http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYlk_dcBpZU
This seems like it's going to be a pretty interesting release. The comic it's based on was pretty good, and the game seems like it's going to do the comic justice. You play as Jackie Estacado, a mafia hitman who becomes posessed by an evil called 'The Darkness'. Mike Patton of FNM is doing the voice of Jackie.
There's four main darkness abilities - Darklings, which are summoned demons which each have unique purposes (kamikaze, interrogator, ceiling ninja, fetcher, and more), help Jackie fight either unarmed or with an interesting variety of melee weapons, like pneumatic drills or hacksaws. They're described as having very distinct personalities, often making sarcastic comments, urinating on corpses, throwing up touchdown signs when making a successful kill, etc. Example in-game shown hree : http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/10525
The second is the Dark Tentacle, a massive appendage which can be used to attack enemies, destroy objects or barricades, pick up objects like police cars, or even shield Jackie from bullets.
The third is the Maw Tentacles - they're the two 'heads' you see on most screenshots. They're used for many different purposes - you can control one and send it out to go through extremely small areas such as vents or pipes, attack enemies from afar or spy on them. The tentacles are also used to eat the hearts of enemies, which is how you unlock bonus content.
The last is the ability to create Black Holes, which suck enemies and objects in and sucking them through to hell itself. This one's self explanitory.
The gimmick is that you've got to be in a dark area to power up into 'The Darkness' - from one of the people working on the game, "You can hear a sizzling sound of sorts whenever you're in too much light and the powers drain away, so you can run out into the light with your tentacles whirling and not have them taken away immediately. You don't need total darkness to power up though, but it will go faster the darker it is"
To make it so you can still see and move around, though, they've got a pretty interesting nightvision effect. "The nightvision effect highlights edges of objects without making anything actually brighter. It's kinda hard to describe but it's a neat effect and allows you to "sense" your surroundings even if you can't actually see anything."
Multiplayer is your standard mix of DM, TDM, and CTF but with a new more interesting AVPish 'shapeshifter' mode. "The human mafioso are pretty standard--they can pick up guns and armour. But then, we have a mode of game called shapeshifter too. By pressing a button, you can convert into a darkling. Like I said before, it's kind of like being an alien in Aliens Versus Predator; you can see in the dark, you can climb up walls, you move faster than humans, and you can leap great distances and attack with your claws."
Since you're a mafia-style hitman you DO get to do mafia execution-style kills. When you're in melee and you finish off an opponent, you get various different 'finishing moves' - the only one that I know of right now is shoving your gun in a guy's mouth and pulling the trigger, but I think I also saw one where you shove the gun against the guy's temple and do the same. The hand/gun models in first person seem kinda lackluster to me, but the darkness powers make up for that. I know that there's a 360 Achievement for doing 50 execution kills.
The only different I've been able to find between PS3 and 360 versions is that the PS3 version will have more videos, TV shows, etc. on the in-game TV's. I rather liked that gimmick when I was playing Max Payne, and it sounds interesting here. I did see one video where jackie was watching a TV high on a wall in a bar, one of the Darklings got bored with the talking, and crawled over the ceiling to change the channel to cartoons.
It looks fairly interesting, and so far I haven't really been disappointed in what I've seen from the trailers. There's a lot of hidef content here : http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1762
quote:
nem-x's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
you think everythings interesting
I just don't post on the stuff that doesn't interest me. So you only see me talk about the stuff I do.
They both look neat.
Keep me posted on the Darkness.
Good story, great artwork. Interesting concept.
quote:
Elvish Crack Piper stopped staring at Deedlit long enough to write:
I always figured most of the story material and powers and just would come from the actual Darkness comic az
Same world.
I just happen to enjoy Witchblade more, therefore, thats what I read.
Sara Pezzini annoys the hell out of me. And the gratuitous "clad only in the Witchblade armor" thing got old. At least the Darkness writers knew it was silly and had fun with it.
Plus the whole "can't risk having sex" running gag was great in the Darkness.
Anyway, I've been looking forward to the game. Should be fun.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
Clive Barker's Jericho is another one that's got my attention. Haven't done a lot of PC gaming lately. 
Although the Overlord demo is comically fun.
