----=="Happy Birthday Jackie!" ==----
Developer: Starbreeze Studios
Publisher: 2K Games
Release Date NA: Both Platforms: June 25
Release Date EUR: Xbox 360: June 29, PS3: July 20
Available on: PS3, Xbox 360
Genre: First Person Shooter, Action, and Comic Horror
Number of Players: 1-16
MSRP: $59.99
Features: 480p, 720p, Dolby 5.1, Xbox Live, Downloadable Content, Blu-ray, DVD-Rom
Rated M by ESRB
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General Information
From the Official Website, "The Darkness is Spreading..."
-Based on the best-selling Comic "The Darkness" created by David Wohl, Marc Silvestri, and Garth Ennis
-Game Story Written by Paul Jenkins, a seminal writer in The Darkness comic book series, but of course Marc S. and Garth Ennis contributed as well
-Devour enemy hearts to build up Darkness power that can be channeled into spectacular abilities such as:
Summoning Darklings: Estacado's main Darkness ability is the summoning of Darklings, and as such there are twenty different darkling types (kamikaze, interrogator, ceiling ninja, fetcher, and more). Essentially they are malformed hellspawn which spring from the tainted souls of the sickest, most inhuman individuals. Darklings have spindly, muscular bodies and pointed, animalistic faces with glowing eyes and wicked fangs, and serrated claws on the tips of their limbs. They attack in packs, swarming over buildings and through windows and doorways. Though they are deadly even when unarmed, these sickening beasts often carry fearsome close-combat weapons like hacksaws and pneumatic drills, ready to tear Estacado's enemies apart at close quarters. An added benefit of the Darklings is that they can draw enemy fire away from Estacado, allowing him to progress more easily through well-defended areas.
Summoning Dark Tentacles: Dark Tentacles are huge, incredibly strong appendages which grow from Estacado's back when summoned. They can lift and throw heavy objects with ease, allowing them to smash through barricades and tear down walls to allow Estacado access to difficult-to-reach areas, and of course they have no difficulty in crushing enemy characters to a pulp. Their tough, resilient surfaces mean they can also form an effective bullet shield in front of Estacado, protecting him from harm.
Summoning Maw Tentacles: Maw Tentacles are smaller versions of Dark Tentacles and are summoned in the same way, but are used more for close combat than moving objects. They consist of long, writhing tendrils with bulging eyes that can change color and gaping jaws filled with huge dagger-like teeth, capable of ripping through flesh and bone with ease. They can be sent snaking round doorways and through air vents, their eyes feeding pictures to Estacado's eyes like spy cameras, seeking out alternate routes and enemy strongpoints.
Creating Black Holes: One of the more devastating Darkness abilities, this allows Estacado to open whirling vortices in realspace, pulling enemies and objects out of reality and trapping them forever in Hell itself. A single Black Hole opened in a room full of enemies can clear the area in moments, making it an excellent weapon when assaulting defended buildings.
-Developed by Starbreeze, the team behind the best-selling and critically acclaimed "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay"
-Cast of Characters:
Celebrity voice overs include (from left to right) : Kirk Acevedo (Band of Brothers, Oz) as Jackie, Mike Patton (-ex lead singer of Faith no more, Peeping Tom)
as The Darkness, Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) as Jenny, and Richard Steven Horvitz (Raz in Psychonauts) as Beserker Darkling
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Story Summary:
"On the eve of his 21st birthday, the player takes control of Mafia hitman Jackie Estacado who is suddenly possessed by the malevolent powers of The Darkness, a family "Gift" (some family trait). Although this supernatural entity allows him to wreak havoc on his enemies, the Darkness also has a powerful will of its own and Estacado must now learn how to control it. The gameplay uniquely blends both modern crime drama and supernatural horror through both first-person and third-person perspectives. The environments are highly destructible allowing players to demolish the scenery of the New York underworld to wreak vengeance on his former Mafia employers and eventually defeat the terrifying creatures of The Otherworld, a parallel reality where the Darkness dwells."
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Information about the IP:
The Darkness is a series of comics produced by Top Cow Productions (TCP). The comic first appeared in 1996 and enjoyed an initial period of relative success during the TCP/Image Comics boom of the late 1990s. However, TCP were forced to "relaunch" the comic in 2002 after sales began to drop. The comic has sold over 1 million copies worldwide. The series was created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl, other noted writers, including Paul Jenkins, have also worked on the Darkness.
