Black

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