By Craig Pearson on February 1st, 2012 at 3:16 pm.
The Darkness II is violent. How violent? It has executions, but it has different categories of them. CataGOREies, if you will. This pair of trailers is part of series showing what you can pull off. Mostly limbs, it seems.
The first one is the delightfully detailed “Torn Apart”, in which tentacles colloquially known as Slashy and Grabby, treat the human body like it was a wishbone. I hope they got what they wished for! You’ll be able to do this all on your own when the game is out on PC on the 10th February,
The second is “Sliced”. I surmised before watching it that the appendages would be attacking their victims in more of a choppy, stabby action than in the first video. In fact if you’ll check under your seat you’ll find an envelope. Don’t open it just yet. Wait till the blood has settled.
Now open it and read it out to everyone. “Stomach Whip, Clean Break, and Butchered.” I’ll be taking applause for the next five minutes. You may begin.
01/02/2012 at 15:28 diebroken says:
“FINISH HIM!!”
01/02/2012 at 15:31 iARDAs says:
This game will either be good or bad. Perhaps average.
In any case it will be a steam sale day purchase for me.
Looks good.
It seems much more fun than the 1st one.
01/02/2012 at 15:36 JackShandy says:
I’d like to request that all RPS preview coverage be replaced with that first sentence.
Edit: Oooh, I can request deletion now! Why is it only a request?
01/02/2012 at 15:52 One Pigeon says:
I agree but also don’t. Although I have no strong feelings either way.
01/02/2012 at 16:57 PoulWrist says:
There’s a demo on steam with a demo-only level.
I found it to be rather… I dunno, the controls were nightmarish and the interface did not work at 2560×1440. It also did not help that I had said “no” to using my gamepad and it still prompted me with “Press X” to pull guy, and I had to push random keyboard keys till stuff happened.
02/02/2012 at 08:31 Nugget says:
“This game will either be good or bad. Perhaps average.”
Wow, really nailed the possible outcomes.
01/02/2012 at 15:33 wcq says:
I’m not some violence-hating girlyman, but on some level I’m disturbed (or disappointed) by how they’re advertising their game with the ways players can horribly maim dudes in it.
I hope this isn’t a sign that I’m “growing up”. Knock on wood.
01/02/2012 at 15:58 Ross Angus says:
I am a violence-hating girlyman. This is my first time at a violence-hating girlyman support group.
01/02/2012 at 16:39 Gnoupi says:
Same impression for me.
I had the same disturbed feeling by the way Dead Space 2 was advertised: “Your mom hates Dead Space 2″, showing mothers obviously disturbed by the amount of gore occurring on the screen. I don’t know, I thought it was a survival game, not “Butcher of the future Sim”.
Now I’m not opposed to violence. Typically, I have no problems wrestling random pedestrians in Saints Row 3, punching their groin, stepping on them while they’re on the ground, making huge explosions… But all and all it feels cartoony, like beating some latex-made thing and sending them in the air. No dismemberment, no crushing through their necks.
The fact that they would advertise mostly on how you can dismember people seems disturbing to me. I guess I’m getting old.
In my kid time the violence which amused me was Looney Toons level. Dynamite, anvils from the sky, that kind of stuff, duck/rabbit/duck/rabbit/duck season, that kind of stuff.
01/02/2012 at 16:43 ThTa says:
I’m not opposed to violence at all, when it’s in context. It’s actually regrettable when such violence is censored, because it generally adds to the atmosphere or story, possibly even gameplay. (E.g. dismemberment slowing down zombies)
But (like you seem to be) I am opposed to the concept of it being a selling point on its own: gore for gore’s sake. I feel the same way about the portrayal of sex and nudity in various media; that is, both the concept of “sex sells” and prudity. Those contrarian points of view actually reinforce eachother.
Can’t we just accept them as things that exist and leave it at that? All things have their place, no need to make it a focal point regardless of context.
02/02/2012 at 17:50 Acerbjorn says:
Now i’m not some violence-craving 13 year old, but i am a little dissappointed by the low variety in executions. I mean if they are going to use it as a selling point they could at least be a little more creative than tearing things in half. What about impalements, blugdeonings or dissolvings. There’s is a whole world out there of bodily mutilation and it just makes me sad they’re only focusing on this small part of it.
01/02/2012 at 15:39 Bostec says:
I don’t like limb tearing. Ever since I watched Judge Dredd as a young’un and that bad man said to the big robot:
“Tear off his arms and legs then leave his head till last”
I had some nightmares that night.
01/02/2012 at 15:51 Necroqubus says:
TOASTY!
01/02/2012 at 16:03 Apples says:
I missed the post on it, but the demo was a bit weird, wasn’t it? I just kept thinking about how the first game handled things and how much more bombastic and comic-booky this was. Which I guess might be a good thing for comic book fans but the extremely silly villain (who would be twirling his moustache if he had one) put me off immediately.
The special moves were fun though. When I could execute them, because they decided that making you reach for ’1′ to do them, while keeping the rest of your hand on WASD, space and shift, was a good idea. !?!?! Taking away your ability to destroy lights or indeed see anything when you’re standing under a light (surely the time you’d want to use that ability!?) is also blitheringly stupid.
01/02/2012 at 16:06 FrankTheCat says:
Reminds me of Elfen Lied, only the tentacles aren’t invisible.
01/02/2012 at 17:15 DevilSShadoW says:
you forgot to mention no naked girls/daddy issues.
come to think of it that would make an awesome game!
01/02/2012 at 17:47 DestructibleEnvironments says:
Strong sexual content, ey? The demo was a bit fun. I loved the first, but this seems just a tad more supernatural and “colorful”. I hope the story and characters are good.
02/02/2012 at 09:21 MellowKrogoth says:
“This pair of trailers is part of series showing what you can pull off. Mostly limbs, it seems.”
Love RPS.
02/02/2012 at 17:34 Shooop says:
The first game was perfectly respectable in its storytelling and voice acting. This looks like those EA “Your mom hates Dead Space 2″ commercials. In short, utter shit.