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[[File:The_Darkness_cover_7959.jpg|frame|Embrace the Darkness]]
{{quote|
{{quote|''You're the monster...''|'''Jackie'''}}
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For tropes exclusive to the original, [[The Darkness|see here]].
----
* [[Affectionate Nickname]]: Jenny has one for Jackie- "Ratface," apparently one she started using when they were much younger.
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The origin story for Anthony Estacado is explained in a special comic book issue published at the same time as the game. Reading it sheds a lot of light on the nature of the Darkness and Anthony's character that is otherwise left completely unexplained in the game. Fortunately, the book is viewable in-game as an unlockable extra.
* [[Art Shift]]: The first game used a more-realistic art style; the sequel is cell shaded.
* [[Back
** [[Unskippable|"And that was the fifth time I died."]]
* {{spoiler|[[The Bad Guy Wins]]: By carrying out his vengeance, Jackie sacrifices his soul to the Darkness. Exactly what this entails, however, isn't quite clear. You are not given the option to spare Paulie.}}
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: About a hair's breadth away from a [[Downer Ending]]. {{spoiler|Jackie finally surrenders himself to the Darkness during an eclipse in order to take out Paulie and his army of mooks. Jackie's personality is consumed entirely by the Darkness, but he's given a few moments to see Jenny one last time before he goes. It's implied by the "light in the darkness" lines that it may not be completely over for him, either... [[Hope Spot|hopefully]].}}
** However, according to the sequel's intro, Jackie has managed to suppress The Darkness in-between games.
* [[Bland
* [[Blatant Lies]]:
{{quote|
'''Gunner Darkling''': I am unfamiliar with the concept. ''[Attacks a mook.]'' Maybe not, I guess. }}
* [[Bloody Hilarious]]: The Darklings are [[Comedic Sociopathy|psychopathic]] [[Cloudcuckoolander
* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]: More than anything, one gets the impression that the Darkness simply ''does not understand'' how people
{{quote|
** Hell, the Darkness expected him to be pleased after it forced him to {{spoiler|[[Forced to Watch|watch Jenny be murdered]]}} because this would "make him stronger" and it seemed utterly bewildered when he chose instead {{spoiler|to kill himself}}.
* [[Black and Black Morality]]: Johnny lampshades this in the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Run5PYOy5ZQ Vendettas trailer]. Jackie might have the moral
{{quote|
* [[Border Patrol]]: By all means, head directly into the subway tunnels. [[Too Dumb to Live|See what happens]].
** The Darkness mocks you when you do this, saying something along the lines of "this is not a very good idea..."
* [[Boring Yet Practical]]: The pistols have pin-point accuracy even when fired as fast as possible, and you're tripping over spares for most of the game. Zoom in, aim for the head, and you can take out a bunch of enemies while saving energy you would have otherwise used on a black hole.
** The first Darkness power, Creeping Dark, can move further with each level, and the NPCs are notoriously incapable of hitting it. Furthermore, after making a kill you can eat the heart of your victim to refill Darkness energy to full. This combination makes it possible to clear entire rooms without entering them through most of the game.
* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: All four of the darklings in the game have their
{{quote|
* [[Cold
* [[Convenient Eclipse]]
* [[Cross
* [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]: Uncle Paulie shows shades of this but Shrote easily takes the cake as it takes him all of two seconds to figure out that the Darkness is vulnerable to light. From then on he sets up ambushes using floodlights and knocks Jackie out with flashbangs. Bonus points for making sure Jackie had multiple lights shining on him while he was interrogating him and stops his [[Mooks]] from indulging in [[Just Between You and Me]]. Paulie on the other hand just straps some floodlights to the front of his secret hideout and calls it good.
* [[Defiant to
{{quote|
* [[Dirty Cop]]: Tons of 'em. Jackie has disdain for said cops as well as for the mobsters who partner with them, since it dirties both of them.
* [[Downer Ending]]: {{spoiler|Both games end very, ''very'' badly for Jackie.}}
* [[Easter Egg]]: Unlockable concept art and full issues of the comic.
* [[Eleventh
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: Jackie and the old-school mobsters really hate partnering with dirty cops, drug money, and other bottom-of-the-barrel underworld stuff.
** The old-school mobsters are particularly disgusted when Paulie bombs an orphanage, while at the same time you can overhear Paulie's minions laughing about it.
* [[Evil Sounds Deep]]: Sometimes. The Darkness sometimes speaks in a low, gravelly tone, but sometimes uses a high, menacing hiss. One thing's for sure, it always sounds ''incredibly'' disturbing.
