Score
Gameplay:	7
Graphics:	9
Sound:	10
FunFactor:	7
PlasmaFactor:	6
Overall:	7.8

Black Review
March 31, 2006 by Matt Wetsel

by Matt Wetsel - March 31, 2006

Black is an explosive new shooter from the same team that brought us the incredible Burnout series. Considering Crieterion Games' track record, expectations have been understandably high. The good news is, you probably won't be disappointed with the finished product: Black is a non-stop epic full of destructable environments, big guns, and so many explosions that it puts most recent action movies to shame. On the other hand, the game's length and poorly integrated story might make some gamers think twice. Despite its shortcomings, though, Black has a lot to offer gamers, and it's visuals alone make it worth at least a rental.

It seems like fighting terrorism is an increasingly popular theme in action games as of late. Thankfully, Black isn't the kind of game that surrounds you with bad-ass terrorists and expects it to sell itself. You're in control of Black Ops member John Keller, and apparently he's got quite a problem following orders. The game's story is told completely through cutscenes between levels that show Keller being interrogated about the events of each level after they've happened. However, the cutscenes themselves are full of random images of documents, military excursions, and whatever else fits the theme of the game, and it isn't until the 4th or 5th level that you get a feel for what's going on. Keller and his team are persuing the leader of a terrorist organization known as the Seventh Wave, who apparently just happens to also be an ex-CIA member. Nothing goes down the way it's supposed to, though, largely due to a lack of respect for the chain of command. There isn't a whole lot else to it, unfortunately, which seems unusual for a shooter which boasts so much immersion and realism with it's cutting-edge graphics and mostly interactive environments: it'd be nice to feel like there was more of a purpose to all the shooting and explosions. In fact, through most of the levels you're accompanied by squad members who are relevant to the story, but there aren't any in-game cutscenes where you speak to them and they both look generic and identical; if it wasn't for the radio banter, you'd never even know that one of them was both female and your superior. Why take the time to write a story and put it in if you're not going to pay it any attention?

At least you'll have fun, even if you don't know what's going on. The emphasis on action has even earned Black the description of "gun porn" among various publications, and this is a fairly accurate description. Despite a somewhat lack of variety in the weapons (all of the automatic weapons feel pretty much the same), there's enough going on in every level to keep your attention. Fires rage, enemies come in and out of hiding, and there's a lot to blow up. Sound simplistic? That's because this is largely what you'll be seeing through all eight levels, although each level has a very unique look and feel to it (with the bridge assault being a personal favorite). Each level has a set of primary and secondary objectives, but the primary objectives usually involve going from point A to point B, and the levels are so linear that the only way you won't complete any primary objectives is if you die. The secondary objectives are scattered throughout the levels and involve either finding something and A) picking it up or B) blowing it up. Players won't have any difficulty completing either set of objectives unless you play on the hardest difficulty setting, which can actually be quite challenging and fun.

One of Black's biggest hypes is the amount of destrution you can cause and open-endedness of its gameplay, but at times they feel like nothing more than just that: hype. Open-ended? Despite not using every button on the controller, your character can't even jump, and inability forces you to follow laid-out paths more often than not. Got hostiles in a half-destroyed building? You'll have to use the door, because the highly trained and efficient Black Ops team can't jump over a 3 foot wall to climb through the frickin' window. Remember how you can step over small walls or obstacles in Call of Duty 2? And that was World War II! Speaking of doors, some games have them open automatically, while others have a universal "Use" command to get through, but in Black, your guns are your hands. Need to open that door/safe/laptop? Use a grenade or your shotgun. After awhile, it starts to feel like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer gets a gun (no, not the Make-Up Gun, it was a revolver) and uses it to turn on the tv and open his beer. It's not really a complaint, but it is a little absurd.

 

Are You Sure This Is Current-Gen?

Whatever Black lacks in it's gameplay depth, it makes up for in presentation and is truly a feast for the senses. The first time you see light beams poking in through an open window or get an arial view of a war-torn city street, you'll probably stop and double-check that you're playing a current-gen title on the original Xbox (even more impressive is that it looks almost identical on the PS2). Black makes excellent use of lighting and fog to set the atmosphere of the levels, and the tagline "Every Bullet Counts" is largely evident here. If you're shooting at a moving target and half your bullets hit the wall behind him, there's going to be some dust and dirt kicked up from every single one. Throw a grenade? You'll have to wait for the smoke to clear before you can start gunning again, lest you lose sight of the enemy and get killed yourself.

 

The presentation is rounded out by an incredible score that might even make Danny Elfman proud. When I first started playing, my roommate actually called down the hall to ask what movie I was watching. Make no mistake, Black is a game that needs to be played loud, and for your sake I hope you have a surround sound system to do it justice. Your team communicates with you over the radio and often provides directions or locations of enemies which you otherwise might have missed initially, which is actually much appreciated considering how much distance can be between you and your targets.

 

Although Black only has about 8 hours worth of gameplay, for the time it lasts it's quite entertaining. In fact, if it was any longer you might get kind of bored with it, since the game doesn't really break from it's formula very often. I don't think there's a single game of it's kind that doesn't have some well-placed explosives to blow up some bad guys, but Black is sometimes rediculous; every level is full of explosive barrels, cars, trucks, and air conditioning units (no, I'm not joking) that the enemies always manage to stand right next to, under, or behind. Someone should really talk to these terrorists about storing all these explosives out in the open; they don't make for good cover. Speaking of the enemies, their A.I. could be a bit sharper. They all utilize cover relatively well, (and those shotgun-wielding bastards are very sneaky), but then something absurd happens: I open my assault into an enormous room full of patrolling guards with a rocket into the center, killing 2 or 3 of them, and the rest of them continue to go about their business. As soon as I enter the room and become visible, though, it's a completely different story. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does it makes the game feel incredibly scripted, even more so when an invisible barrier prevents you from taking an alternate path into the next area to try something different.

Speaking of scripting, I think at least a few of these terrorists ran away from the circus, because a few of them are quite the acrobat. Rather than opt for a rag-doll physics engine (which would work great with the gratuitous amount of explosions), they all succumb to generic death animations, and if they're standing anywhere near a ledge, open window, or railing, they tend to intentionally throw themselves over it. That, and you only really encounter 3 or 4 types of enemies in the game, at least one of which doesn't appear until the very last 2 or 3 levels. There also aren't any vehicles to fight or commandeer, which is a very odd omission considering the game's determination to blow up anything and everything.

 

Single Player Only

With game prices rising, the question that should be on every gamer's mind is replay value, and it's here that Black probably makes it's biggest mistake. With only 8 levels (1 of which is only 11 minutes long!) and not a huge variety in the combat, the single player campaign offers very little incentive to play through again. This would probably be fine if there was any sort of multiplayer, but alas, there is not. While this was more tolerable in the Xbox port of Half-Life 2 (at least in this gamer's opinion), in Black's case it almost makes the game feel incomplete, a feeling which is only reinforced by the game's abrupt ending.

 

 

 

Overall, Black is a wonderfully cinematic and visually stunning game, and should keep your attention for the brief amount of time it takes to complete. If you're a fan of the genre, I reccommend you at least make it a rental just to see what a great job Criterion has done with the visuals. That, and the last level is incredibly challenging and well worth your time - if every level was as well-developed and thought out as that one, then the other problems might be less significant. I can only hope that the inevitable sequels (rumor has it they're making a trilogy) will make up for the shortcomings of this 1st entry, because with a team like Criterion, there's a whole lot of potential.