Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Yesterday’s PlayStation Store update featured a demo of a few levels of The Darkness, and I must say I’m impressed. I already had a strong interest in the game, which was boosted by its high review scores, and this demo merely sealed the deal for me.

You get to watch and play the strong opening sequence to the game including the oft-mentioned, signature demise of one of your mob friends on the passenger side of the vehicle. You are introduced to the basics of control from there, firing from the vehicle that is effectively on rails, and move along to controlling Jackie right after his uncle fails to kill him with a bomb.

This second segment eases you further into the mechanics of movement and shooting, pitting you against the rest of your uncle’s thugs that are coming to finish the job the bomb didn’t do. Along the way you see how aiming, reloading, independently firing each pistol, and location-based damage is done, giving you an idea about how the thugs in the game will move, fall down, get back up, and keep fighting based on their injuries. You also get some evil-sounding voice-overs that something has changed with Jackie since the bomb blast. That would be The Darkness. The end of the level features a scripted sequence where The Darkness emerges fully from Jackie and kills off an entire squad of goons without firing a shot. It’s gruesome, it’s bloody, they try to run and are skewered, but it looks and sounds great.

The game then jumps ahead a couple of levels to let you try two of the darkness powers — the slithering snake stealth-kill-oriented power and the tentacle power — as well as summoning darklings. It all comes together and really starts to flow at that point, giving you the full picture of just how great it can be to channel the growing evil power of The Darkness.

Entering an area and either smashing or shooting out the lights is a wonderful prelude to a dance with your enemies. Once the lights are out, an otherworldly glow suffuses the area and all of the objects within it, signifying that you are at your strongest, and opening up specially-placed portals in the ground from which you can summon darklings. The sensation of growing dominion over the area as you snuff the lights by gunshot or tentacle is delicious.

I can’t wait to play more.