Don't forget to check out the breakdancing crew!
The Kamikaze Darklings are great fun to play with - they have dynamite strapped to them and if they walk close to an enemy they'll blow themselves up, taking out anyone around them. The Gunner Darkling wields a huge chain gun and when you send them forward in battle they'll shoot at any enemy that gets in their way. Finally the light killer sends out an electric charge from his claws taking out any light sources in the vicinity allowing you to safely manifest the powers of The Darkness.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageUsing the Darklings is great fun and there are so many options open to you in the ways that you wish to use them that there's no one particular way to tackle an enemy there are multiple ways to kill an enemy. If I've got one complaint, then I'd say that their path finding skills aren’t always precise, which can be frustrating during bouts of intense fighting, but for the most part they’re great fun to use and far more entertaining then just ploughing through the game with the standard set of weapons.
One thing I mentioned earlier was that you'll be devouring hearts of the dead, which is something you'll be doing often in 'The Darkness' as it allows you to rise up the ranks of evilness and unlocks greater powers for you to use. Whenever an enemy is killed you can manifest into 'The Darkness' and rip out their hearts with your serpentine tentacles and munch on them to gain strength. The more hearts you eat the quicker you'll rank up to the next level where you'll be able to cast abilities such as the Black Hole, which can suck multiple enemies into it, dragging them into the depths of hell.
The pace of the gameplay in 'The Darkness' changes frequently between combat and slow bouts of adventuring and information gathering, in which you'll walk around interacting with characters, picking up missions and side objectives. The blend of fast paced action - that can manifest when you're least expecting it - and the slower missions is a nice balance that prevents the game from ever becoming repetitive. There are some bizarre, but entertaining objectives such as when an old lady throws 5 coins onto the train tracks and invites you to pick them all up before the train arrives or when you need to find some thugs who've stolen a harmonica from a tramp who frequents the subway. You could just progress through the game straight from mission to mission, but there's a certain freedom to the gameplay allowing you to wander about areas of the city picking up these side missions and picking up collectibles, which in turn unlocks content from the original comic book of which 'The Darkness' is based on.