You are Jackie Estacado, a hitman for the Franchetti crime family. On your 21st birthday a timeless force known as ‘The Darkness’ awakens within you. You can wreak havoc on your enemies with the powers it bestows. But you’ll quickly learn that The Darkness has a will of its own. (2K’s box description)

:: This review may contain spoilers ::

When The Darkness was initially released, a second game “Overlord” was released at the same time. Both games immediately interested me, however I was not about to shell out the cash for both games, but ultimately I decided to pickup The Darkness.

Single Player:

Right from the beginning of the game, I became confused. I hadn’t familiarized myself with the back-story, and was disappointed when I realized I didn’t start off with any of the Darkness powers. The game starts off as any first-person shooter often does. In this case you are a hitman for a Mob family and something goes wrong… on your 21st birthday, your uncle Paulie turns on you.

For those individuals who have not played the game, I will spare the details of the story, however throughout the game Jackie is thrown into a constant struggle of trying to control The Darkness that is empowering him. The game entertains the player with good graphics, and ample firefights. The pace of the game is good all the way through the end, and the ambient sound and music do a good job at immersing the player into the game. Controls feel natural and easy to navigate.

Never-the-less, despite this games good qualities, it is not without its faults. Initially it takes some time to figure out where to go and how to get there. Using the Subway system to get where you want to go can become burdensome, especially when you are faced with repetitive cut-scenes while the game loads. Playing the game I ran into a couple situations where I would back my character into a corner, or duck in between a phone booth and bus stop for cover, and my character would get stuck and I was unable to move. This would result in some frustration and a restart to the last checkpoint. I also had some difficulties with the side quests. I have heard complaints from other players as well, that they were unable to collect rewards from characters they completed side quests for. I too had this problem.

Despite the issues I ran across, the team at 2K did a great job with the story of The Darkness. I understand that The Darkness was inspired by a comic book series. While I am not a reader or collector of comic books, after playing the game, I am interested in reading the graphic story the comics may offer. I enjoyed the game and while I still would like to play Overlord, I’m glad I chose The Darkness first.

Multi Player:

The Darkness also contains an online component. The online matches I participated in were of the standard deathmatch variety, however the match did have a unique component that made the game a little different. The Darkness multiplayer has what is called ‘Shape-Shifter’ mode. This allows the player to play as a darkling or as a human. There are also Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag, Last Darkling, and Last Human game types.

Overall the Multi Player was enjoyable, but dont expect this to be a major contender to Halo 2.

I don’t like to give my game reviews a numerical score simply for the reason that one person’s 7.5 may be another’s 5. I do however like to rate games on their value and tell you whether or not a game is worth spending your money on. I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing The Darkness. So much in fact I will likely hang on to the game. I can see myself pulling this one off the shelf and playing through the game again.

Bottom-line, would I recommend running out and spending $60 on this game? Perhaps not. I did however enjoy the game and with multiplayer and all of the side quests available within the game, it does have good replay value. For $45 or less, yes, I would recommend the purchase. Give yourself some time to get lost with The Darkness, I’m sure you will find it as enjoyable as I did.

The next week is going to be a week filled with excitement for many 360 and PC gamers. The excitement is the source of one particular game and no, I’m not talking about the release of Madden 08. One week from today, gamers all over the USA will be able to pick up their copy of Take-Two Interactive’s BioShock. Even better, this past weekend an outstanding demo was made available on XBL.

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past few months, BioShock is the “genetically enhanced” first person shooter that lets you do things never before possible in the genre: turn everything into a weapon, biologically mod your body with plasmids, hack devices and systems, upgrade your weapons and craft new ammo variants, and experiment with different battle techniques in an incredible and unique underwater city.

You are a cast-away in Rapture, an underwater Utopia torn apart by civil war. Caught between powerful forces, and hunted down by genetically modified “splicers” and deadly security systems, you have to come to grips with a deadly, mysterious world filled with powerful technology and fascinating characters. No encounter ever plays out the same, and no two gamers will play the game the same way.

