and avoid standing in the line of fire for too long you should be okay. If you do die then you're returned to certain checkpoints in the game that are saved automatically, so it never really feels like it's too hard or an impossible task. I wouldn't go as far as to say the game is too easy though, because you do come up against some heavily armed enemies and escaping into the darkness isn't always possible. What really is a letdown here (and perhaps the biggest letdown of the whole game) is the enemies' AI; they don't seem to take effective cover very often when retreating and they back themselves into a corner or a tight situation too many times. However, they do peak around corners and they don't tend to just stand in one spot or ambush you when you are in the shadows.

One of the things you will probably notice from the very start of the game is that some of the animations are less than smooth and realistic. They aren't terrible, but they aren't fully convincing either - they certainly aren't fully motion-captured. Simple things like characters' walking styles and car movements just seem to remind you that you're playing a computer game and that you aren't really there. This is far from enough to spoil the experience, but it is where the graphics fail to inspire. The textures of the gritty New York streets, subway walls and grimey alleyways are superb though, more than making up for the animations. The game also exhibits great use of lighting; it's never too dark to see anything but you can always tell whether you are lurking in the shadows or are in full view of the enemy. Developers Starbreeze AB knew that lighting was an important aspect of the gameplay and they have definitely addressed that very well. Furthermore, the game has some of the most realistic looking fire and smoke effects I have seen, even though it doesn't show them off too often or overuse them.

To further enhance the visuals, your demonic heads look menacing and act just as fiercely, plus there is some incredibly disturbing imagery in the later portions of the game that you might wish was a little less realistic visually (again I don't want to give too much away). Finally there seems to be an incredible variety of characters in the game - whether they are friends, enemies or just general civilians. If they are important characters they have a large vocabulary and they are excellently voice acted. They also listen to a large variety of music if they are close to a stereo and watch full length shows if sat in front of the television. The developers are obviously using the disc to its full potential, but this does cost you in loading times when moving from one part of the city to another.

When you first play The Darkness it seems to be lacking a serious punch in terms of gameplay and originality, but the story really draws you in and the ability to free roam throughout the city makes it seem much less linear than it really is - don't stray too far from your objectives though, because Jackie walks incredibly slowly for some reason (and those loading times are really annoying!) It's worth persevering through these initial woes just to see some more of your cool powers though, like the ability to pierce through the centre of enemies with a large black talon or firing a black hole that's like a huge energy bubble that throws your enemies around like rag dolls. These use a lot of your darkness power, but if you don't overuse them and stay in the darkness then they're an awesome way to add variety to your combat tactics. It is really exciting using them when you're in a massive gunfight and the hard rock begins to play in the background to amplify the sense of action.

These cool things alone are enough to warrant a purchase and the single player experience is a healthy length, with some alternative objectives thrown in here and there if you wish to help civilians with their problems. If you can get over the initial hump it is an excellent ride, and while I wouldn't say that the single player element is worth playing over and over again, but I truly loved playing it the first time and I think there's a lot of substance in The Darkness franchise and plenty to rave about.

You can head online and blast your friends in the frenetic multiplayer mode too; uUp to eight players can do battle, choosing to play as humans or Darklings. The difference in the two play styles is interesting at first - humans are much tougher and tote all manner of weaponry, as found in the single player game (plus some new additions), but the Darklings are considerably faster and can climb walls. Multiplayer also gives you the ability to shapeshift 'on the run' from human to Darkling form, which is a nice touch. After a while this novelty wears off though and the multiplayer dissolves into a pretty standard deathmatch or capture the flag design. The small arenas feel cramped and don't really give the same sense of awe present in the single player, while the repetitive gameplay quickly becomes tiresome. Couple this with some awful lag and the multiplayer really does become an unattractive prospect indeed. It's the one area of the game that lets the side down, which is a real shame.

If you're looking for a tactical shooter or a horror game that makes you soil your pants then you should probably look elsewhere. But if you are happy with a cool first person shooter with a great gritty plot and some fun horror and supernatural elements then you'll be very happy that you plunged into The Darkness.

Reviewed by Liam Bennion for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).