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The Darkness' laggy multiplayer to be patched
We have good news for everyone who already purchased The Darkness (or will be after trying the demo) and have tried to enjoy the game's laggy online multiplayer. Over on The Darkness' official MySpace page, Lord Sonatine has confirmed that they'll be releasing a multiplayer patch sometime in August to fix the lag issues that so many players are experiencing. Lord Sonatine explains that the problem stems from poor host upstream speeds which weren't caught while developing the game due to the studio's uber fast internet hookup. For now, they recommend hosting a match with less players which will help alleviate the bandwidth strain on the host.On behalf of the hundreds of people we've heard complain about laggy The Darkness multiplayer we send a well deserved thank you to Starbreeze Studios for the patch. That is, if the patch will actually fix the lag problem. Stay tuned ...[Via Xbox 360 Rally]
The Darkness demo slithers onto the XBLM (finally)
We were promised it in June, it was then delayed a few times, but it is finally here. Up on the XBLM this morning is a 1.27GB single player The Darkness demo featuring three campaign levels of death, darkness and more death. And if you don't already know, The Darkness has received generally favorable reviews for its campaign although most everyone agrees that its multiplayer is rather lackluster. But the demo is all about the campaign, so if you have yet to get your hands on The Darkness we advise giving the demo a download and experiencing first hand what black eels with teeth protruding from your body actually feels like.
PS3 Fanboy review: The Darkness
Starbreeze's Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was one of those titles that you really, really should have played. The critically acclaimed game was known for its incredible graphics, atmospheric story and brutal, violent gameplay but was largely ignored by gamers who wrote it off as another cheap movie tie-in or were distracted by Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, both of which had just been released. It's a shame though, because Riddick easily held its own against both of those titles and is considered by many people to be the best FPS of 2004. And now, three years later, Starbreeze has done it again with their latest effort, The Darkness. Though only a little more than half-way through the year, The Darkness is an early runner for best FPS of 2007. A fantastic amalgamation of tight gameplay, mature storytelling and excellent graphics, the title is an absolute must-buy and is an instant classic.Based on Top Cow's long running comic series of the same name, the story revolves around an anti-hero by the name of Jackie Estacado. Adopted by a mafia Don when a child, Jackie was raised to be the perfect hitman and enforcer for the mob. Things were going swimmingly until his 21st birthday when a strange and evil power within him called the Darkness is awoken. Older than time, this menavolent entity gives its host incredible powers and protection -- but nothing in this world is free and Jackie is about to find out what the cost of ultimate power is ...
The Darkness Achievements menu shows progress!
When browsing through the Achievements menu in the pause screen in The Darkness, we came across a nifty feature that we saw in GRAW 2: Achievement Progress reports. Any Achievement that requires you to do an action multiple times, it will display a percentage for completion on the bottom. Also, the "collectibles" Achievements show which ones you're missing in numerical order, so that is very handy indeed. Starbreeze knows where it's at.
Final reminder: win The Darkness from X3F
Alright folks, this is it. Today is your last day to enter our Fanboys Fight for The Darkness giveaway. Not to be cocky, but we currently have just over twice as many entries as PS3 Fanboy. If you don't already know, whichever site gets more entries gets an extra copy of The Darkness to give away. So far, it's looking pretty good for us to have that third copy. If you'd like your shot at The Darkness, head over to the official contest page and enter. If you don't, then the Darkness will possess you and give you cool superpowers. Wait ... no ... if you don't, then the Darkness won't possess you and give you cool superpowers*, so hurry up and enter already.*Regardless of whether or not you enter this contest, you more than likely will not be possessed by anything other than jealousy of the winners, or elation, should you turn out to be one those winners.
Get The Darkness for only $49.99
Doing a second pass over our Sunday newspaper ads, we noticed that Circuit City is offering The Darkness for ten bucks cheaper than retail. This week, both online and in-store, The Darkness is available for the low, low price of $49.99, but doesn't include the 2K Sports Darkling like Gamestop offers. Oh well, $10 is $10, so save some cash and pick the game up over at the city of circuits unless you are hell-bent on getting the 2K Sports Darkling. If you are, we understand.
Deal of the Day: Absorb the Darkness for only $49.99
Our favorite penny-pincher, CheapyD from Cheap Ass Gamer, has found yet another tasty deal for us. This week you can pick up The Darkness for a mere $49.99 from Circuit City. This knocks the price of Starbreeze's latest FPS from the unruly next-gen price of $60 to a more comfortable PS2-level price point.The Darkness has been getting fantastic reviews so far and looks like a must-buy when it comes out today. And now, thanks to CheapyD, you can buy the game and even have enough money left over for a McDonalds value meal and a 40 of Old English. Now THAT'S good living.
