Darkness 2 Demo: What the shit?

[Shoggoth2588]

If it helps, The Darkness as a comic/graphic novel has freaking HORRIBLE writing. After beating The Darkness on...hard I think (I need to check those achievements) I was thrilled to discover that the game was based off of a comic series. I picked up a couple of the graphic novels and have never regretted a comic purchase as much, ever.

I still haven't tried the demo but that's probably because I don't have XBL-Gold, PSN or, Steam (or whatever). Other than that I loves me some Cell-Shading.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

uh oh. I had a feeling the first game might be a sort of "lightning in a bottle" game where many elements come together and create a brilliant game.

The first Demo was quite indicative of the first game. You could have fun killing people with tentacles and minions, you could approach a situation multiple ways based on your powers, and you could watch TV (loved that feature). Of course some of the levels were confusing and it was easy to miss what you were supposed to do (just like in the full game).

It's just indicative of the larger problem of the game treating you like a retard, not letting you do things without the explicit instruction, and even NOT LETTING YOU MOVE for the first few minutes of the game.

Though in the first game you couldn't move at the start either. The whole first level is you in the back of a car dazed and confused.

 

[Dandark]

Personally I really liked the demo. It's not the same game as the first one but I think I may like this one better, it's actully closer to the comics.

The gameplay is much better now, I love the executions and demon arm slashing as well as being able to pick up and throw things like car doors.
Please don't start complaining about the writing from a short demo. Seriously just don't.

Im pretty sure that many of mob such as Jackies friend(Vinnie I think.) know about the darkness. Someone probably went to check out Paulies mansion only to find.........You played the first game, you know what they found and it wasn't something guns could do.

Plus Im pretty sure I heard Vinnie say "hey Jackie you got your s*** back!) or something like that implying he does know Jackie has some kind of evil demon power.

I didn't even notice the dialouge options in the first game they were so useless and uneeded.
Again I hardly noticed the little objective arrows and come on really? You get like what one quick time event where you have to tap X really quickly for a few seconds and you are complaining that it's ruined the game?

 

[woodaba]

I agree on both sides here. Yes Woodaba you have made some good points however dont overthink the game. I played the demo and had mindless fun and it was a blast when you say your points some i agree with but i think you are just ruining it for yourself. Btw the only thing that really bothered me when i played it through was cell shading. I agree, they have kinda sucked out what made the original darkness cool. When i played the first one the demon arms looked freaky and dark enviroments were scary now even though its fun it may be a it cartoony. Overall i will get this game because something noone has touched on is the multiplayer which looks fucking amazing.

Welcome to the forums!

I haven't seen anything of the multiplayer, but im just not interested. Multiplayer in the first game was clearly an afterthought, and the brilliant single-player was what made it work. The multiplayer may be good, but the single-player is what I and many Darkness fans are after. And, judging by this demo, it looks to be a severe disapointment.

 

[CharrHearted]

CRAI SOME MOAR, BABIES -goes back to sandvich eating-

 

[tracer_au]

While you are entitled to your opinion OP (I know that sounds condescending, please don't hate me for it) I make it a point to not play the demos of games because past experience has taught me that demos never acurately represent the experience of the game as a whole.

Case in point - I invite you to look up Yahtzee's review of the Darkness 1 demo on youtube and you will note that it was shit, but i played the whole game and i loved it! Yet I completely agreed with the points raised about the demo. So I say mayby you need to wait for the complete game before you pass judgment. It may be vastly different, but the experience may just be enjoyable regardless.

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

...not once did I say that the game was bad for not being the same as the last game...

"Everything that made the original game great is gone, stripped out, and what is left is a ridiculous parody of what was once a great game." < WTF IS THIS SHIT?

Blah blah blah big long post about how gamers just want the same game over and over again and blah blah blah I don't know why I even try blah blah blah don't buy the game and just keep playing the original forever and ever blah blah blah I'm sleep deprived and don't have time for this petulant drivel...

And I like how you can gauge the writing quality of an entire game from a 15-20 minute demo. Clairvoyance FTW, right?

WTF is that shit? THAT is my honest opinion sir, and if you can't get it through your skull that someone may not like a game, then you FAIL. This my experience of the demo. The demo is supposed to make me want to buy the game. And the quality of writing I saw in the demo was poor compared to the first game. So don't talk to me about clair-a-fucking-voyance, shithead. How is saying that a game, from what I've seen in the demo, is vastly inferior to its predecessor a bad thing? Seriously!

