Wow, this game has aged like the finest wine. It is close to perfection. It was already on my list of all-time favorites, but I think I'm gonna move it way higher, maybe even to the top-10.

The story is downright genius. Not only is it a brilliant meta-commentary on the series and on video games as a medium, but it also weaves Gnostic themes into there and explores the application of video games as a tool of metaphysical examination. Even the other aspects of the game, such as the comic-inspired visuals factor into it. Even its cliffhanger, which is annoying (mainly because we never got a sequel) makes so much sense and fits so well thematically with what the game was going for. And it does it all while not violating anything set up by the original Darkness and even enhancing that game's meta-text. God, it's so fucking good, a pure work of art. And, of course, judging by the reviews I've seen, this game's story flew over everyone's heads. Well, I'm not gonna discuss it here for the same reason I've never written a Silent Hill review.

Instead I'll talk about the gameplay. This is probably the most mechanically-deep corridor shooter ever made. Despite the total linearity, there is an incredible amount of strategies you can employ to deal with the opponents, who come in a variety of types, forcing you to always consider in which order to take them out or whether to retreat. You can grab and throw objects, use some of them as shields, use powerful melee attacks, which then allow you scripted kills that will restore your health, ammo, mana, or give you a shield. You can dual wield a variety of different weapons and choose to combine weapons of different types for unique combinations. And dual-wielding in this game is without a doubt the best you'd ever see in any shooter ever. The way your guns will glide and zoom in automatically, allowing you to maintain your accuracy without the need of right-clicking to aim down-sights. Hell, you can even grab your darkling sidekick and throw him at an enemy. And on top of that you get to buy upgrades, which give you even more mechanics. The possibilities are ridiculously numerous.

Every level is extremely creative and radically different from the previous. There's one level in a whore-house, were you get to see some actual fucking (so glad this game wasn't censored). The haunted-house attraction ride in the abandoned circus, where you have to tell apart enemies from the animatronics is fucking genius. Very reminiscent of a similar level in Max Payne 2. You get to go through all these cool-ass locations and events, shredding people into pieces with some insane, beyond Soldier of Fortune, dismemberment system, pulling their fucking skulls and spines out of their asses (literally) and eating their faces with giant snakes. Just from the conceptual point of view, this is the coolest game ever made.

And you have these stunningly gorgeous and unique-looking visuals. No other game looks more like a comic book than this. Sadly, this also flew over a lot of people's heads, as I've seen them call this game cel-shaded. Apparently most gamers don't understand what cel-shading is. The developers of this game hand-crafted every single texture to look cartoony, which makes the overall picture capable of looking like a comic-book while still getting all the benefits of complex lighting and shading that would've been lost in a cel-shaded game.

With the exception of one tiny stealth section, there is literally not a single downside to the experience. It's just a pure joy at every moment which then grows with profundity and reaches an emotional catharsis. It's games like this that showcase the potential of video games as an art form.