The sequel doesn't really mess with the basics - it's still twisting-tentacles deployed against nasty Mafia grunts - but what happened to the surroundings? The night sky's a rich blue, interiors are deep reds and greens. Those tentacles of yours have turned purple . (Maybe see a doctor?) I didn't expect any of this in a game that's mainly concerned with pulling peoples' spines out through their mouths, but I'm happy I got it anyway. For me, it was enough - along with the graphic novel art styling that supported it - to shift a game I wasn't particularly interested in towards the realms of things that I really wanted to play. Looking back, it was part of a wider trend. Operation Flashpoint: Red River, for example, is the epitome of the serious military shooter, but the huge cloudscapes it flings over its Tajikistan wild-lands are crazy, expressionist sprays of tinted light, and they make the game so much more dramatic and interesting to behold. Then there's the jaunty Tricolour of Mirror's Edge and its scrubbed urban dystopia, or the toxic ambers of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, intercut with those shards of throbbing red neon. UK Resistance once campaigned for more blue skies in games. Blue skies are back. Blue skies are the least of it, actually. The Darkness 2 told a pretty bleak story - but it sketched it out using almost all the really good crayons. Colours like this help to fix a game in your mind a