Anti/Hero

Journey Into Darkness

But you don't truly begin to resent the creature until it forces you to become a passive participant in Jenny's death. After numerous failed attempts to kill Jackie, Paulie resorts to attacking the people he loves, first by burning down the orphanage Jackie grew up in - while it was still occupied, no less - and then by kidnapping Jenny. In most games, you would simply burst through the door at the last minute and use your supernatural powers to save the girl, but not so in The Darkness. Instead, the creature knocks your weapon from your hand and holds you back, forcing you to watch while Jenny is brutally slain in front of you.

Paulie may be a cruel and cowardly man, lashing out at innocent people in an effort to hurt you, but his need to save face and exact revenge are at least understandable. The creature , on the other hand, wants to make Jackie suffer for no other reason than to prove that it can. It's at this moment, when the former source of your power actually renders you powerless, that The Darkness stops being just another run-of-the-mill shooter and becomes a compelling storytelling experience.

That pivotal scene was something of a gamble for developer Starbreeze. You have full control over the Darkness up until that point; wresting that control away from you in order to force you to experience something unpleasant could have easily felt like a cheap shot. But because the developers spent so much time and effort into establishing the characters and allowing you to emotionally connect with them, the moment is devastating rather than simply infuriating. Aside from raw emotional impact, Jenny's death has a symbolic meaning as well: It represents the loss of Jackie's humanity, making his eventual submission to the Darkness and its accursed power inevitable.

It would have been easy for Starbreeze to have made The Darkness into just another supernatural action game. But by valuing the story as much as the gameplay, it created a unique experience: a game in which the very source of your power is the thing you most hate.

Logan Westbrook is a News Correspondent for The Escapist. Very occasionally, he updates his blog at http://www.verbscience.com.