A well crafted story and believable voice acting are two things usually missing from first person shooters. Either due to time constraints or more focus on pushing all the right graphical buttons, shooters have been able to get by without giving the player much reason for putting a gun in their hands and violence in their hearts. With The Darkness, 2K Games and Starbreeze have shown that good stories and well crafted performances are not only possible in first person shooters, but necessary to make the player care as much about the characters as they do about the gameplay.

The Darkness is not only the medium in which you’ll do your best work, but is also the name of an ancient and malevolent force that chooses you, Jackie Estacado, as its host on your 21st birthday. Jackie is a contract killer for the Franchetti crime family, which, under the rule of Jackie’s adopted Uncle Paulie, has seen better days. Unfortunately for Jackie, a routine job goes sour and he finds himself on the run from Uncle Paulie as he tries to clear his name and deal with the fact that a timeless evil dwells within him. It’s a hell of a way to spend a birthday.

As the game progresses, Jackie’s motivations change from the need to clear his name to one of revenge as he cuts a blood soaked swath through the Franchetti family and], literally, goes to hell and back to control The Darkness within him. It’s a well written and engaging story, made all the more so by some of the best voice acting you’ll ever hear in a video game. Every acting performance in this game, from Jackie’s often flippant yet determined tone, to his girlfriend Jenny’s sweet encouragements, to the comments made by the retired gangsters is top notch and helps breathe life into the story. Even The Darkness has a voice, provided by Faith No More’s Mike Patton that switches from insane malevolence to silent cajoling and brings a distinct personality to what would otherwise just be a collection of special powers.

And what a collection of powers they are. Early in the game, The Darkness, represented by a toothy tentacle on either side of his body, are limited to an ever present shield, the ability to summon a Berserker Darkling (think insane, murderous imp) and Creeping Dark, a tentacle that Jackie can send out for stealth kills, and general environment manipulations. As the body count rises, Jackie can use his tentacles to devour the hearts of his victims thereby raising his Darkness level. This allows Jackie to use his powers longer or take more hits before he has to retreat into the shadows and consume darkness to recharge.

Along the way, Jackie obtains more powers in the form of the Demon Arm, a massive spiked arm useful for impaling enemies and moving large objects; the Darkness Guns, two pistols that shoot Darkness energy in either a standard pistol type shot or a large force wave; and a Black Hole ability, which opens a miniature black hole, perfect for clearing out multiple enemies at once. Jackie also gains the ability to summon three other types of Darklings: the Gunner who mows down enemies with her Gatling gun, the Kamikaze who acts as the resident suicide bomber and the Light Killer who uses electricity to fry all nearby light sources.

Jackie also has a more traditional arsenal at his disposal in the forms of dual wielded pistols and submachine guns, combat shotguns, M-16’s and AK-47’s. The guns take second chair to The Darkness powers but are handy for taking out an enemy or two while your powers are recharging. The weapons are all modeled very nicely though, and as Jackie picks up different types of pistols and submachine guns, you’ll see the weapons change in his hands and hear the differences in the report. To further add variety to the gunplay, Jackie can perform execution moves with every weapon once he gets close enough to his victims. These animations are extremely well done and help to cement the idea that Jackie was a badass long before he obtained The Darkness powers.

Some enemies will roll and shoot from cover while others will stand there firing into you as you close the distance and impale them with your Demon Arm. Shooting out lights and sticking to the shadows ensures that you never have too much of a hard time, and on the game’s Medium difficulty level, there are only a handful of situations that require multiple retries. For the most part, the game moves along briskly, with the right number of breaks in-between the action to give the story time to develop.