Swedish developer Starbreeze apparently enjoys a challenge. In a time when the market is saturated with crappy games based on big franchises from other media (primarily film and comic books), Starbreeze takes smaller licensed properties and makes them better than their source material. Their last game was The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, an excellent game that drastically improved upon the rather putrid Riddick movie. Their latest game is The Darkness, which is based upon the somewhat cheesy comic book series published by Top Cow.

The Darkness begins with a fantastically cinematic car chase through a New York City tunnel as the credits roll. You play as young mob hit man Jackie Estacado, who starts the scene passed out in the back seat. You and two of your henchmen are being pursued by cops as you race to a construction site to take out the foreman. As you slowly rouse, you can look around to watch the action, but can’t yet do anything. When you get to the construction site, one of the mobsters in the front seat tosses you a shotgun and you can start taking out the construction workers, who apparently know you’re coming because they’re all shooting back. This opening sequence ends with your car smashing through the end of the tunnel, with one of your henchmen dead and the other mortally wounded. He gives you a gun and sends you off to finish the job. This is as exciting an opening scene as you will find in most Hollywood action movies.

Early on in the game, a supernatural presence makes itself known to you. This is the Darkness, and you spend most of the game learning what it is and how you and, it turns out, your family have come to be cursed by it. In an interesting twist, you end up using the very powers the Darkness gives you to find a way to rid yourself of this parasitic evil. The Darkness is presented in a very effective, creepy way. It speaks to you in a heavily processed voice and although what it says to you is often cryptic, it can really get to you. The things it asks of you challenge your sense of morality, even as a mob hit man. And even though the powers it gives you protect you from all manner of otherwise mortal danger, Jackie never really feels comfortable using them.

The Geeks of Doom were recently invited to participate in a press conference call with Heroes creator and executive producer, Tim Kring, and star Masi Oka, who plays fan favorite Hiro. Kring, Oka, and the rest of the cast are currently filming Season Two of the NBC hit series, but took some time out to talk about the show, giving a few tidbits on what to expect in the upcoming season, and promote to the DVD release of Season One, which will hit store shelves on August 28, 2007.

Summer Vacation

The cast and crew of Heroes have been extremely busy this summer. In addition to starting production on Season Two, most of the cast appeared at Comic-Con in San Diego at the end of July. They made a big splash there last year when they screened the original pilot episode to excited fans. In fact, Kring credits those fans and the word of mouth that started at last year’s convention as being a large part of the show’s early success, which is why he wanted to make sure they showed their appreciation this year. “We looked at Comic-Con this year as a giant thank you,” said Kring. “We were very committed to the idea of bringing everybody that we could from the show down to show our appreciation to the fans, who I am convinced were very instrumental in making the show a hit last year.”

Of this year’s Comic-Con homecoming, Oka said, “It was absolutely amazing. It’s kind of like winning the Super Bowl and going back to your home city. It was a celebration of a great phenomenon that we have all created together: the fans, the writers, and the cast.”

In the end, the pilot shown at the convention last year was drastically cut from a 2-hour premiere to the 1-hour premiere shown last Fall. To this day, the lucky few in last year’s Comic-Con audience are the only people to have seen Kring’s original pilot. Until August 28, that is, since the original 73-minute pilot will be included in the Season One DVD, along with commentary from Kring.

Although Kring appreciates us geeks and our contribution to the show’s success, he confesses that he does not count himself among us: “I did not come from a comic book background…I was not a Star Trek fan, either. I saw the original Star Wars, but none of the other ones after that. So I have very little knowledge of the sci-fi world and almost none of the comic book world. My influences came from the idea of basic storytelling and character development. I chose to approach this material almost entirely from the idea of who these characters were. I created the powers to reflect who the characters were and not the other way around. So I didn’t start off saying I wanted a guy who can teleport, I started off by saying I wanted a guy who felt trapped in a life that was not his dream and what could be a power that would be most wish-fulfilling for that character. And that was the ability to transport out of that life.”

For his part, Oka flies his geek flag proudly. In addition to being an avowed manga fan since childhood, he is delighted at the following Hiro has developed and what he means to geeks around the world: “If I can represent the geeks, I [feel] very fortunate to be able to do that. For me, the notion of a geek has always been someone who is very passionate about something. Whether it’s computers or ant farms or musicals or storytelling or paperweights or whatever it is. It’s that you’re passionate about something and that’s what makes us human, it defines us as individuals, it gives us our uniqueness… It’s more commendable to be a geek and be passionate about something than to be apathetic about everything.”

Hiro isn’t just a fan favorite, he also seems to be one of Kring’s favorite characters on the show. In the original script, Kring says, “there were a number of characters who felt that these powers were an affliction. The cumulative affect of it at the end of reading this first draft was that it was kind of a downer, nobody seemed to have any fun with it. [Hiro] was really created to lighten up the initial script… I felt that I needed one character who embraced it in a very enthusiastic way.”

Lucasarts, the game publishing arm of George Lucas‘s empire, and TT Games announced this week Lego Indiana Jones: The Videogame [working title], to be released next summer.

The game is being developed by Traveller’s Tales, the same studio that developed the Lego Star Wars games. Those two games were hilarious and tremendously fun, so Indy fans should have plenty to look forward to as the developer takes on all three of the Indy movies.

Beginning tomorrow, the first trailer for Hitman will be shown before screenings of Live Free or Die Hard. This afternoon, the trailer also showed up on YouTube, click here to watch it.

Hitman is based on the popular series of video games produced by Danish development studio IO Interactive. The games star Agent 47, a mysterious, genetically modified hitman.

Vin Diesel was originally signed to produce and star in the movie, but he pulled out last year. He was replaced by Timothy Olyphant of HBO’s Deadwood, with Mission Impossible: II‘s Dougray Scott co-starring. The film was helmed by French director Xavier Gens and written by Skip Woods, who also wrote the John Travolta-Hugh Jackman movie Swordfish.

Hitman is scheduled to open in theaters October 12, 2007.

UPDATE 6/30/07: Yahoo! now has the trailer here, with options to view it in High Definition.

From Myth to Marathon to Halo, development studio Bungie has created some of the best gaming experiences ever burned to disc. The first Halo was the game that put the original Xbox on the map. Halo 2 had one of the biggest openings in any medium, grossing $125 million on its first day alone, and instantly became the reason to subscribe to Xbox Live. Needless to say, Halo 3, the final chapter of the epic trilogy, is one of the most anticipated entertainment events of the year. The game doesn’t release until September 25, but over 100,000 gamers have been playing a pre-release sampling of the multiplayer portion of the game since May 16. This beta test ended on yesterday, and after playing over 100 matches I think I’ve done enough “research” to give you the lowdown.

Beginning with the first Halo, Bungie has crafted easily the most refined and well balanced multiplayer experience on any console. From map design to weapon balance to physics and vehicles, you won’t find a more meticulously and intelligently designed game. Halo 2 upped the ante by adding online play and a brilliant matchmaking system that matches you with players of similar skill levels. With Halo 3, Bungie has refined all of these aspects, while adding a number of ingredients to an already delicious recipe.