* [[First Person Ghost]]: Averted, Estacado's lower body is fully visible.
* [[First
* [[
* [[Forced to Watch]]: The Darkness holds Jackie helpless while {{spoiler|Paulie shoots Jenny in the head}}.
* [[For Inconvenience Press One]]: One of the collectible phone numbers.
{{quote|
* [[Good Hurts Evil]]: Good ''irritates'' evil. The Darkness refuses to manifest itself around the subway stations full of normal people, and if you try it'll complain that it finds the people too boring to attack; the Darkness is attracted to darkness, and even the metaphorical darkness of the heart is preferable to it. When meeting Jenny for the first time:
{{quote|
* [[Good Old Ways]]: Jackie receives aid [[Badass Grandpa|from the]] [[Cool Old Guy|old]] [[Cool Old Lady|guard]] [[Retired Badass|of the]] [[Retired Monster|Mafia]].
* [[Good Thing You Can Heal]]
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* [[Have a Nice Death]]: Depending on when and where you die in the game, you're treated to a series of warped, distorted images of the next location in the game while the Darkness hisses something cryptic, usually about how it's not going to let you die.
* [[Hell Is War]]: The Otherworld in the first game is a nightmarish, unending version of [[World War I]] that Anthony Estacado is stuck in.
* [[Hollywood Darkness]]: Averted in the first game; areas without light can go completely pitch-black (but using your powers lets you see in the dark.) Played straight in the sequel; "dark" areas are so well-lit it's sometimes hard to figure out where the lights are at a glance.
* [[Humans Are
* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]: Jackie does not reload his pistols or SMGs. He drops them and pulls out new ones. This is shown when you notice different types of pistols in his hands, or when one of your SMGs suddenly has a silencer. This trope is played straight when you realize that each "clip" in your arsenal is actually a different ''gun'', and you can hold more than 2 dozen pistols and SMGs ''in your coat''.
** Then again, it's most likely justified here, as Jackie may well be keeping the Darkness under his coat, providing him with an actual pocket dimension to store said guns.
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* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: You can recharge by letting the Darkness rip out and feed upon the hearts of your enemies.
* {{spoiler|[[Kill the Cutie]]: Jenny}}
* [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere]]: [[Weakened
* [[Large Ham]]: The Darkness itself, dear ''God''. Fittingly, the second game has it literally [[Chewing the Scenery]] on occasion (figuratively...all the time). The (cockney?) British Darkling as well, though not ''quite'' as much.
* [[Mad Bomber]]: The Kamikaze Darkling.
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* [[Not Wearing Tights]]: Jackie never sports his costume from the comic series. Many other supernatural elements are also cut. This has the effect of making the supernatural elements actually ''more'' impressive when they do show up.
** The second game introduces a a skill tree system including the comic book "Darkness Armor" as an upgrade.
* [[One Bullet Clips]]: Averted. Despite being an first-person shooter (where this is common), Jackie does not reload his pistols, but [[Throw
* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: The undead soldiers in the hell inside the Darkness's mind. The Hun are typical monstrosities, but the Brits are fully aware, stuck fighting the same war for centuries while unable to die. Most disturbing is one of the first soldiers you meet, who's endlessly trying to commit suicide by shooting himself in the mouth over and over in between reciting poetry.
* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: The game more or less takes what works about the Darkness comics and runs with it. One change they made is making Jackie weak to any light, not just sunlight, which arguably improved the experience as a whole (allowing savvy villains to pose a threat to Jackie as long as they have floodlights or flashbangs). Jackie also doesn't have his Top Cow-ian "Darkness Armor," just a black trenchoat with lots of darkness-tendrils popping out of it while using his powers.
* [[Reality Ensues]]: {{spoiler|Uncle Paule is the final boss of the first game. Considering he's an out-of-shape fat guy going up against a heavily-armed hitman possessed by a spirit of primordial darkness that's just been supercharged by the recent eclipse, he goes down with one hit.}}
* [[Reconstruction]]: Of the [[Nineties Anti
* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: The Darkness is this personified.
* [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]: In the finale chapter, Paulie and his [[Mooks]] (And the player, for that matter) get to see first-hand what a fully-powered-up Jackie is capable of doing.
* [[Show Within a Show]]: Jenny and Jackie can watch ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'' in its entirety, as well as several full-length TV shows that are now public domain.
* [[Second
* [[Self
* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]: In the game, the Kamikaze Darkling's attack is to run up to the target, pull the detonator off his back, push the plunger and explode.
