Black

The Good
Black is one of the worst games I have ever played. The developers tapped into that shameful, primal desire to shoot things and blow shit up and ended up creating this total joke of a game. Therefore it is funny to play this game in short bursts. That's a positive attribute I suppose.

The gun models in Black look brilliant and the fantastic faux HDR and depth of field effects are very impressive.

The Bad
Black is at its core nothing more than gun porn. It's one of the shallowest, most vacuous things I have ever played. You play someone who might as well just be Doom guy running around eastern Europe blowing up slums while killing the exact same Russian guy over and over again.

The laughable thing is, there is supposed to be a plot here. There is an arms smuggler known as the William Lennox who is part of some sort of overwrought, ridiculous operation called Seventh Wave trying to fuel countries in political turmoil with arms. It gives me a headache even thinking about the trite, Tom Clancy-esque crap that the game relies on to carry the flimsy gameplay.

If you REALLY want to play Black, you will play it for the shooting. Criterion not only put no effort into providing a compelling FPS experience they actually omitted things like jumping and the ability to OPEN DOORS, most likely to fit in some more pew pew sound effects. This effectively turns your character into a camera on a stick with a gun sticking out of it. There is not one ounce of realism in this game. I don't expect my games to be ultra realistic, but by 2006 I would expect to be able to jump and open doors in a first person shooter. Oh, I'm sorry, you can open doors but you have to shoot them with a shotgun to dislodge them from their hinges. You don't have a shotgun? Too bad you never learned how to turn a doorknob.

The level design is atrocious, amounting to nothing more than a monotonous, endless slog through eastern European slums, refineries and asylums. There are no level goals, no objectives, only the exact same collectibles every single level and a hilarious parade of this identical Russian guy.

I'm not exaggerating. It's basically the exact same person every single time, whether he is dressed in riot gear, an army uniform or some sort of other generic garb. How do I know? They all act and sound identical. The AI is absolutely woeful. Your enemies will walk up to you firing their weapon or slide in and out of cover. In a game that offers nothing more than simple shooting having bad AI is not a good thing. There is one hilarious example of the crappy AI that stands out from all of the others. There is a riot shield bearing soldier later in the game, who kneels down and protects himself from grenade blasts when you throw one near him. However he just totally ignores you while he waits for the grenade to explode. What does this mean? It means he leaves his back completely exposed letting you simply throw another grenade at him blowing him to high hell.

One last thing. When you shoot people in Black, which is pretty much the only thing you can do, they emit sparks and small puffs of smoke and fall down in an awkward, comically timed scripted animation when they die. It's like you're fighting hordes of Putty Men from Power Rangers.

The Bottom Line
Black is a game that could only appeal to the most testosterone intoxicated of players. It has virtually no substance, no variation in level goals, no conceivable objective system, ugly environments with no variation and an endless procession of the most brain damaged AI opponents I have ever faced. The control system is archaic and inconceivably rigid and the story is one of the most hackneyed I have ever witnessed.

The only redeeming feature of Black are the gun models and nice lighting effects. That's not a very long list is it?

The Good
+ Painstaking attention to detail on the graphics
+ Spectacular gunshots and sound effects
+ Great soundtrack
+ Killer first impression
+ Gunfire and explosions deserve another mention


The Bad
- The AI isn't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed
- Short; 8 missions and strictly a one-player game
- Generic storyline
- Not much variation in strategy


The Bottom Line
Presentation: 80/100
The story is about Sergeant Kellar being interrogated by an unknown interrogator about a terrorist organization called "Seventh Wave." While the story isn't exactly complex (Considering that the story was an afterthought in development), the game makes it up with slick menu designs.

Graphics: 90/100
The graphics are an excellent showcase for the PlayStation 2. Also noting the painstaking attention to detail on the guns and the reloading animations are very authentic, also considering that this game was called plenty of times by the developers and fans as "Gun Porn." Many of the guns have two different reloading animations; for example, if you reload an MP5 in a heat of battle, your character will reload the MP5 in a hasty matter, but when it's quiet, he'll take his time, taking out the empty mag, and softly hitting the fresh mag against the gun, to prevent it from jamming. The explosions look fantastic. The framerate is stable, but can slow down when the action gets hectic on screen. Luckily, the slowdown does not make the gameplay choppy, instead the game actually just slows down, as if it's unintentionally triggering bullet time without the bullets being visible in the air. Black even supports 480p progressive scan, which makes the game look sharper than before. Despite Black being rated M with plenty of profanity to go around, there's no blood during gameplay, but this is simply a nitpick. If there's one thing I got to address about the graphics, is that some of the textures in the some levels seem jittery...

Audio: 100/100
The explosions and sound effects in this game are excellent. The guns, like the SPAS-12, actually sound powerful and devastating. The orchestral soundtrack is epic and dramatic. The voice acting is great, but nothing award-winning. Black supports Dolby Pro Logic II.

Controls: 85/100
The controls are great and the game even allows you to customise almost every button. Unfortunately, there is no action button, meaning you cannot open doors; in order to open a door, you either need a grenade or a shotgun to blast the door down. If you don't have any of those, well it sucks to be you since you weren't taught how to work with doorknobs. There's also no jump button, and there are parts of some levels where a staircase is missing a step, once you jump off that step, you cannot go back up the stairs, as if the game is preventing you from backtracking. You cannot control the aim sensitivity and the looking in general is rather slow, but you'll get used to it.

