Rock, Paper, Shotgun

It has started. The flood of E3 trailers has begun. Below you can watch the first in-game trailer for The Darkness 2, which features people being brutally evisecarated by black tentacles. There’s also a lovely scene where the protagonist is being nailed to a door or something. It’s not pleasant. Fortunately I’ve also embedded a video of a cat cuddling a sleeping kitten, just in case you require an antidote to seeing metal spikes being hammered through your hands.
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A teaser trailer for Digital Extremes’ sequel to Starbreeze’s 2007 comicbook man-murdering game The Darkness has been released. Although the brief trailer shows nothing of the game whatsoever, we do know that this iteration will be a little more comicbook in its presentation, apparently using techniques similar to those of Borderlands to create a lovely “graphic noir” world. That said, you can only just about make out the sort of outline effects they’re talking about in the (crappy) images that have been released so far. The game will also feature “quad-wielding”, which – although appropriate to the character – makes me do a bit of a facepalm with its FPS one-upmanship (“Well our guy has FOUR ARMS!”). Other information: it’s out in October.

Teaser below!
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The Darkness, aka “that game from the Riddick guys where you could spend half an hour watching TV with your in-game girlfriend.” An action game with a heart of – ahahahah – darkness and a bunch of great ideas and atmosphere, even if it perhaps didn’t attain Modern Classic status. Happening at perhaps the apex of the big publishers’ “nah, fuggedaboutit” dismissal of our sacred boxes, the PC lost out. It doesn’t this time – 2K just announced the Darkness II, and we’re getting it!

Someone who isn’t getting it, however, is original developer Starbreeze.
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Is Homefront poorly-timed or perfectly-timed? I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in THQHQ when news broke about the recent violence between North and South Korea. “Does this mean the game’s screwed or a guaranteed success?”, I imagine a man with expensive business cards saying. No-one at THQHQ actually said that, of course. I’m just imagining what it might have been like. It’s like The West Wing, but with Rachael Bilson’s dad and some Space Marine statues in the halls.
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As well as a lady in a Big Daddy costume, it seems the forthcoming BioShock sequel will also feature multiplayer. Crivens! But will this new mode be the Counter-Strike to BioShock’s Half-Life, or as inappropriately abstract as the infamous Deus Ex multiplayer patch? Of the just-released details, two facts stand out as super-fun: 1) we’ll finally get to visit pre-fall Rapture 2) this mode’s being handled by Digital Extremes, co-developer of UT and UT2003/4. Oh, you’re listening now, aren’t you?
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