The comic's central theme is the power known as The Darkness, and its wielders. It is an ageless power dating back beyond human history. It is linked with the Angelus and the Witchblade. The Darkness is passed down a family line from father to son, leaving the previous user (and taking his life) as his first child is conceived. The power then manifests in the child on his 21st birthday. Darkness users can create anything they desire with the darkness, even sentient beings, but anything they make will crumble to dust in the light. The Darkness powers are quite deadly, allowing the user to call forth darkling minions to aid them, and even survive gunshots. The power can also be used to maul and feed on people.
The Darkness powers do not function unless it is dark, but some users can also manipulate this by creating their own shadows/darkness e.g smoke grenades, being underground, turning off lights in a room, etc. Wherever there is light, there is always darkness.
About Jackie E. :
Jackie Estacado is the current wielder of The Darkness and Don of the Franchetti Family mob. He is a very violent and sexual man who, until gaining the powers of The Darkness, lived life in the fast lane. Of course, because of the possibility of impregnating a woman causing his own death through the mysterious ways of the darkness, Jackie tries to refrain from sex, to his great frustration. Though Jackie lives life on the wrong side of the law and can kill without remorse, he has a high set of morals he follows and always tries to protect those he cares about...
....and for those who are still interested in the series, but are new to it, be sure to check out:
"The Darkness: Compendium Edition"
(1248 pages long kids!)
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Gamestop Offer (....whewt?)
<----- Elite Exclusive!!!!
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Interview Quotes and highlights:
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About the multiplayer....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eurogamer First Impressions: 6/12/07
TeamXbox Preview: 6/13/07
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Reviews
PLAY UK: 91%
Gameplayer.com.au: 9/10
UK OXM: 9/10
AUS OXM: 9/10
1up: 9/10
Games Radar: 9/10
EGM: 9, 6.5(wtf?), 8.5
IGN UK: 8.5/10
Gamereactor: 8/10
Eurogamer: 8/10
IGN: 7.8/10
Get The Rest Here
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moving pictures!!!
(Right click and save-as.........yes its that easy!)
"Gametrailers Video Preview"
"Bloody Executions Gameplay"
"New Trailer: The Heart of the Darkness"
"Hellish Otherworld Gameplay"
"Demonic Warzone Gameplay"
"Gamespot Gameplay Vid 1"
"Gamespot Gameplay Vid 2"
"Gamespot Gameplay Vid 3"
"Demon arm!"
"The Black Hole
"The Creeping Dark"
"The Thrill"
"GDC07 Trailer"
"Developer Walkthrough Part 1"
"Developer Walkthrough Part 2"
"Comic Creator Interview"
"Heart Eating Montage"
"Hit Squad Gameplay"
"Gun Fight Gameplay"
"A Producer interview"
"The 1up Show Preview"
And finally the infamous intro....though you might want to wait and see the final version...its that good(...not to mentioned it'll probably be optomized in the final build)
"The Intro..."
.....so with that..... its time to...Embrace....the darkness!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Thread credited to AgentOtaku. Thanks Again.
Developer: Starbreeze Studios
Publisher: 2K Games
Release Date NA: Both Platforms: June 25
Release Date EUR: Xbox 360: June 29, PS3: July 20
Available on: PS3, Xbox 360
Genre: First Person Shooter, Action, and Comic Horror
Number of Players: 1-16
MSRP: $59.99
Features: 480p, 720p, Dolby 5.1, Xbox Live, Downloadable Content, Blu-ray, DVD-Rom
Rated M by ESRB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Information
From the Official Website, "The Darkness is Spreading..."
-Based on the best-selling Comic "The Darkness" created by David Wohl, Marc Silvestri, and Garth Ennis
-Game Story Written by Paul Jenkins, a seminal writer in The Darkness comic book series, but of course Marc S. and Garth Ennis contributed as well
-Devour enemy hearts to build up Darkness power that can be channeled into spectacular abilities such as:
Summoning Darklings: Estacado's main Darkness ability is the summoning of Darklings, and as such there are twenty different darkling types (kamikaze, interrogator, ceiling ninja, fetcher, and more). Essentially they are malformed hellspawn which spring from the tainted souls of the sickest, most inhuman individuals. Darklings have spindly, muscular bodies and pointed, animalistic faces with glowing eyes and wicked fangs, and serrated claws on the tips of their limbs. They attack in packs, swarming over buildings and through windows and doorways. Though they are deadly even when unarmed, these sickening beasts often carry fearsome close-combat weapons like hacksaws and pneumatic drills, ready to tear Estacado's enemies apart at close quarters. An added benefit of the Darklings is that they can draw enemy fire away from Estacado, allowing him to progress more easily through well-defended areas.