* [[Stuffed Into the Fridge]]: {{spoiler|Jenny. She's barely a character, and pretty much is Jackie's primary angst source in the story.}}
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** The game subverts this to some degree in that the [[Mooks]] generally will still try to shoot you, but the dialogue that goes along with most scenarios consists of panicky yelling about what you are and how to get rid of you (or get away from you). In one scripted scene, dozens of them are screaming in terror and trying to run away while Jackie in [[Convenient Eclipse|fully-powered]] [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|Darkness]] [[Unstoppable Rage|mode]] hunts them down and brutally eviscerates them.
* [[Swirly Energy Thingy]]: The Black Hole power.
* [[Taking You
* [[The Tape Knew You Would Say That]]: Strange version. Jackie has several flashbacks of himself and little Jenny in the orphanage, but at least once, Jenny seems to be aware that they're being watched...
* [[They Were Holding You Back]]
* [[Throw
* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]: {{spoiler|Jenny}}
* [[Torture Technician]]: Shrote proves his credentials in this field when he manages to capture Jackie.
* [[Useless Useful Spell]]: The game lets you use a couple of types of automatic weapons, but all firearms are useless compared to the [[One
** ''The Darkness II'' places greater emphasis on gunplay, complementing it with The Darkness' mostly melee-based powers.
* [[
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: But you can also go around being a [[Kick the Dog|dog-kicking]] asshole [[For the Evulz|slaughtering civilians]], and the only thing that changes peoples reaction to you is whether or not you're in Darkness mode... which is to say, random people in the subway will always be nice to you even if you've killed most of [[Big Applesauce|New York City]] in incredibly brutal ways, as long as you don't have [[Combat Tentacles]] sprouting from your back and shoulders. [[Somebody
* [[World War I]]: Whenever Jackie {{spoiler|commits suicide on Holy Ground}}, he goes here - or at least to a hellish domain inspired by it, with immortal British soldiers condemned to die over and over again and German zombies who are little more than snarling beasts in uniform. One of the Brits suggests that none of them are actually real.
* [[Year Inside, Hour Outside]]: In the hell that Jackie finds himself, the Brits have been fighting World War I for ''centuries''.
** [[Fridge Logic|Somehow]] inverted at the same time, as Jackie's segments there take minutes-hours of gameplay when days pass in the real world.
=== The sequel contains examples of: ===▼
* [[Actionized Sequel]]: Not that the first game was lacking in action, but the second game is not nearly as subtle as the first.
* [[Affectionate Nickname]]: The Darkling calls Jackie "Monkey".
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* [[Armor Is Useless]]: Subverted. Armored Brotherhood agents and especially shielded ones can take more punishment than ones with no armor, though sufficient upgrades can decrease its efficiency greatly.
* [[Art Shift]]: The first game used a more-realistic art style; the sequel uses [[Cel Shading]] for a more comic-like look.
* [[Back
* [[Badass Bookworm]]: [[Witch Doctor|J.P. Dummond]].
* [[Benevolent Boss]]: The second game shows Jackie to be this to the Franchetti crime family, taking the time to talk to his hitmen and getting to know them. He even offers his condolences when a hitman loses someone.
* [[But You Were There and You
* [[Cold
* [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]: {{spoiler|The Angelus. It appears to have chosen Jenny as its host well before Jackie manifested the Darkness. Jenny's death in the first game and Jackie's subsequent drive to save her from the Darkness in the second game lead Jackie to unwillingly condemn himself to Hell. It doesn't even bother to fight him. Jackie, for his part, wasn't planning to fight her ''anyway'', because he's kinda savvy himself.}}
* [[Demoted to Extra]]: Butcher Joyce barely gets screen time and only optional dialogue, whereas he had a mission devoted to him in the original game.
* [[Downer Ending]]: In the end, {{spoiler|Jackie goes to Hell to save Jenny's soul. And in doing so, releases the Angelus, the force of light opposed to the Darkness which needs a female host. Specifically, Jenny. And both Jenny and the Angelus agree that Jackie needs to be left in Hell, and proceed to do so.}}
* [[Easy Levels, Hard Bosses]]: Well, the boss fights aren't especially hard, but the fact that you can't heal your health in many of them (due to there not being any Mooks around and therefore no hearts to eat) does create a significant amount of challenge, especially if you've been going through the game by chaining executions together to constantly heal.
