To have regrets is to live. People make choices, informed or otherwise, and are forced to learn from them. It’s just part of the semi-permanent, linear existence known as being alive. So when your favorite gaming culture columnist performs the gamer-culture-columnist equivalent of waking up in a strange place without his pants, he’s going to feel the sober pangs of regret for a long time, and there will be no loading an earlier version of me and trying again.

I’m going to do this quick, like taking off a band-aid, are you ready? Ok, here we go: The Darkness…sucks.

Man, besides everything else, I hate to even use the word “sucks.” It feels so beneath me, like skipping out on a check, or playing Forza Motorsport, but there really isn’t another (clean) word that I can use to describe what I experienced with The Darkness. I think there are ranges of sucking, (there must be if someone can pay $400 for a vacuum) but what makes this different from every other lousy gaming experience, what makes this the worst, is how complicit I am in it.

I recently (like, the post just below this one) wrote a glowing preview of the game in question just days before it hit the streets, and who could blame me? The game had many things going for it (again, below) and it had all the earmarks of a sleeper hit. So I picked up a copy, but an hour or so later, I realized my folly.

Now as my loyal Riders know, I don’t do game reviews (except for when I do), but The Darkness’ was the shortest game ever to move at a glacial pace, had a plot that wants to combine Cthulhu with Goodfellas but ends up with Species 2 and Gigli, and tops it off with enough pretentiousness to close down a silent film festival. The main character is portrayed as ‘conflicted,’ but he’s a mob hitman who eats the hearts of his victims! He can brood all he wants about doing the right thing, but there’s not a lot of gray left in that area!

Therefore, I am left with a hollow feeling inside. There will be no swapping out of memory cards, or trying again from a checkpoint for me. The thought that I may have led one of my loyal Riders astray will be a regret that I will carry with me forever.

But I have heard good things about Mass Effect!

This is my stop.

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Back of the Bus is © 2007 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.