Summoning Dark Tentacles: Dark Tentacles are huge, incredibly strong appendages which grow from Estacado's back when summoned. They can lift and throw heavy objects with ease, allowing them to smash through barricades and tear down walls to allow Estacado access to difficult-to-reach areas, and of course they have no difficulty in crushing enemy characters to a pulp. Their tough, resilient surfaces mean they can also form an effective bullet shield in front of Estacado, protecting him from harm.
Summoning Maw Tentacles: Maw Tentacles are smaller versions of Dark Tentacles and are summoned in the same way, but are used more for close combat than moving objects. They consist of long, writhing tendrils with bulging eyes that can change color and gaping jaws filled with huge dagger-like teeth, capable of ripping through flesh and bone with ease. They can be sent snaking round doorways and through air vents, their eyes feeding pictures to Estacado's eyes like spy cameras, seeking out alternate routes and enemy strongpoints.
Creating Black Holes: One of the more devastating Darkness abilities, this allows Estacado to open whirling vortices in realspace, pulling enemies and objects out of reality and trapping them forever in Hell itself. A single Black Hole opened in a room full of enemies can clear the area in moments, making it an excellent weapon when assaulting defended buildings.
-Developed by Starbreeze, the team behind the best-selling and critically acclaimed "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay"
-Cast of Characters:
Celebrity voice overs include (from left to right) : Kirk Acevedo (Band of Brothers, Oz) as Jackie, Mike Patton (-ex lead singer of Faith no more, Peeping Tom)
as The Darkness, Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) as Jenny, and Richard Steven Horvitz (Raz in Psychonauts) as Beserker Darkling
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story Summary:
"On the eve of his 21st birthday, the player takes control of Mafia hitman Jackie Estacado who is suddenly possessed by the malevolent powers of The Darkness, a family "Gift" (some family trait). Although this supernatural entity allows him to wreak havoc on his enemies, the Darkness also has a powerful will of its own and Estacado must now learn how to control it. The gameplay uniquely blends both modern crime drama and supernatural horror through both first-person and third-person perspectives. The environments are highly destructible allowing players to demolish the scenery of the New York underworld to wreak vengeance on his former Mafia employers and eventually defeat the terrifying creatures of The Otherworld, a parallel reality where the Darkness dwells."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Information about the IP:
The Darkness is a series of comics produced by Top Cow Productions (TCP). The comic first appeared in 1996 and enjoyed an initial period of relative success during the TCP/Image Comics boom of the late 1990s. However, TCP were forced to "relaunch" the comic in 2002 after sales began to drop. The comic has sold over 1 million copies worldwide. The series was created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl, other noted writers, including Paul Jenkins, have also worked on the Darkness.
The comic's central theme is the power known as The Darkness, and its wielders. It is an ageless power dating back beyond human history. It is linked with the Angelus and the Witchblade. The Darkness is passed down a family line from father to son, leaving the previous user (and taking his life) as his first child is conceived. The power then manifests in the child on his 21st birthday. Darkness users can create anything they desire with the darkness, even sentient beings, but anything they make will crumble to dust in the light. The Darkness powers are quite deadly, allowing the user to call forth darkling minions to aid them, and even survive gunshots. The power can also be used to maul and feed on people.
The Darkness powers do not function unless it is dark, but some users can also manipulate this by creating their own shadows/darkness e.g smoke grenades, being underground, turning off lights in a room, etc. Wherever there is light, there is always darkness.
About Jackie E. :
Jackie Estacado is the current wielder of The Darkness and Don of the Franchetti Family mob. He is a very violent and sexual man who, until gaining the powers of The Darkness, lived life in the fast lane. Of course, because of the possibility of impregnating a woman causing his own death through the mysterious ways of the darkness, Jackie tries to refrain from sex, to his great frustration. Though Jackie lives life on the wrong side of the law and can kill without remorse, he has a high set of morals he follows and always tries to protect those he cares about...
....and for those who are still interested in the series, but are new to it, be sure to check out:
"The Darkness: Compendium Edition"
(1248 pages long kids!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gamestop Offer (....whewt?)
Gamestop said:Purchase The Darkness and receive a GameStop Exclusive In-Game item: The 2K Sports Darkling! This evil little imp will aid you in your quest for revenge. You will be emailed a code and instructions on how to redeem your Darkling. Supplies are limited. Offer also good in stores.