Difficulty: Just right
The AI is rather challenging. While the artificial intelligence isn't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed, this is probably countered by having them take more bullets than a tank and making their guns almost as powerful as yours. Every once in a while you'll encounter bad guys in heavy armor with a shotgun, but these guys can be destroyed with one grenade blast. Also there would be guys with Magnums and Riot Shields, which will take more bullets and grenades to kill them. Easy mode is generally easy, but maintains a decent amount of challenge to where the enemies will walk over you if you let them. Hard is basically insane. Upon beating the hard difficulty, you're given the Black Ops difficulty, and surprisingly, it's rather easier than hard. The reason for this is that at every mission, your starter weapon is an M16A2 rifle with an under-barrel M203 grenade launcher. Not only that, but you have infinite grenades for the launcher as well, so you can pretty much "noob tube" your way through Black Ops without difficulty.

Gameplay: 85/100
Black is a straight-forward first-person shooter; unlike other shooters, the game rather focuses on destruction and head-on action. Throughout the game, you blast terrorists with lots of bullets and simply, your overall goal for most missions is just to get to the other end in one piece. The objectives are there, but they usually consist of destroying an object. Unfortunately, stealth is rather useless, as every enemy in the area will be alerted when you miss a shot and there isn't a whole lot of variety in strategy, therefore the game will end up being repetitive.

Overall: 87/100
Black is one of the best first-person shooters you can get for the PlayStation 2. Unfortunately, this game is rather short; offering only 8 missions and no multiplayer, you'll more likely beat this game in at least 6 hours. But it's worth it to beat this game on harder difficulties.

Score: 87/100

The Good
The implementation of fully-destructible environments has been a coveted Holy Grail for action games of all sorts, especially immersive games such as first-person-shooters. Amongst the FPS genre, there have been several attempts, Red Faction II being one of the most well-known examples, to weave destructible environments into the flow of combat and interaction within a first-person virtual world, but most attempts have been particularly unremarkable. At the very best, a few breakaway walls and exploding pieces of terrain have given environments a semblance of the desired effect.

It is in this category where BLACK rises to the top. Apply bullets and explosives vigorously to whatever you see, and objects, walls and whole buildings will explode or shatter into dust, fragments and splinters of whatever object, facet or structure they used to represent. Not only do the flames, smoke and dust of explosions look gorgeous, but the destruction is woven seamlessly with the action and gameplay. Sometimes, it's as simple as blowing a door off its hinges with a shotgun or grenades to access the next room. Other times, the player will be faced with the pressure of blowing holes through walls to flank a fixed enemy position. And every once in a while, the player will inadvertently level entire buildings and structures from afar.

And to do all of this fun stuff, the player has a varied and beautifully rendered assortment of guns and explosives at hand. BLACK probably has the most thoughtfully rendered and animated guns in any FPS. One of Criterion's focuses for the game was to create "gun porn' which they certainly achieve. All the guns sound, look and fire with intense virtual weight; it's hypnotizing just to watch the avatar reload or switch firing modes with the natural sway and bob that an actual person would exhibit.

And to control all the mayhem, Criterion has made sure that players controls match perfectly with all available functions. Controls could be comparatively likened to those of Halo 2, but the controls in BLACK feel tighter, more weighty. In addition to the standard use of analog sticks and triggers, the D-pad is smartly deployed as the main console for weapon management, firing mode s for burst/single/automatic fire, extend stocks and thread suppressors. And most importantly, the controls mesh perfectly in response to their relevant animations and how they affect player interaction within BLACK's world.

Beyond its highly polished gameplay features, BLACK also gets a few points for intangibles; presentation-wise, BLACK does so many things well. BLACK's menu design, music and immersion outside of main gameplay contribute greatly towards sucking the player into its dark world of assassination and secret warfare. Criterion goes through sincere lengths to make a player feel that they are entering a world where guns and death are gods.

The Bad
Through a combination of addictive gameplay and a cliffhanger narrative, the game feels painfully short. For all the bodies that get piled up and all the buildings that get leveled, I still wanted more when I was done. Due to its brevity, the game's narrative will come off a tad less sincere than what most players will hope for when spending full-price ($40) on a game.

The enemies, though masterfully rendered, animated and implemented, are relatively unvaried from beginning to end. Expect to see slight variations of the same soldier over and over throughout the game. In addition, the enemy AI is not particularly sharp; on my first run, I ran into plenty of dumbfounded and ineffectual formations and groups of enemies which ignored me until I got right in their faces.

The biggest crime of all is a total lack of multiplayer. BLACK could probably be one of the most addictive deathmatch/co-op games in the history of the First-Person-Shooter genre, but that possibility is closed and totally shut down. It was known from day one of announcement that BLACK would not feature any multiplayer, but it doesn't sting any less once one finishes the single-player campaign.

The Bottom Line
BLACK is a slice of deep-fried gaming. Havoc, destruction and mayhem will be available in abundance, but expect to want more. But despite any of the aforementioned criticism mentioned above, I'd highly recommend BLACK for what it does so much better than anyone else.