BioShock is loaded with some of greatest, most modifiable weapons to ever blast their way into a shooter. But guns alone won’t be enough to defeat the devious AIs of Rapture. There are literally hundreds of other strategies players can use to take out his enemies.

No encounter ever plays out the same way twice. No two gamers will ever play BioShock the same way. (Synopsis via press release)

I had a chance to spend some time playing the BioShock demo today, and I have to say I was simply blown away by this game. The visuals in the opening sequence are solid yet I agree with Jim in that they are not spectacular. However, once you enter the city of Rapture everything changes. Playing through the demo I was simply in awe at the visual and auditory stimulation this game provides. The play has the ability to interact in some way, with almost everything within the city. As you begin to explore the fragile environment, you will begin to find an understanding to what had happened to the city of Rapture and its inhabitants. The Creators did a suburb job at telling the story of Rapture by simply using visuals alone.

The more you explore, the more you what to learn about the city. BioShock has a way of immersing the player into a world unlike anything ever seen before. Stellar visuals, crisp lifelike audio and completely immersive game play. I am excited to see what the full game has in store for us next week, however my initial impression… I believe Take-Two Interactive may have a contender for game of the year on their hands.

When I got wind of the BioShock Demo being available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace I started the download before I went to work this morning. But at 1.3 gigs in size I could not wait around and get a little game play in before work. If only I had picked the right six numbers for the Powerball last Saturday, my gaming would not be bothered by this pesky work stuff and I could have sat in my underwear playing BioShock all morning. Sitting at my desk this morning was the longest five hours of my life. As soon as noon rolled around, I was heading back home to play a little BioShock, and I have to say it was worth it.

I will try not to give away to many specifics of the story, but keep my comments mainly to game play and environment. The controls are your basic First Person Shooter controls, so not really anything new there and besides developers are kind of locking into a formula that seems to work with the controls. The visuals are amazing there is not another Xbox 360 game out there that looks this good. There is a scene where you are floating underwater trying to get to the surface. Between the visuals combined with the sound effects really evoke the sensation of terror. You almost feel like you are truly struggling to get to the surface for air. When you fight enemies they have certain presence that seems to make them really scary. You will notice as you finish them off they all seem to look a little different. One enemy that attacks you while being on fire is truely amazing, he is covered in flames as he lunges at you doing his best to send you to the same demise as he is certainly headed for. When you are finally finished beating him to a plup, you will notice his body is covered in burns. Like I said the visuals really REALLY good. The game seems to have this formula of crazy heart pounding action, then calm, then the suspense leading up to another super intense action scene.

I did notice a couple of visuals that seemed kind of off. First when you are swimming on the top of the ocean, I kind of got the feeling that I was floating over the water. Think of Shadow Run and floating up the ladders and you sort of have the idea. Since this is a first person perspective I kind of expected to see my arms reaching out in front of me as I swim. Second some of the clouds seemed kind of a strange color and texture as I was swimming, for those of you who have ever run Microsoft Windows in 256 colors instead of True 32 will understand what I am talking about. It just did not seem quite right. But honestly these two small instances do not even compare to the great eye candy that is the rest of the game. Seeing fish flopping on the ground or the flames that are consuming an enemy as he attacks you are incredible.

Before I played the Demo I was thinking about picking up this game when it got its first price drop. But now I am going to go out and pick this game up day One! My suggestion is try out the Demo. I think you are going to be like me and start racing to get through whatever game you are playing right now so you can be ready to start this game the day it comes out. I just finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Sunday, and I am planning on working twice as hard to finish up Call of Duty 3 before August 21st so I can dedicate myself to this game. If you are someone who believes in try before you buy then you definitely need to bump BioShock to the top of your Game Q.

Updated: To check out Ryan’s thoughts of BioShock, click here.

The guys over at Pixel Perfect put together a list of all the things that suck about each of the consoles. It is a fairly common list of complaints that you will see on any blog, forum, or website. But it is interesting to read through their thoughts.