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Interview Quotes and highlights:
IGN interview with Writer said:IGN: Why did you get along (with Starbreeze) so well?
Paul Jenkins(Writer): Well, they spoke my language. Not literally, because they're Swedish. Anyway, although they may be games developers, they're actually artists - and that's something we share in common. I think it's a shame that a lot of developers don't see what they're doing as creating art and that the games industry, as a whole, doesn't treat its games as art forms. Luckily, this is something that Starbreeze does really well.
IGN: Does that cause any problems for Starbreeze though?
Paul Jenkins: Well, they are incredibly creative but they're also slightly crazy Swedish people - which is an interesting mix. At the first meeting about the game they had some absolutely crazy ideas about the direction they wanted to take the game in. A lot of those things we just couldn't use because they were too bizarre or it would have been hard to set them up in the first game when you're really just introducing players to the Darkness abilities. However, we did manage to get some of those ideas into the finished game.
IGN: Can you tell us about those crazy ideas?
Paul Jenkins: Well, not really because I'd be giving too much of the game away. Let's just say that Starbreeze wanted Jackie to become incredibly powerful at one point. So powerful he could devour planets. That's something we've tried to include in the game and I was amazed that we were even able to pull it off a little bit
Kikizo interview with associate producer Patrick Liu said:Patrick: To capture the emotions of its actors better, Starbreeze is using a technique it calls vo-cap, or voice capturing. Essentially, the actors' faces and bodies are motion-captured as they are delivering lines, which, according to Liu, "gives the characters a lot more personality".
Team Xbox interview with Marc Silvestri said:Team Xbox: How does it feel, as the creator of the comic, to see The Darkness finally come to life in this way?
Marc Silvestri: Oh, its awesome. Its always the kind of thing where you go, Wow, its a monkeys paw. You work and you work and you work to get to a certain point with something you created, and then you get involved with other media, which always means other partners. And thats where you cross your fingers and thats where the monkeys paw comes inbe careful what you wish for.
In this case I wish I could say that it wasnt rare, but it really is, that you find partnersboth with Starbreeze and 2K and Union, who kind of put the deal together with us for Starbreezetheir passion and their obvious skills (when you look at Starbreeze and the calling card of Riddick that just put these guys on the map) the passion that they brought to The Darkness and the fact that they were fans of The Darkness and they got it, thats just a dream come true.
If this were the movie business, what wed have is the perfect movie star and the perfect script and the perfect director and a perfect studio. For us, its like, wow, that happened for us in our first video game. Hopefully, itll happen againand hopefully with these guys, because its been such a good working relationship. But you always get to that stageonce the deal is made, once the papers are signedits like, okay, now Im still crossing my fingers. And you cross your fingers all the way through until you see the actual game or the movie or TV show. Its kind of a crapshoot.
Team Xbox: Youre obviously happy with the way its turned outcarrying the vision of your comic. What kind of input did you have in the course of it, or did you sort of let them go off and do their thing, and then make some comments on it after the fact?
Marc Silvestri: One of the first decisions that had to be made was what Jackie looked like. [In the comic,] he has a superhero costumeor his version of one, anywaythats made of the Darkness stuff, so its a little weird, but the decision early on that they approached us with was, You know what? We think theres enough going on with Jackie and the Darkness powers that we really dont need to have him in costume. He already looks bad ass as it is, you know? He doesnt need a bat on his chest or an S on his chest just him is all you need. Jackie is always Jackie. Hes not a billionaire by day or a mild-mannered reporter by day, and then a truth seeker by night. Hes Jackie. When the lights go out, hes just more of what he is with his Darkness powers. Okay, we get it no costume.
Chris Remo interviews Jens Anderson (Lead Designer) and Mattias Snygg (Artist) said:Shack: So obviously one of your great strengths is taking an established property and melding it to fit better within the confines of video games, and maybe better within your own style and vision. Do you ever seen yourselves going back to original material and creating original franchises?
Jens Anderson: Definitely. It's more of a random thing that we have been working with licenses so much. Enclave was original, the thing we did before Riddick. Then Riddick was a great experience for us. Doing a comic license is very different, especially now working with Top Cow who is so open with giving us freedom to do a lot of stuff that we want to do. Of course, there's a great charm in doing original concepts as well, and we'll see with our next project.
computer and videogames interviews Mikael Saker and J. Matthies said:Do you find while developing The Darkness you can employ unused ideas from the Riddick project as you're still using your own custom Starbreeze graphics engine?
