Grimbeard – The Darkness (X360) – Review



Jackie and an ancient evil are out for revenge and I make a timely joke.

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00:00 – Intro
01:25 – History
10:35 – Story
24:42 – Spoiler Break
26:36 – Spoilers
54:58 – Comics
01:13:08 – End of Spoilers
01:17:08 – Gameplay
01:26:02 – Sight/Sound
01:38:11 – Conclusion
01:44:25 – Credits
01:49:26 – End

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41 thoughts on “Grimbeard – The Darkness (X360) – Review”

  1. 9:16 You Gbeard…. it's you. Your vibe, it's really good. Keep vibin.'

    Despite being safe, Darkness 2 is so superior in most ways as a game I'd take it over the original. I miss the original's atmosphere and voice cast, I miss the way the psuedo open world with things like hanging out with Jenny and the subway safe area gives me feels more than the entirety of TLoU, but it's less fun to play and I don't need to play it again to get more out of those things. Plus, Darkness 2 is still pretty good in presentation, even if it's not as good. It's not so overtly safe you can taste the desperation like when you watch Force Awakens and the sweat of a Disney exec letting it sink in "we paid 4.5 billion for this" is wafting at you through the screen. The Darkling being an actual character alone is a huge plus, and while the exposition character existing is kinda jarring compared to the original's lack of such things, he has enough actual character to work. Also to give the asylum world a little credit, I haven't played it recently enough to remember this for sure, but I don't think it uses the Darkness as a lynchpin for convincing Jackie that his life is a delusion even though it would be easy to set up the scenario as the Darkness being so ridiculous that it alone proves the asylum is the real world, there's just Jackie's apparent mad drawings on the wall of his room. It's as if the asylum world is (ironically) playing it safe by not directly denying a real thing so Jackie can't latch onto it and argue. Man I wish they hadn't replaced the Darkness guns with the gun channeling skill though, those things were so edgy they were cool.

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  2. I appreciate that game-Jenny isn't dressed like a Top Cow character. I feel like it would have killed the vibe. Also, I love that a game about Italians puts so much effort into hand gesture animation

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  3. I was eager to see how this turned out and you definitely didn't disappoint. I especially appreciate the reviews of the comic material because after playing the original Darkness game, I decided to delve into the comics myself.

    Comics always seem sort of unnecessarily obtuse in how you approach them and what you glean from them. That The Darkness had a crossover with Batman that it so heavily leans on is surprising and irritating in equal measure.

    ( Comic crossovers are, realistically, very very tiresome; if you're interested in one character, you have to wikipedia 'related article' follow up on a completely different associated page…horrid. )

    While I don't anticipate a review of The Darkness 2 in any depth, especially considering how thorough the coverage of the original Darkness is, I would be interested in a more deep examination of the sequel from your perspective considering my own distaste for the follow-up.

    I'm ecstatic for your production of your own album!! and have faved it on Spotify. I can't wait to see more from you.

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  4. I'd seen fleeting moments of footage from this game in other people's videos, but never heard anyone talk about it at length. Honestly very impressed with how good it looks.
    Loved your commentary/writing as always.

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  5. Mr Beard, are you reading my mind? I just replayed this game on RPCS3! Still one of the best FPS games I've played. Every inch of every level oozes that grimey goth gamer atmosphere. The phone numbers might be my favorite collectables in any game, so simple yet they add a much needed levity to the story and make the world seem much bigger despite taking place across just a few blocks.

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  6. The Darkness has my favorite romance in any video game ever. The authenticity between Jackie and Jenny is beautiful, and tragic with how it plays out, and have loved it ever since i got a 360 back in 2008. It stuck with me, and i appreciate this video giving it some love. Thank you. 🙂

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  7. Oh, this is that game I always thought about renting for my Xbox 360 through Gamefly, but something else always seemed more interesting.

    Looking forward to watching this after receding to the darkness to regain my power.

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  8. This was great man, I remember this game used to be kind of mythical to me. It was one of the first games on the xbox 360 and only by playin the demo on xbox live I was entranced by it's ambience and tone, I had that similar experience of "it seems impossible for games to look better than this". I would of bought it if had seen a physical copy somewhere in my country and I wasn't like 13 at the time and had no money.

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  9. This is great stuff – – my partner and I stumbled across this video because he remembers really loving this game, and we had a great time watching and going through the archives. Your content is thorough and genuinely funny; a no-brainer YT and patreon sub from me. One of my favorite long style video essay channels for sure. Can't wait to binge your other stuff to get me through the work week and to see what you cover next! 😊 I dig your tunes too!

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  10. Great video, as ever. You're one of my favourite channels I discovered last year and it's good to start this year with a banger. I've been working through your back catalogue and had got just got through Daemonica and then Knox where the 'Game is Good' calls first seem to come in as a bit, before watching this. It was cool to get the call-back to it at 47:47 in this video almost 5 years later!

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