Reminder: win The Darkeness from X3F
Just a quick reminder for those of you who missed it on Friday (or don't look at our fabulous pinboxes on the right side of the page), we're still running our Fanboys Fight for The Darkness contest. We're having a little competition with PS3 Fanboy, you see. Whichever site gets more entries also gets a third copy of The Darkness to give away, leaving the losing site with a paltry two.It's super easy to enter. All you have to do is go to the official contest post and leave a comment that finishes this sentence: "The 360 version of The Darkness is better than the PS3 version because ... "See? Easy, right? Head over to the contest page and get commenting. We're accepting entries until 11:59 EDT tomorrow. You can read the official rules by clicking here.
Video: First 25 minutes of the Darkness
Over at Gametrailers, diablokiller18 uploaded the first 25 minutes of The Darkness' single player story. Sure, the aspect ratio is wrong, and we're not entirely sure if he's "allowed" to do that, but it builds hype, and if the first review is any indication, the game is going to be a summer blockbuster anyway. Obviously, spoilers and potentially NSFW language can be found, so if you don't want to ruin the experience, we suggest you avert your eyes. Otherwise, embrace The Darkness and enjoy.[Thanks Joshua]
The Darkness gets reviewed and it's good
Fresh out of hell's oven is the first review for upcoming 360 release The Darkness and word on the street is that it's actually good. 1UP posted the first review and gave the game a whopping 9.0 out of a possible 10. They felt that the presentation, the look, the gameplay and overall incorporation of the Darkness features (tentacles and all) were very polished and fun. As the saying goes, "it just works". Completing the game will take an average of ten or so hours, but 1UP feels that players can easily get distracted by messing around with the physics engine or taking advantage of the game's down times by roaming the city. The only drawback to the game is its somewhat gimmicky multiplayer, which developer Starbreeze even admits shouldn't be taken too seriously. Overall, we're impressed by how much 1UP was impressed by the game and will be patiently watching metacritic for more reviews to hit the internet. Who knows, The Darkness could actually be a solid game.[Thanks, intRvenous]
Is Dark Sector something to keep our eyes on?
When you first read any hands-on material, you generally groan in disappointment because all you hear is fluffy statements about this or that. People who are given hands-on time typically won't say anything negative about a game, as that would be rude. However, sometimes you can pick out choice phrases or words that connote whether or not a game, to put it bluntly, blows. So when Games Radar posted their hands-on, we were surprised to see none of that in their hands-on of Dark Sector, recently rescheduled for next year due to a busy Fall lineup (but Summer is still completely empty).The game is a melting pot of ideas. If we were to blurt out the influences, we'd probably scream a list similar to this: Rygar, Resident Evil 4, Gears of War, Zelda, and Metroid. You've got your spinning disc thingy that cuts people up, your third person shooting style from RE4 and the cover system from GoW and you learn new skills and solve puzzles with said skills/items like in Zelda and Metroid. What Games Radar said about the game graphically is pleasing -- it used to be fairly ugly, but they've complimented how it has turned out. Sure, it doesn't look the killer app for the PS3 and 360, but if your level of fun slows down after the holidays, this might just give you the shot of excitement you need.
Video: The Darkness? More like Teh Hawtness!!1
The new trailer for The Darkness is sweeping the interwebs, and it's totally awesome. It's got a nice narrative by the Darkness itself. It shows off aspects of the game not yet seen, in a more underworld-type setting. It's making the 25th of June all the more painful a wait. Which is somewhat of a good thing, as the anticipation only makes us more excited. Are you going to devour some hearts later this month?
Video: Just devouring hearts in The Darkness
Want to devour your enemy's heart? Want to create a black hole of death? How about gunning down Nazi soldiers in hell? If you answered yes to those questions, then it's looking like The Darkness is the game for you. GameTrailers.com posted an exclusive preview of game where they run through all the game's features, give a general sense of the storyline, and offer up an overall impression of what you'll experience when the game releases later this month. Give the video a watch and take it all in before the darkness comes and you fall asleep. (Yeah, bad joke. But you can't hate a blogger for trying!)
Achievements come out of the ... er ... Darkness
Xbox 360 Achievements, the sly dogs, got their hands on the Achievement list for Starbreeze Studios' comic book adaption, The Darkness. Upon looking at the 50 Achievements available you can tell that there is a heavy emphasis on the multiplayer aspect of the game which we definitely like to see, although we can't tell if these require to be in ranked games in order to be unlocked, or if they can be performed in public matches. Our favorite from the list, would easily be "Knuckle, Meet Face", for indulging in your first melee kill. What's yours?