MS: We had a prototype up and running pretty early on the Riddick engine, and so this gave us a starting point. As both games use a first-person perspective, we could use animations from Riddick to test out the engine and get things going, steadily progressing towards what you are seeing now. It looks and plays a lot differently from Riddick, but there are common elements that we have been able to use so development can progress more quickly.
JM: But there are some things you really can't take from Riddick, even though we and other people really liked them - like the melee attacks.
JM: In Riddick we had this guy in prison and it didn't seem realistic that he was carrying guns. But being a hitman for the Mafia, you're going to have access to weaponry, that's just the way it is. So if you have access to guns all the time, you don't just walk up and punch people in the face.
MS: We also have some storytelling ideas that we developed during the Riddick production that we pushed further. Because in Riddick we wanted to limit the number of cinematic cutscenes and bring as much as possible into the actual gameplay. In The Darkness we've gone even further. There are cinematic cut scenes, but all of them bar one are in the first-person. It's in the style of Half-Life, but far more dramatic.
Were any of you fans of the comic before you started the project?
Jerk Gustaffsson: I don't think anyone had read it!
JM: Only a few of us were, because The Darkness isn't really available in Sweden.
MS: I know when we started the project we had to order huge racks of the comic from America, because we went into town and had a hard time tracking copies down.
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About the multiplayer....
Chris Remo from Shack said:Finally, I was able to check out some of The Darkness' multiplayer mode in a four-person deathmatch. Multiplayer plays out much like a standard shooter deathmatch, with the notable exception of being able to toggle options such as allowing players to transform into Darkling berzerkers at will. This proves to be a great benefit to the multiplayer, as deathmatch would be fairly unremarkable without it. Playing as a Darkling of course gives players no ranged attack, but it does boost speed, confer a particularly powerful melee attack, and, best of all, allow players to scale sheer walls with great speed. Darklings also have the secondary bonuses of being much more difficult targets, thanks to their small size and quickness. All in all, The Darkness' multiplayer is unlikely to be an online staple, but it should prove a fun diversion, particularly early on as players experiment with the novelty of the Darkling.
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Eurogamer First Impressions: 6/12/07
Eurogamer said:So, the vital question; should you be quivering in anticipation of The Darkness' launch at the end of this month? In simple terms, if you enjoyed Riddick, or if you have ever liked first-person shooters, or horror games, or both, then yes, The Darkness is a fascinating prospect. In even more simple terms, quickly popping this game onto the Xbox 360 debug unit to check that it worked turned into a lost weekend, a remorseful 4am bedtime, and watching the credit screen roll past at some ungodly hour on Sunday night. This, believe me, doesn't happen very often around here. Call it the lure of the Darkness.
TeamXbox Preview: 6/13/07
TeamXbox said:But those are all sidelines to the main gameplayand, interestingly enough, we found that the games story is actually a big draw instead of something you want to pass with a press of a button, which is another great similarity to The Suffering. Jackies story is compelling enough, but later it takes some dramatic twists thatll make it impossible for you to skip. Among them is when Jackie ends up in the Otherworld, which 2K described as a permanent World War II scenario, though with zombie soldiers prowling the grounds.
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Reviews
PLAY UK: 91%
Gameplayer.com.au: 9/10
UK OXM: 9/10
AUS OXM: 9/10
1up: 9/10
Games Radar: 9/10
EGM: 9, 6.5(wtf?), 8.5
IGN UK: 8.5/10
Gamereactor: 8/10
Eurogamer: 8/10
IGN: 7.8/10
Get The Rest Here
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Moving pictures!!!
(Right click and save-as.........yes its that easy!)
"Gametrailers Video Preview"
"Bloody Executions Gameplay"
"New Trailer: The Heart of the Darkness"
"Hellish Otherworld Gameplay"
"Demonic Warzone Gameplay"
"Gamespot Gameplay Vid 1"
"Gamespot Gameplay Vid 2"
"Gamespot Gameplay Vid 3"
"Demon arm!"
"The Black Hole
"The Creeping Dark"
"The Thrill"
"GDC07 Trailer"
"Developer Walkthrough Part 1"
"Developer Walkthrough Part 2"
"Comic Creator Interview"
"Heart Eating Montage"
"Hit Squad Gameplay"
"Gun Fight Gameplay"
"A Producer interview"
"The 1up Show Preview"
And finally the infamous intro....though you might want to wait and see the final version...its that good(...not to mentioned it'll probably be optomized in the final build)
"The Intro..."
.....so with that..... its time to...Embrace....the darkness!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Thread credited to AgentOtaku. Thanks Again.