* [[Elite Mooks]]: The Brotherhood has a number of special units, including guys armed with floodlights, armored guys with energy whips that can disarm you of your weapons, knights in riot armor equipped with bulletproof shields, and [[Superpowered Mooks]] with enhanced armor and health who can [[Flash Step]] all over the place using Darkness power.
* [[Evil Cripple]]: Victor, leader of The Brotherhood. Despite the fact that he walks with leg-braces, he can simply [[Flash Step]] with the power of The Darkness.
* [[Evil Sounds Deep]]: As in the original.
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* [[Fastball Special]]: In ''The Darkness 2'', Jackie can lift the Darkling and fling him at enemies. [[Funny Moments|The Darkling is not amused]].
* [[First Person Ghost]]: Played straight, as opposed to the first game.
* [[First
* [[
* [[Five
** The [[Big Bad]]: Brother Victor
** [[The Dragon]]: Mr Peevish
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** [[The Dark Chick]]: Swifty
** [[The Sixth Ranger]]: The Darkness (Or at least, the Brotherhod ''tried'' to make it this)
* [[Five
** [[The Hero|The]] ([[Anti
** [[The Lancer]]: Inugami, master swordsman and part of an entire bloodline of [[The Atoner|Atoners.]]
** [[The Smart Guy]]: J.P. Dummond; physician, [[Witch Doctor]], Darkness Scholar, and wielder of the [[Magic Staff|Midnight Stick]]. For good measure, he's one of the more eloquent team-members.
** [[The Big Guy]]: Jimmy, in spades. A [[Violent Glaswegian]] with [[Blood Knight]] tendencies. If his backstory is to be believed, he simply found his [[An Axe to Grind|Darkness-empowered axe]] and has been making a living off it ever since.
** [[The Chick]]: Shoshanna, a Mossad agent who [[Hates Being Touched]]. The only one of the group with a strictly-ranged Darkness weapon in the form of a handheld double-barreled shotgun. Fights [[Guns Akimbo]] as a result.
** Jackie and his lieutenants also function as this, for the most part:
*** [[The Hero|The]] ([[Anti
*** [[The Lancer]]: Vinnie, Jackie's [[The Consigliere|Consigliere]].
*** [[The Smart Guy]]: Johnny Powell, who provides most of the information on the Darkness, the artefacts found in the game, and the Brotherhood.
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* [[Hypocrite]]: If you kill {{spoiler|Eddie}} for the [[Sadistic Choice]], his last words are to call you a son of a bitch. Kill the other guy, and he'll spend the rest of the game telling you [[Survivor Guilt|that you should've picked him]].
* [[I'm a Humanitarian]]: You can heal by letting the Darkness rip out and feed upon the hearts of your enemies.
* [[Impaled
* [[Ironic Echo]]: If you kill {{spoiler|Frank}} in the [[Sadistic Choice]], his last words are "This is not your fault,"- the same last words as {{spoiler|Jenny}}. [[Big Bad|Brother Victor]] lampshades this.
* [[King Mook]]: Most of the bosses in the Vendetta co-op mode are versions of regular enemies with lots more health.
* [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere]]: [[Weakened
** The collectible Relics show that there are actually a surprising number of artifacts capable of harming and defeating the Darkness (or at least the Darkness Host), despite him being a walking [[Humanoid Abomination]] [[Physical God]].
* [[Large Ham]]: The Darkness itself, dear ''God''. Fittingly, the second game has it literally [[Chewing the Scenery]] on occasion (figuratively...all the time). The (cockney?) British Darkling as well, though not ''quite'' as much.
** The Vendettas characters definitely qualify, with lines such as: "This pain tastes... sweet", "THE HOUND FEELS NO PAIN!!" and "YOU MEN AND YOUR LITTLE TOYS!!", among others.
* [[Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me]]: Finding yourself something to use as a shield, be it [[Super Strength|a torn off car door]], a street sign, or an actual combat shield, is useful in gameplay for a few extra hits. Then again, there's also the fact that [[Throwing Your Shield Always Works]] if you get a good hit.
* [[Ludicrous Gibs]]: What happens to people who die by [[Spell Blade|Gun Channeling]] or [[
* [[Mad Bomber]]: Dolpho. In the co-op campaign, he always provides the explosives needed for the missions. For good measure, there's a good chance he's legitimatly insane, given that he spends his free time taking potshots at pigeons, and Jackie won't allow him out of the house.