Via Pixel Perfect

Joytiq is reporting that EA plans to shut down 42 servers as of September 1st, 2007, and another 7 as of November 1st, 2007. As a gamer who has not completed all of Madden 2006 yet this is a little disturbing. Not to mention that this is clearly EA’s way of pushing gamers into purchasing the latest sports game expansion pack …… excuse me I mean latest versions of all their roster changes for sports games …. Whoops slip of the tongue I mean latest full version their sports games line up and other games that have newer versions out.

Microsoft seems to be able to keep the servers up for the Xbox version 1? And it has always been a Mystery to me why exactly EA needs to maintain servers aside from the Xbox LIVE servers? It always seemed like a great way to obtain email address to send advertisements (Cough, SPAM, Cough) about their new products not to mention data mine the other information they force you to enter. Aside from Square Enix, it seems that EA is the only other company that needs to maintain redundant servers to allow online game play. Since Square Enix does this to charge extra and allow cross platform play it leaves one to wonder what EA has up their sleeve in the future, and I doubt it is cross platform game play.

I am sure there are a pages of statistics and an army of bean counters over at EA that can tell you that hardly anyone is using those servers, and that it costs truck loads of money to keep them running. But here is the deal, if we as gamers can only use these sports games for a year or two maybe we should not have to clean out our wallets to buy your game. Maybe games that require EA servers to be maintained should only cost $30.00 or $40.00 to buy. I also think that EA should be much more forth coming about the fact that you will only be able to play these games for two years or probably less in the future. I would bet that within a few years they will shut off their servers the day that the next versions are released. I honestly hope that Microsoft and Sony step in and do something about this, because I think it is really a black eye to both platforms that EA can swindle money from customers using their respect platforms. I would encourage anyone who has purchased games that are affected to send emails to EA, Microsoft, and Sony about your feelings on this matter. I hope this makes everyone think twice about buying EA games and additional EA content. Lets all hope that 2K Sports can step up to the plate and give us all a true online gaming experience.

Check out what the guys at Penny Arcade think about EA, I definitely agree! Click here!

Here is the schedule for the mass unplugging

September 1, 2007 Online Service Shutdown
Arena Football for PlayStation 2
Arena Football for Xbox
FIFA Soccer 06 for Xbox 360
FIFA Soccer 06 for PC
FIFA06 for PC
FIFA Soccer 06 for PlayStation 2
FIFA Soccer 06 for PlayStation Portable
FIFA Soccer 06 for Xbox
FIFA World Cup 2006 for PC
FIFA World Cup 2006 for PlayStation 2
FIFA World Cup 2006 for PlayStation Portable
FIFA World Cup 2006 for Xbox
Fight Night Round 3 for PlayStation Portable
Fight Night Round 3 for Xbox
Madden NFL 06 for Xbox 360
Madden NFL 06 for PC
Madden NFL 06 for PlayStation 2
Madden NFL 06 for PlayStation Portable
Madden NFL 06 for Xbox
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for PlayStation 2
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects for Xbox
MVP 07 NCAA Baseball for PlayStation 2
MVP 07 NCAA Baseball for Xbox
NASCAR 06 Total Team Control for PlayStation 2
NASCAR 06 Total Team Control for Xbox
NBA Live 06 for Xbox 360
NBA Live 06 for PC
NBA Live 06 for PlayStation 2
NBA Live 06 for PlayStation Portable
NCAA Football 2005 for Xbox
NCAA Football 2006 for PlayStation 2
NCAA Football 2006 for Xbox
NCAA March Madness 06 for PlayStation 2
NCAA March Madness 06 for Xbox
NFL Head Coach for PC
NFL Head Coach for Xbox
NFL Head Coach for PlayStation 2
NHL 06 for PC
NHL 06 for PlayStation 2
NHL 06 for Xbox
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for Xbox 360
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 for Xbox

November 1, 2007 Online Service Shutdown
Burnout Revenge for Xbox
Burnout Revenge for PlayStation 2
Need for Speed Underground for PlayStation 2
Need for Speed Underground 2 for PC
Need for Speed Underground 2 for PlayStation 2
Need for Speed Most Wanted for PlayStation Portable
Need for Speed Most Wanted for Xbox

Via Joystiq

No matter how you look at it Sony has borrows many ideas from Microsoft and Nintendo.  From Trophy Cases in Home to PlayStation Network to SIXAXS motion controls no one at Sony can say that they do not borrow good ideas from their competitors.  Now with rumors that Microsoft wants to jump in and offer some additional help to the Folding at Home project, Sony officials look down their nose and pooh pooh them for copying them.

