Black

What do shooter gamers want? Well, let's see. Guns. Yeah, those work. Violence helps too. And sometimes some style in the game rounds it all off nicely. Yep, that's about all shooter gamers want nowadays, and a lot of companies are trying to look into new ways of taking the old Shooter genre and presenting those key elements in new ways. Sometimes, really bad games pop out. Sometimes, really good games. And sometimes, we're all not really sure.

Black is one of those games. Developed by Criterion Games and published by EA, it's been hyped like crazy over the last few months- "An Extreme shooter", "Huge gun array", et al- quite a bit of media attention. Well, it's finally out, now in the public view, instead of just game trailers. So how does it hold up?

It holds up well, then turns horrible. Why? Well, let me explain. Black is, so far as I can tell, basically a story about some sort of (Insert: Terrorists, Russians, Nazis, Green Party Activists) threatening to (Use a nuke, buy a nuke, find a nuke, draw a picture of a nuke) and (Destroy the White House, Destroy the World, Destroy Japan). Honestly, the story gets no prizes. Just like about 300 other military games, an Arms group has done something bad, and you, as "Keller", have to stop them as a one man army. Let's all forget how the military really works and send Keller out there, because the man is apparently a damned Tank. Well, from the start of Black you know things have gone wrong- the game is shown in an Interrogation scene (Live action), and your gameplay is in flashbacks. It's somewhat dissapointing wen I can predict what the end of the game is going to be (Correctly) before I even play the first level.

Anyway.

As the one man battle tank, you must go all around the "Evil" World (See: Anywhere in Northern Asia) and kill people, because that's how the Government handles bad situations. You will handle guns ranging from the "Assault Rifle" (AK47) to the "Sniper Rifle" (If I read right, a Walther WA-2000 or some variety of that). Again, this is nothing new. Press the trigger, fire the weapon, the weapons magically hold in Keller's hand so they stay perfectly stable and nice, and Keller seems to be able to carry huge amounts of ammo with ease. It's obvious that Criterion never meant Black to be a "Serious" shooter, which is evident in the actual gameplay. For one, the game is LOUD. It was so pointlessly loud, I actually had to crank my TV down to a low setting just to hear everything correctly and not give the neighbors incentive to call the cops. Black seems to love making the game irritatingly loud and noisy, and no matter how you play the game, something is going to crash, explode, or make noise.



Another thing that sets Black apart is that unlike other games, Black seems to believe that anything explodes if you shoot at it enough. This can be as simple as breaking glass, or shooting an enemy. For example, in one of the 8 levels, you go through "Sniper Alley". In "Sniper Alley", enemies magically pop out of nowhere and shoot Rockets at you to blow Keller to smithereens. In this process, if you took out the "Sniper Rifle" and proceeded to shoot one in the head, in some process, the enemy, his ammunition, and in some rare circumstances the whole entire building, will explode like a firecracker. This left me quite confused, because I never knew that heads were explosive. Guess I see why my mother always told me to wear a helmet.

But there's one thing good about Black- the game is absolutely freaking beautiful. To put things simply, Black has the best graphics and sound, and generally the best presentation, of any XBOX game I have ever seen, played, or thought about. I honestly believed this game was next-gen, and would have expected such presentation from a XBOX 360 title. Of course, the XBOX takes a hit from this (As I felt the back of my XBOX and thought I was going to burn my hand) but thankfully, no fires will take place. Everything is nice, beautiful, shiny, detailed, and basically a contender for the best graphics on the XBOX, even giving Half Life 2 for the XBOX a run for it's money. Very, very impressive.

Another interesting thing about Black is that it almost inherently expects you to get hurt quite a bit. That's good, because you will, being as the enemies can hit you from 50 yards with an AK-47 full auto, whereas you can't hit 10 feet with it. Almost every enemy drops a small First Aid kit to heal you a small amount, and also, you can carry 3-4 Health Packs, which can be triggered in game by pressing Down on the D-pad. Actually, this is a horrible position to put it, because I got quite angry when trying to switch weapons (Left and Right) on the d-pad and actually healing myself when I didn't need it.

One thing about Black, and the whole selling point of the game, is the insane firefights you will go through. Keller, again Mr. Army himself, apparently is required to fight hundreds of enemies on his own, so you will be constantly shooting at things. And, unlike games that throw you enemies en masse, Black decides to make the game needlessly hard by making all enemies close to godly. When it takes me a whole clip from an AK-47 to blow an enemy away, that's overdone. A headshot doesn't even kill in this game- I've given three direct shots in the cranium to a Shotgun wielding baddie in this game, and he GOT UP AND CONTINUED FIRING LIKE EVERYTHING WAS OKAY. Obviously, this game has no intentions of looking real or even feasible.

One very irritating thing about Black, and the reason for the title of this review, is the graphics themselves. While they are absolutely beautiful, Black seems to forget that you need to, you know, SEE the enemies to be able to shoot them. Everything being either a shade of brown or a shade of blue, I found it literally impossible to see the enemies, and I was playing this on a widescreen HDTV. I feel pity for anyone on any smaller television, because the game will be literally impossible. Your crosshair, which nicely tells you if you ARE pointing at an enemy, is about as big as the period ending this sentence.



Through the game, the environments and areas are beautiful, and will definately test your gaming prowess, seeing as unless you are actually able to make Keller be Mr. Army, you will die. Your companions are useless and the enemies will flood you, so this game is definately no pushover, and is roughly equivelant to Devil May Cry 3 in unfair difficulty. With 8 missions being about 15 minutes each, I found this game very fun and somewhat of a diversion, but it only lasted me about two days, or rather, the course of my weekend when I felt like playing it.

Black is an excellent example of what happens when you let graphics and presentation take over core gameplay. The story is atrocious. The gameplay is good, but I found it almost impossible to play. This is the exact same situation I found with Halo 2- so if you liked Halo 2, you might like this- but still, my prejudice against such games doesn't get this game off the hook. With a few fixes and modifications, this game would have been a killer title for the XBOX 360, where they could have made the enemies clearer (And possibly the load times and aiming systems a little bit faster and easier, respectively). With all the hype surrounding this game, I had honestly hoped for a little more from Criterion, which I did not get. Of course, I expect opposing opinions on this game, just the same as I did Halo 2, so if you do want to call me a lunatic, we have a User Reviews system for that, just go register. But until then, my opinion stands- Black was not worth the hype EA generated.

2 star(s) out of 5

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