Such an angry little man...

And you keep comparing the demo to the first game by the way.

 

[Spacewolf]

5. Jackie has not been consumed by the darkness. The ending of the first game indicated that the Darkness had consumed Jackie's personality and morality, but he mentions early on "Not this, not again" implying that he has rejected the Darkness since then, making the original game's ending MEANINGLESS. JACKIE'S ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC HAS BEEN RENDERED POINTLESS. FUCK YOU DIGITAL EXTREMES.


7. Gang members don't care about the Darkness. Not only can you not turn the Darkness off (you read that right), but your fellow Gang members don't give a shit about the manisfestation of evil oozing out of your back. One guy literally says "Oh shit Jackie what the hell is that never mind go kill these dudes"

So, escapists, what did you think of the demo? I personally found it to be an insult. Digital Extremes couldn't have missed the point worse if they fired in the wrong direction and the point was in a different country altogether.

5. "Jackie wake up"

7. Pretty much the same as the first

 

[shrekfan246]

It's just indicative of the larger problem of the game treating you like a retard, not letting you do things without the explicit instruction, and even NOT LETTING YOU MOVE for the first few minutes of the game.

Though in the first game you couldn't move at the start either. The whole first level is you in the back of a car dazed and confused.

"And that was the first time I died."

OT: I have no comment/opinion on this topic because I never played the first game and I didn't even know a demo for the second was being released. I was interested in it a few months back when it popped up in GameInformer though.

 

[Irridium]

Yeah, not impressed with this. Improved on some things in the first game, while wrecking others. And I question people saying "you shouldn't judge it because its a demo". Then what the fuck is a demo for if not to judge whether or not you'll purchase the final game?

It's just indicative of the larger problem of the game treating you like a retard, not letting you do things without the explicit instruction, and even NOT LETTING YOU MOVE for the first few minutes of the game.

Though in the first game you couldn't move at the start either. The whole first level is you in the back of a car dazed and confused.

Well, it was his 21st birthday (the day you can legally drink alcohol in the US), so that makes some sense. He was probably out getting tanked off his ass.

 

[Sonicron]

I would love to weigh in on this.

I would love to, but I can't because those Microsoft douchebags won't make the demo available for folks with a German account. Fuck you, Microsoft, and fuck you, German censorship laws.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I liked it a fair bit. It's a different developer, so I wasn't expecting anything too similar.

The improvements to gameplay were great, since the gunplay in 1 was very shoddy, imo. I do miss being able to "holster" my darkness, though.

Also, SEGMENTED HEALTH, whoo!

 

[woodaba]

5. Jackie has not been consumed by the darkness. The ending of the first game indicated that the Darkness had consumed Jackie's personality and morality, but he mentions early on "Not this, not again" implying that he has rejected the Darkness since then, making the original game's ending MEANINGLESS. JACKIE'S ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC HAS BEEN RENDERED POINTLESS. FUCK YOU DIGITAL EXTREMES.


7. Gang members don't care about the Darkness. Not only can you not turn the Darkness off (you read that right), but your fellow Gang members don't give a shit about the manisfestation of evil oozing out of your back. One guy literally says "Oh shit Jackie what the hell is that never mind go kill these dudes"

So, escapists, what did you think of the demo? I personally found it to be an insult. Digital Extremes couldn't have missed the point worse if they fired in the wrong direction and the point was in a different country altogether.

5. "Jackie wake up"

7. Pretty much the same as the first

5. That line was Jackie being consigned to his fate as the Darkness' puppet for all eternity. It wasn't him suddednly gaining control again.

7. Wrong. Remember the standoff at your aunts house? Remember how you would never be able to use the Darkness in front of friends? Yeah. It isn't the same.

 

[Lifelikegibbon]

Yeah i agree that the singleplayer is probably 70 or even 80 percent of the game. However the multiplayer looks great dont underestimate it. It contains 4 new characters they all have unique weapons with the darkness channeled into them like a ninja esque guy with a samurai sword and they all have sweet looking executions. Oh btw im scottish and one of the characters is a glaswegian man with an axe who throws it into gang members genitals, i was sold.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Run5PYOy5ZQ

 

[Woodsey]

Someone from OXM posted an article last week saying to stay away from the demo, as it wasn't indicative of the final game (which he was in the process of reviewing).

