The Darkness: The One With The Tentacles, Demons, And Feelings
Starbreeze Studios’ The Darkness, based on the Top Cow comic series of the same name, is one of the best first-person shooters ever made. As an FPS it’s as proficient as they come, with powerful, impactful gunplay. Its story features one of the most beautiful scenes in gaming, in which protagonist Jackie Estacado sits on a couch and watches the movie To Kill a Mockingbird while his girlfriend falls asleep with her head on his shoulder. If The Darkness were just a normal shooty game with its powerful story beats, it still would have been a memorable experience.
But it also has the titular Darkness, an evil supernatural force that possesses Jackie, allowing him to spawn writhing tentacles capable of grabbing enemies and devouring their hearts, or summon imps to take out bad guys in his stead. The game perfectly balances its gunplay and tentacle play (perhaps the wrong term), but I’m still going to call the tentacles a gimmick because it means I get to mention The Darkness.