In a quote Jack Tretton said :

Would they be even having this conversation if we weren’t doing it? I don’t know. I would guess that the medical community would take help from anywhere they could get it, but the commentary that I heard is that Stanford isn’t sure that [the Xbox 360’s processing abilities] would help them very much, which is odd to me because if it helped at all, it seems like they would welcome it with open arms.

It’s really ugly territory to get into, but let’s take fighting a disease and see if we can get some credit for that. It’s not a cool game to play one way or the other, so I don’t want to even give the impression that that’s our motivation, and I’d be very disappointed if they’re looking for PR value or to try to suck off some of the goodwill that we’re doing.

So Jack when says “and I’d be very disappointed if they’re looking for PR value or to try to suck off some of the goodwill that we’re doing.”  Yeah, because Sony has done this all out of the goodness of their corporate heart.  They had no idea that the Playstation 3 would run circles around all the Personal Computers running the Folding At Home software, there by making their product look like a phenomenal number crunching work horse.

My comment to Jack Tretton would be this.  In the future contact Sony Public Relations before making demeaning comments about your competitors.  And here is the statement that I may have issued had Jack Tretton asked me to write his response for him:

“We are happy to see competitors of our opening up their platforms to assist in helping the researchers who diligently search for cures to diseases that plague mankind.  We are happy Sony was able to lead the way in utilizing the powerful interactive entertainment systems of today to assist with the massive number crunching process that is required to help cure these diseases.  We welcome our competitors to this endeavor and while we our primary interest is in what is best for humanity.  We can not help but be interested to see fans of the Playstation 3, XBox 360, and Personal Computers all compete to which platform can get the most Folding at Home work done.  Welcome to the competition!”

If any of you are interested in joining the folding at home effort you can follow this link to get more information.  If you want to download the client for your PC you can follow this link.  And if you would like to join the Around the Controller Network Folding At Home team you can click here on how to do that.  We look forward to you helping out and helping out science.

With the big announcement yesterday of Halo 3 being released September 25th, 2007, it got me to wondering how this will affect other games that were already scheduled to be released at that time.

Peering into my video game crystal ball I see some really big titles that could be hurt by this announcement.  First and foremost is BioWare’s Mass Effect, but also Assassin’s Creed, TimeShift, and to a lesser extent Grand Theft Auto IV.  Lets face it Halo is the game that every developer wishes they had, and no one but no one wants to go against.  I am actually looking forward to see what Sony will throw out in the month of September to try to steer some of the PR hype away from the Halo release.  Nintendo has a whole string of their heavy hitters coming this fall, but Halo 3 is so big that it could really cut into their sales as far as the Wii60 homes go.

I was really looking forward to Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, and Grand Theft Auto IV.  I had planned to bang through Mass Effect this summer, in time to work on Assassin’s Creed this September but figured I could have that game finished by the time Grand Theft Auto IV made its way onto consoles in October from there with a few late nights I am guessing I could be very close to finishing GTA IV to finish off 2007 with Halo 3 in November.  But with Halo 3 coming in September, and the fact that all the Halo series have always had such strong multiplayer functionality, many gamers could be playing Halo 3 way into 2008, and picking some of these other could have been big titles up later next spring after some price drops.  Microsoft may find it more difficult to negotiate deals for exclusive and simultaneous release for cross platform development projects next time due to the fact that developers will worry about AAA first party titles like Gears of War or Crackdown sequels being released in close proximity their games.

Only time will tell how sales will be affected.  Lets face it right now all most of us care about is Bungie getting the Halo 3 beta working for us Crackdown owners!