Ah, here: http://www.oxm.co.uk/37880/blog/the-darkness-2-is-great-dont-play-the-demo/

Yeah, not impressed with this. Improved on some things in the first game, while wrecking others. And I question people saying "you shouldn't judge it because its a demo". Then what the fuck is a demo for if not to judge whether or not you'll purchase the final game?

Some devs seem to think that a good demo is one that appeals to the R-Tard crowd, because loyal fans will follow anyway.

And I cry myself to sleep at night praying that this is the case with Hitman: Absolution. Unfortunately, unlike the article above for The Darkness 2, the only people who are confirming that are the Hitman devs themselves, not the press.

 

[daveman247]

I would love to weigh in on this.

I would love to, but I can't because those Microsoft douchebags won't make the demo available for folks with a German account. Fuck you, Microsoft, and fuck you, German censorship laws.

Can't blame microsoft for following the laws of your country.
Just saying

 

[Lifelikegibbon]

well that hopefully explains some of the problems of the games demo

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I never played much of the original because it's not my kind of strange, so I'm not up there with the fanboy rage but throughout the demo two questions kept poking me in the eye:
- since when is this a cartoon?
- why the fuck did you infect it with CoD bullshit?

Well we all know the anwser to that is money, but still... have some fucking dignity devs.

 

[RaffB]

1. While the comics were amazing, Shakespeare they most definitely were not.

2. I quite liked the graphics, plus the first one does look very dated..

3. You can turn them off. Even in the demo

4. QTE's? Apart from the whole, press x to eviscerate this guy you just picked up, I didn't notice them.

5. I got the impression from the ending of the first one that while he did lose control of the darkness near the end, it was more in a Embrace the true power, not the complete submission way.

6. They didn't exactly change much in the first one, barring the odd minor convo.

7. Would you draw attention if your boss sprouted tentacles and ripped people apart?

 

[Ordinaryundone]

And now for the bad stuff!

1. Awful writing. "I like the way he feels. He feels sticky."

That character was supposed to seem weird and creepy. His name was Peevish, for pete's sake. Otherwise I thought the writing was fine; not like we got to see much of it.

2. Cel-shaded graphics. I know theyre trying to make it more like the comic, and normally I much prefer a stylised look, but the new graphics have sucked out the murky and shadowy atmosphere of the first game.

I actually rather liked them. I liked the original game as well, but this is a nice change of pace from gritty realism.

3. COD-style points flashing up when you do something right. Way to break my immersion every ten goddamn seconds, dipshits.

You can turn them off. Problem solved.

4. Quick time Events. Fuck you.

Quick Time events? You mean the few times when you had to press X? I wouldn't exactly call those QTEs. No different than selecting a dialogue option or something.

5. Jackie has not been consumed by the darkness. The ending of the first game indicated that the Darkness had consumed Jackie's personality and morality, but he mentions early on "Not this, not again" implying that he has rejected the Darkness since then, making the original game's ending MEANINGLESS. JACKIE'S ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC HAS BEEN RENDERED POINTLESS. FUCK YOU DIGITAL EXTREMES.

Jackie has NEVER been consumed by the darkness. He is it's master. By giving into his revenge and killing Paulie he just guaranteed that his soul would be lost when he died. Until then though, Jackie is fully capable of dominating the Darkness. Read some goddamn comic books.

6. No dialogue options. Godammit.

So? The dialogue options in the first game were pointless. Its not like the story branched or anything.

7. Gang members don't care about the Darkness. Not only can you not turn the Darkness off (you read that right), but your fellow Gang members don't give a shit about the manisfestation of evil oozing out of your back. One guy literally says "Oh shit Jackie what the hell is that never mind go kill these dudes"

Actually, Vinnie says "Jackie, is that you? Hey, you got your thing back". Everyone in Jackie's crime family knows what the Darkness is; they were there when he was killing everyone in the first game. And even if they didn't, he is A. Their boss and B. ripping the other guys in half. They are smart to keep their mouth shut.

So, escapists, what did you think of the demo? I personally found it to be an insult. Digital Extremes couldn't have missed the point worse if they fired in the wrong direction and the point was in a different country altogether.

Demo was awesome, Day 1 purchase, you shouldn't curse so much. It makes you seem stupid.