I did not know the Darkness was somehow tied to Witchblade.
One thing, and one thing is only needed to make Darkness > Witchblade
A crossover with Batman.
Which simply boggles the mind, and I really hope was awsome because I still havent read it, but it gets mentioned repeatedly after it happens.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
quote:
Ja'Deth Issar Ka'bael had this to say about the Spice Girls:
The Batman crossover was tasty.
quote:Regardless of how 'easy' it is to port from 360 to the PC, it doesn't mean they'll do it right. Companies like Ubisoft seem to take particular pleasure in making the worst ports possible.
Khyron.
No plans for a PC release that I've heard of. They'll probably wait to see if it does well and release it on PC if so. It can't be that hard to port it over from the 360 to the PC.
quote:If you can hold off until this fall, do so. Newer, more stable chips and cooling solutions.
Mortious.
Eh, I'm getting $1250 USD from a sale in Second Life, so I'll probably just buy an xbox 360.
Or, if you must buy now, make sure to get a warranty.
They do have a VGA cable that'd fit my monitor, but without those audio outputs I'll have to put it on my crappy TV. 
EDIT - Looks like it's game-specific, and so far the only game known to use KB/Mouse is UT3, which will be better on the PC anyways, so this is irrelevant. Khyron fucked around with this message on 06-19-2007 at 03:51 PM.
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How.... Mortious.... uughhhhhh:
It's a pity my old Creative Megaworks 5.1 set (pre-THX) only has a non-optical digital cable or seperate 3-plug 5.1 analogue input. No 360 cables fit it as far as I can see.They do have a VGA cable that'd fit my monitor, but without those audio outputs I'll have to put it on my crappy TV.
You can hook a 360 up to anything you want with the right adapter. I have a little 3-plug 5.1 -> R/W RCA adapter around here somewhere that I'd been using for audio until I got a new TV with speakers that actually work.
I'll be using this cable to hook up to my monitor: http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/hardware/x/xbox360vgahdcable/
Here is the back of my Creative Megaworks 5.1 subwoofer:
It's a bit fuzzy but the area in the red box with the arrows pointing towards it is where I would ideally like the xbox 360's sound to be directed. From left to right they are labelled F, R, C/S and AUX.
The biggest failing is that it seems like the game's rather short, which seems to be the biggest failing of most FPS games coming out lately.
quote:
In one of the videos, they basically said if you find a telephone number anywhere in the game (maybe written on a wall), you can call it from any telephone in the game.
I thought that sounded neat, I don't know.
Target is going to have a promotion, however - $10 gift card with the purchase of The Darkness.
quote:
Over the mountain, in between the ups and downs, I ran into Mortious who doth quote:
Here is the back of my Creative Megaworks 5.1 subwoofer:
It's a bit fuzzy but the area in the red box with the arrows pointing towards it is where I would ideally like the xbox 360's sound to be directed. From left to right they are labelled F, R, C/S and AUX.
ok, the problem here is that your sub there is analog and the 360 only outputs digital surround sound.
With a simple RCA -> 3.5mm adapter you can hook the 360 directly to this sub... but ONLY for stereo.
To get surround sound, something is going to have to decode that digital signal. Most nice stereo receivers will do this, just run optical to the receiver and use 3 two-channel RCA->3.5mm Y-cables to connect the receiver to the sub.
Using computer speakers for a "home theater" device is usually a big pain in the ass. Home theater speakers are balanced and unpowered, computer speakers are unbalanced and powered. Even hooking a PC up to home theater speakers takes a little black magic to keep the audio from coming out all distorted and shitty. Digital audio has helped this... somewhat. If you have it it's worlds easier.
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Maradon! said:
Why the fuck does a phone cord go into your sub
It's from the volume control knob which can be connected to any of the speakers.
Better yet, what would happen if you plugged the volume control into a phone jack. Would it work like a phone? a ROTARY phone??
quote:
Maradon! had this to say about Robocop:
I wonder what would happen if you plugged a phone cord in there and someone dialed that number. Would the volume go up?Better yet, what would happen if you plugged the volume control into a phone jack. Would it work like a phone? a ROTARY phone??
It sounds like something like that would just confuse it and fry something.