There has been a great deal of discussion about how Next-Gen the consoles released by Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have proved to be.  Microsoft seemed very determine to have the XBox 360 released to the public before the Nintendo Wii, and Sony PS3.  Many have speculated that having a year head start in sales has been a good move for the new comer to the console wars.  But is there another benefit to the quality alone time spent with the XBox 360?  Has it become that comfortable pair of shoes that you prefer over new and shiny consoles?

When I bought my XBox 360 I compare it to the original XBox version one.  When the Nintendo Wii came out, I did not own a Nintendo GameCube to compare it to so I ended up comparing it to the XBox 360.  When the Sony PS3 came out I did not compare it to my Sony PS2 as much as I compared it to the XBox 360.  For almost a year, I became very comfortable with the blade interface of the 360.  For a year the XBox 360 defined how I started games, interacted with my online friends, or downloaded content from the online store.  With these preconceived notions I was then thrust into two new and completely different experiences.  Immediately I felt like they had both done it all wrong.  I had gotten comfortable with the XBox LIVE interface, and now both the Sony Playstation Store and the Nintendo Wii shopping channel seemed like they were very cumbersome to navigate. 

So I decided to do a little experiment, I spent two weeks only using one of the three consoles.  First the Nintendo Wii, then two weeks later the Sony PS3, and then finally returned to the XBox 360.  After spending only a couple of weeks with each of the other two consoles exclusively, I found that when I went back to XBox LIVE I would get frustrated with its User Interface.  I would forget how to do certain tasks, like end voice and video chat sessions, or I had forgotten how to get to different types of downloads.

So before anyone is two critical of the Sony PS3, Nintendo Wii, or the Microsoft XBox 360 I would say spend some time with it you may find that it is not all that bad.

If you are looking for crazy folic shaped graphics for my grieving you will be a little disappointed, but this is a rant of mine.  So my friend Charlie went out this weekend and bought the PS3 version of Oblivion.  Now he barrages me with IM questions or comments telling me about all the crazy things he is doing in the world of Oblivion on the PS3.  When we got to talking he said that the version of Oblivion that released last week for the PS3 included the side mission Knight of the Nine.  So I went on XBox LIVE Marketplace to see if this side mission was now a free download for XBox 360 owners, but it is still 800 Microsoft Points.

Now a few months back on the Major Nelson Podcast show number 218, Major Nelson stated that they would be against charging for content that would be included in other platforms or available at no extra charge to other platforms.  So I am curious why this extra content is still being charged for?

I have emailed Major Nelson and asked him to look into this but right now he has probably had some other things to worry about such as XBox LIVE maintenance, announcement of XBox 360 Elite, and then his own site having some slow down issues.  But if he responses to me I will be sure to update this post.

This is the first post to the new blog Live For Xbox, a new blog in the Around the Controller Network.  We are excited to start reporting the all the news that is related to XBox gaming on Live for XBox.  We will be posting reviews of Box games, as well as all the downloadable content that is available. 

LiveforXBox.com will be posting news, product reviews, editorials, and everything else that is happening in the world of XBox.  Within a couple of weeks we will also be doing a regular Podcast relating to content on the site and some unique content that is exclusive to the Podcast itself.

As I mentioned before LiveforXBox.com, is part of the Around the Controller Network. In the coming weeks we will have the following sites up and running in our little online family:

www.AroundtheController.com
www.LiveForNintendo.com
www.LiveForPlayStation.com
www.LiveForPCGaming.com

If you are lucky enough to own more then one console, go head on over to the other sites in our little family and see if there is anything that catches your eye.  There will also be Podcasts specifically for each site. While LiveforXBox.com content itself will be dedicated to XBox specific consoles, games, news and editorials that XBox gamers can relate to and enjoy.

Also check out www.AroundtheController.com, for articles that deal with general issues that affect gamers of all platforms and brands.  The site will feature articles on gaming culture, political events that may affect gaming, editorials about where the gaming industry is headed, special pricing and deals, or just thoughts about gaming in general. 

We will be looking at your comments and looking forward to reading your feedback.