KEY POINTS:
This fast-moving, moody first person shooter carries an R18 rating.
You play a New York mob hitman called Jackie Estacado, whose supernatural powers emerge on his 21st birthday.
Jackie is not a warm, smiling guy, which becomes quite clear at the start of the game in the back of a speeding car after a money collection deal has just gone bad.
His uncle thinks a cool birthday gift is to try to blow him up. Nice family. Watch out for the birthday cake candles!
What is the Darkness? For his birthday present, Jackie becomes possessed by the parasitic creature.
It has a deep evil sounding voice and appears as two snakelike features protruding from Jackie's shoulder blades. The powers enable him to perform inhuman feats like crawl through tiny vents, wrench people's hearts out and much more.
It is indeed a dark brutal tale from 2K and Starbreeze, the developer that made The Chronicles of Riddick and based on a comic book from the 90s.
At times it may shock the faint-hearted with its gruesome twists.
I was keen to try out this title on my 1080p-capable Bravia TV, and indeed the visuals are stunning even though a lot of it is shot in dark underground areas such as the graffiti-ridden subways of New York.
At the very start it is important to select the right profile for your TV.
Jackie's demonic powers seem to multiply in the dark and the Darkness seems drawn to evil victims. Street lamps and bright lights repel it, so fostering it requires shooting out lights on approach.
The evil powers include something called The Creeping Dark that sends out a snake to scope out the surroundings and suck the life out of enemies lurking nearby.
With the Demon Arm, a long tentacle is used for stealthy moves.
The most awesome power is called the Black Hole - and as the name sounds, creates a whirling gravitational ball that sucks things in.
Among Jackies evil habits, is eating the hearts of victims to improve his power.
Like all such grisly games, the humour is quite black. There are gremlins called Darklings with names like Kamikaze - cheeky little monsters that help to kill enemies en masse, although they're not that stealthy and they, too, hate light.
The frame rate is smooth and the subway trains tend to look like the real thing. The streets and signs are great but sometimes the sound lets the title down.
A lot of additional content makes the game more interesting.
So far single-player on the Xbox 360 has been pretty cool (it's also available on PS3) and it plays for about 10 hours. There is also an eight-player online mode (with common modes like death match and capture the flag).
Better prepare for some shocking brutality.
Rating: 8 out of 10