* [[Magical Realism]]: Dropped in the sequel by the introduction of numerous characters using magic or magical artefacts, the Siphon being the most obvious example. The game also introduces {{spoiler|the Angelus, the Darkness' light counterpart.}}
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* [[Multinational Team]]: The characters of the Multiplayer mode in the sequel consist of a [[Violent Glaswegian]], a Japanese swordsman, a [[Badass Israeli|Mossad agent]] and a Cajun [[Witch Doctor]].
* [[Multiple Endings]]: In the second game. The last time Jackie visits the asylum, he can either choose to stay with Jenny or {{spoiler|jump off a ledge. Either one is still a [[Downer Ending]], but the former is more of an [[And I Must Scream]] moment, because it means that Jackie has become the puppet of The Darkness. The latter turns the whole game into a [[Shaggy Dog Story]].}}
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: In the second game, {{spoiler|by freeing Jenny's soul from the Darkness, the Angelus has possessed her and leaves Jackie behind in Hell.}}
* [[Nightmare Fetishist]]: Johnny Powell seems truly fascinated by some of the relics that Jackie brings back to the penthouse, calling the soul-destroying [[Artifact of Doom|Abysmal Maw]] "dark magic at it's sexiest," referring to the Dark Man statue as "[[Sarcasm Mode|this sexy guy]]," and upon seeing the Sister of Light, he remarks that Jackie always brings him the nicest things. That said, he does get a little bit agitated around some of the more visceral artefacts, and sounds quite disgusted when he reveals that the Reliquary of the Blessed Blood is supposed to contain {{spoiler|Jesus' foreskin}} but in reality, it contains {{spoiler|the foreskin of a guy named Miles from South Hammingtonshire.}}
* [[Off
* [[One Bullet Clips]]: Played straight, as opposed to the first game.
* [[Open Secret]]: In the sequel, the fact that Jackie is a [[Humanoid Abomination]] is known by most of his crew, though they usually dance around the issue by calling it "his thing" or similar in front of the boss.
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* [[Sadistic Choice]]: Between {{spoiler|Frank and Eddie. Take too long deciding, and the game automatically kills Eddie (although you do get an achievement for refusing to take part in the Sadistic Choice, and Frank tells you that you did the right thing in refusing to play Victor's sick game)}}.
* [[Scary Impractical Armor]]: Most Brotherhood soldiers wear Darkness armor that covers their face and ''only'' their face. It makes them look scary and does protect against headshots, but does absolutely nothing to prevent them from being shot anywhere else in the body. About the only thing it's good for is giving you a lower kill score by making it harder to get headshots.
* [[Second
* [[Shout Out]]:▼
** Jimmy the Grape states that Jackie reminds him of a guy named Vito who he knew back in the 50's who was really good at stealing cars, a pretty clear reference to ''[[Mafia II]]'', another game published by 2K games.▼
** The achievement in the Vendettas campaign for killing a guy named Luigi is called "[[Luigis Mansion|Burned Down The Mansion]]."▼
* [[Show Within a Show]]: Just like the TVs in the first game. The Asylum in the sequel plays a shadow theater of a story by [[HP Lovecraft]]. It's got [[Nightmare Fuel]] aplenty.▼
* [[Sequel Hook]]: {{spoiler|The Angelus has taken control of Jenny and set itself up as the main antagonist of the third game, Jackie's stuck in hell but most likely won't stay there.}}
▲* [[Second Hour Superpower]]: The sequel has a short on-rails shooting sequence before Jackie unleashes the Darkness again.
▲** Jimmy the Grape states that Jackie reminds him of a guy named Vito who he knew back in the 50's who was really good at stealing cars, a pretty clear reference to ''[[Mafia II]]'', another game published by 2K games.
▲** The achievement in the Vendettas campaign for killing a guy named Luigi is called "[[
▲* [[Show Within a Show]]: Just like the TVs in the first game. The Asylum in the sequel plays a shadow theater of a story by [[
* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]]: Played straight by melee enemies. Brotherhood cultists, using supernatural armor and axe-like weapons coupled with a religious fervor make sense. But the mafioso with the baseball bats?
* [[Those Two Guys]]: Frank and Eddie. And you have to {{spoiler|decide which of them dies}}.
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** J.P. Dummond has a [[Magic Staff|Midnight Stick]].
** Shoshanna has [[Hand Cannon|Arm of the Night]].
** Jimmy uses the [[An
* [[Year Outside, Hour Inside]]: Each asylum segment takes only a few minutes, but varying amounts of time pass in the real world while he's there. He's once there for four days.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:First
[[Category:Licensed Game]]
[[Category:The Darkness]]▼
[[Category:Video Game]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darkness (video game), The}}
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