The Darkness: crazy powers that could have been included

Speaking to IGN, comic book and videogames writer Paul Jenkins revealed that while working with Starbreeze on The Darkness was a breeze because the development team and him spoke “the same language” (meaning they’re all artists), certain crazy ideas from Starbreeze were just a bit too crazy. When asked about those “crazy ideas”, here’s what Jenkins had to say:

Let’s just say that Starbreeze wanted Jackie to become incredibly powerful at one point. So powerful he could devour planets. That’s something we’ve tried to include in the game and I was amazed that we were even able to pull it off a little bit.

Minor planet-eating powers in-game huh? Nice. Craziness aside though, Jenkins also revealed other tricks that he and the developers thought of to keep you immersed in the game. This is how they worked around load screens:

One of the ideas to overcome the problems of load screens was to have a character delivering a monologue to hide the fact the game was loading a new level.

That’s a nice trick right there. You don’t get bored and watch a black screen that says loading. The story moves forward, and when the “load” is done, you can get back to the gameplay.

Given his deep involvement with the development, writing, and even the testing of The Darkness, one would expect to see Jenkins embark on projects of his own. Sadly, his perspective of the industry as it is right now is giving him doubts. He says:

I have a massive amount of interest in videogames and I have got plenty of ideas. But unfortunately I think that publishers are becoming less likely to create new intellectual properties. It’s a business for them. For example if you look at the sales of a game that’s based on a film (like Fantastic Four) you can guarantee they’ll be higher than a game that’s probably a lot better. I think it’s a real shame that games like Okami or Psychonauts just don’t sell compared to more mainstream games. In the current market it just doesn’t pay to take risks anymore. It’s better to just make movie tie-ins.

The games industry may seem very commercialized right now, but it certainly isn’t that grim. Right? Or is this blogger just that optimistic? If you have ideas on this, feel free to let us know in the comments.

For the complete interview, and more on Jenkins’ minor interactions with the Starbreeze folks, feel free to head to the IGN interview using our “read” link below.

Speaking to IGN, comic book and videogames writer Paul Jenkins revealed that while working with Starbreeze on The Darkness was a breeze because the development team and him spoke “the same language” (meaning they’re all artists), certain crazy ideas from Starbreeze were just a bit too crazy. When asked about those “crazy ideas”, here’s what Jenkins had to say:

Let’s just say that Starbreeze wanted Jackie to become incredibly powerful at one point. So powerful he could devour planets. That’s something we’ve tried to include in the game and I was amazed that we were even able to pull it off a little bit.

Minor planet-eating powers in-game huh? Nice. Craziness aside though, Jenkins also revealed other tricks that he and the developers thought of to keep you immersed in the game. This is how they worked around load screens:

One of the ideas to overcome the problems of load screens was to have a character delivering a monologue to hide the fact the game was loading a new level.

That’s a nice trick right there. You don’t get bored and watch a black screen that says loading. The story moves forward, and when the “load” is done, you can get back to the gameplay.

Given his deep involvement with the development, writing, and even the testing of The Darkness, one would expect to see Jenkins embark on projects of his own. Sadly, his perspective of the industry as it is right now is giving him doubts. He says:

I have a massive amount of interest in videogames and I have got plenty of ideas. But unfortunately I think that publishers are becoming less likely to create new intellectual properties. It’s a business for them. For example if you look at the sales of a game that’s based on a film (like Fantastic Four) you can guarantee they’ll be higher than a game that’s probably a lot better. I think it’s a real shame that games like Okami or Psychonauts just don’t sell compared to more mainstream games. In the current market it just doesn’t pay to take risks anymore. It’s better to just make movie tie-ins.

The games industry may seem very commercialized right now, but it certainly isn’t that grim. Right? Or is this blogger just that optimistic? If you have ideas on this, feel free to let us know in the comments.

For the complete interview, and more on Jenkins’ minor interactions with the Starbreeze folks, feel free to head to the IGN interview using our “read” link below.