Developing The Darkness for 360 and PS3 was "bordering on stupidity" says Starbreeze
In a recent Q&A with Gamespot Jens Matthies, Art Director at Starbreeze, discussed voice actors, in-game advertising and developing a game for two next-gen consoles. When asked what sort of technical limitations Starbreeze came across when developing The Darkness for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 Matthies responding saying that "this game as a whole has been the single most challenging experience of my life. The fact that we did it for two new platforms that are fundamentally very different is bordering on stupidity." Whether that's simply from an art perspective or not is unclear, but it begs the question of why so many games are deciding to go multi-platform if it is as difficult an undertaking as Matthies says. We reckon that in a year or so this will be happening less and less as developers start to make concrete decisions on which system to support. By then the PlayStation 3 will be at a point in its lifespan where it will be showing what it really has to offer.Read the full Q&A for more of Matthies' views on the development process for The Darkness. Including some discussion on real world video being placed inside a video game world and what implications that could have on game pricing in the future. It's fairly light on actual information, but we suppose it's still quite an interesting read. If you've nothing better to do.
Video: Hell as seen in The Darkness
Literary depictions of Hell vary considerably from person to person. Dante described the 9th circle of Hell as a frozen wasteland, made so by the chilling wind created by the Devil's wings. Meanwhile, Hell as depicted in Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (truly a masterwork of the 20th century) gives its inhabitants a wide array of personalized punishments from which a sinner must choose. In The Darkness, it seems, Hell and its appearance are completely at the whim of the Devil. In the video above it is depicted as a war zone (reminiscent of WWII) with a blackened sky and withered landscape. We have to admit, listening to the Devil say "this is my dream of you" is pretty damned creepy. Check out another video (featuring Pestilence, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse) after the break.
Get your shivs ready -- multiplayer Riddick confirmed by Sierra
We've got a soft spot for Riddick. Not so much Vin Deisel, but the original film that started it all, Pitch Black, was campy and awesome. If you disagree, you've probably got a little more sense than us. Or you've got poor sci-fi horror movie taste. Whatever the case, Riddick is pretty badass and this attribute was exemplified in the original Xbox title Escape From Butcher Bay. Now retitled Assault on Dark Athena, the recently announced remake sports high-definition graphics and added enhancements in addition to the "Dark Athena" chapter.For the first time, says publisher Sierra, action will go from the Butcher Bay, er, episode, and throw players "in intense multiplayer combat. The game introduces the ominous Merc-ship Dark Athena, which sits silent like a marauding spider, awaiting helpless prey in the dark reaches of the galaxy. Players must face a large, bloodthirsty operation led by the dreaded Captain Revas and her slaves-turned-controllable combat drones, storm though death-defying events and fight fierce enemies in a battle of malice and gore." Malice and gore? Sounds like a double whammy of awesome. Sign us up! We'll keep tabs on this game as its release later this year grows closer.
Confirmed: Riddick remake is really real
Uncovered last week, the remake of Chronicles of Riddick for new-gen consoles has been confirmed for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. As previously revealed, the game will be titled Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. The game will receive a graphical face-lift and will feature a new single-player episode that takes place after the eponymous escape from Butcher Bay. Not only that, but the game will also feature online multiplayer. We must note, as does Joystiq, that the developer's commentary mode that was hinted at last week is not mentioned in the Sierra press release. Here's hoping it makes it into the final game.Assault on Dark Athena is expected to arrive by the end of the year.[Via Joystiq]
Riddick remake confirmed for PS3, Xbox 360
It seems like only last week that we were given the first details on a Chronicles of Riddick remake, and now we have official confirmation from Sierra that the "reinvention," now subtitled Assault on Dark Athena, will be released later this year for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.Besides the mandatory visual enhancement, the game will also feature a new chapter (entitled Dark Athena, natch) and online multiplayer. Not mentioned in Sierra's press release is the previously-discussed developer's commentary mode. The original Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay for Xbox One and PC stands as one of the few games that not only puts a film license to good use, but actually might surpass the movie in terms of critical reception.[Thanks, sheppy]
Chronicles of Riddick remake heading to the PS3 and 360
It appears that the PlayStation 3 is getting a remake of the best movie videogame of all time, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Rumors have been popping up on the net that an 'enhanced' version of the fantastic PC/Xbox game will be coming to both the PS3 and the 360 and will include improved graphics, online modes, developer commentary and a new level. The new version is titled Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and it was confirmed that original developer Starbreeze is working on the remake. Unfortunately, no release date was mentioned.The original title was easily one of my favorite first-person shooters from the previous generation. It was a bit of a sleeper hit with many people writing it off as just another movie cash-in title, but Starbreeze really delivered in spades. The game was incredibly atmospheric, had fantastic graphics, visceral and violent gameplay, and a surprisingly good story. Still, it seems a little odd that they're remaking a game that's only a few years old. Hopefully the new extras will make it worth taking another trip to Butcher Bay.
