Wow. The Darkness is pretty damned good. That’s a nice surprise.

Just to get this out of the way first, the controls are a bit loose. Not in a game-ruining way, but enough to make you say “Hmm, I wish the controls were a bit tighter”. I find you get used to it though.

So you’re a mobster, with dark, demonic powers and minions, going around killing everyone and eating hearts. I can get behind that kind of mentality. The actual gameplay takes place mostly in first-person, aside from the third-person cut-scenes. And by first-person, I mean complete first person. Where your whole body is rendered from your point of view. I’ve become a pretty big fan of this style ever since Condemned. Call of Juarez does it, The Darkness does it, Bioshock looks like it will do it as well.

Overall the game is great. As an added bonus (for me, anyway) the main character Jackie Estacado is voiced by Kirk Acevedo (Alvarez from HBO’s Oz) and Jenny is voiced by Lauren Ambrose (Claire from Six Feet Under). Both actors deliver their dialogue wonderfully.

I also got The Bigs yesterday, and while I haven’t played much of it yet, it looks good as well. I loved NFL Blitz back when I was a youngin’, and The Bigs is baseball in that exact same vein.