And tomorrow I am (Sort of) getting a PS3 for free; one of my friends is shipping out to Iraq, and his wife doesn't play games, so he's offered to give it to me while he's away. Khyron fucked around with this message on 06-26-2007 at 09:49 AM.
In regards to the fact that they've got in-game TV with real TV shows, cartoons, movies, etc :
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I've heard there's a significant portion (if not all) of "the Street Fighter" in it. (Sonny Chiba).
quote:
I got to play a bit over lunch: The graveyard battle definitely 'ended' (no respawn that I could see). I don't know if the corpses hang around forever. when I went back to the graveyard, the blood was gone, but the bodies were still there.You can't beat the graveyard fight? Do you still have it on hard? Lower that.
My impressions is that we're playing Riddick, witht he ability to eat people's faces off. The NPC interaction is there, the lighting is similar. The shooting action is a bit slippy like the original. the total feel of escape from butcher bay is there, but you're a goth in a huge city with evil powers.
The main guy's mouth doesn't move much when he talks, and I find that strange....everyone else's mouth moves fine. I wonder if that's some kind of choice, or bad motion capture....?
The story pulls you right in, and the atmosphere, main character and voices reinforce that heavily. This game is highly polished and a joy to play so far.
if you loved Riddick, I think you'll love this barring some monumental fuckup somewhere later on. I watched 15 minutes of 'the street fighter' on a bum's TV in the subway.
Darkness has an excelent difficulty curve since the badguys will shitkick you without the darkness activated, so light busting is very useful instead of the gimmick I thought it was going to be.
All the powers are FUN to use. Once you have darkness lvl 5 you can lift CARS with the arm, and the black hole is devestateing every time you use it(although its MORE devestateing if you use it in the air and not while pointing at the ground, as some objects will stop the suction on enemies if theyre in the way).
WARNING: ENDING SPOILER HERE
The ending leaves it open for a sequal, also, stay past the credits for the achivement points for it.
Overall I have been VERY impressed with how well done the game was, even if the controlls could have used a little less slip. All the darkness controlls are easy to use at least, even if the arm locks onto the wrong thing sometime, you usualy end up killing your intended target, even if it IS with his friends dead body sometimes!
quote:
Y.O.T.C had this to say about Tron:
Beaten it already on normal, I'd do hard tommorow but overlord comes out. It took about 12 hours for my first run through, and I have Most of the achivements.Darkness has an excelent difficulty curve since the badguys will shitkick you without the darkness activated, so light busting is very useful instead of the gimmick I thought it was going to be.
All the powers are FUN to use. Once you have darkness lvl 5 you can lift CARS with the arm, and the black hole is devestateing every time you use it(although its MORE devestateing if you use it in the air and not while pointing at the ground, as some objects will stop the suction on enemies if theyre in the way).
WARNING: ENDING SPOILER HERE
The ending leaves it open for a sequal, also, stay past the credits for the achivement points for it.
Overall I have been VERY impressed with how well done the game was, even if the controlls could have used a little less slip. All the darkness controlls are easy to use at least, even if the arm locks onto the wrong thing sometime, you usualy end up killing your intended target, even if it IS with his friends dead body sometimes!
Story spoiler alert.
At the end of the 'hell' level. Are you truly fighting against the Darkness's control? It says 'you have passed my test' at the end, but that doesn't sound like some evil that's resigned to its fate to me, so is the Darkness truly trying to control him, or is it trying to help him learn to control it?
I beleive it is the darkness allowing you to take control of it while it charges itself back up for taking complete control of you during the eclipse.
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Y.O.T.C impressed everyone with:
If you havent beaten it yet, you'll see, if not read next spoiler.I beleive it is the darkness allowing you to take control of it while it charges itself back up for taking complete control of you during the eclipse.
I don't know if you'd noticed this or not, it's an awesome little detail.
When you're in hell, stand next to famine and try to replenish your darkness. They'll sit there sucking in the darkness forever, never getting full. Khyron fucked around with this message on 06-29-2007 at 11:42 AM.
quote:
When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Kegwen said:
Sounds like a rental wooo
Definitely a rental. It is basically just another XBox shooter with its own gimmick. Nothing special really.
