Black
Posted March 16, 2006
While not a huge fan of the first person shooter genre, there was something about Black that attracted me to it. Perhaps it was the self proclaimed "gun porn" title, or the fact that the developers never talked much about the game aside from pimping the fact that this game is about guns. Lots of guns. Guns that cause a lot of environmental damage and can trigger bowel shaking explosions that are used to decimate your enemies, as well as look damn good in the process.
Criterion games known for their engaging Burnout series, decided that since people love blowing crap up with their cars so much, they might want to do it with some big ass guns. Then it began, the ball was set in motion to create a game that relied almost solely on destruction and shooting. I mean not many games out these days force you to empty a third of an AK47 clip into a bad guy to take him out, Black does that here in spades.
Gameplay:
As a member of the elite Black-ops you obey no one. You kill when you need to kill; you go where you need to go when you want to go. That is, until something goes dramatically wrong and you are forced into explaining your actions to a superior officer. That is the basic premise in Black, the "story" follows you as you explain some history of a mission to said officer, and the game will then put you into the shoes to tell the rest of the story, with your guns. In fact, if it wasn't for the forced cutscenes most players (this one included) would have rather skipped over any story and just got straight into the action, with gun barrels blazing.
Since Black is all about the action, the game puts you smack dab in the middle of it from the very first mission. For those familiar with the basic controls and premise of a FPS then you'll have absolutely no problem adapting here, except for one minor detail. This time around, ammo is more than plentiful and you'll be required to pump a body with lead before it drops.
The game is excruciatingly linear. Even when playing at the hardest level Black Ops, you'll find yourself prompted constantly to make it to a new checkpoint. Now unlike a lot of other shooters, the checkpoints aren't marked on a map so there may be some occasions where you'll find yourself walking in circles, but thanks to a great linear level design, getting lost is the exception not the norm. As you advance in difficulty levels, you're tasked with various secondary objectives and must complete them to different degrees, based on your level. These objectives range from collecting blueprints to destroying secret papers in safes and laptops scattered around the levels. While this might sound like a nice diversion, it really just seems tacked on to add a little depth to a rather shallow, yet oddly thrilling shooter.
The guys at Criterion really know how to pack explosions into a game, and with Black they've really taken it to the next level. On nearly every mission, you'll find the standard red exploding barrel as plentiful as pigeons at a city park. Around every corner, in every nook and cranny, and near almost every enemy you're treated with a nice barrel to shoot. While gamers have been complaining about the abundance of exploding barrels in most games, it actually works here simply for the wow factor. But why the developers would program the enemies to hover and congregate near these buckets of death, I'll never know. Explosions aren't limited to the red barrels either as you can make red boxes explode, as well as any operational vehicle you might see laying around. Chain together a nice barrel and truck explosion and you are treated to a house shaking, room lighting explosion that can take down a building, and baddies located near it.
The real question should be, is this an enjoyable game? For the first couple hours, yes. The sheer amount of stimulation that this game provides should keep your mind rolling and frolicking with stimuli for at least the first couple times you play. But it's like the old saying, if you ate apple pie every day it wouldn't be such a treat. Same thing applies here, the explosions and level of destruction is very cool in short small doses, but anything beyond that becomes monotonous.
Graphics:
In keeping the promise to have fully destructible environments, everything in this game deforms when you blast it with your artillery. Whether it is the tree stump that splinters, the building that collapses under the pressure of being pummeled with rocket propelled grenades or one of the many conveniently placed transport trucks; they all take damage in dramatic fashion.
Aside from a very generic and very small catalog of bad guys to take out in the game, the rest of the game looks quite sharp; especially when you trigger some of the massive explosions that are paramount in this title. In looking at some of the blast effects here, I'd have to put them on par with the effects that I see if Burnout Revenge when you trigger a crash breaker. Now this would make a lot of sense seeing as the developer is the same and borrowing code would only help development of a title.
Cut scenes are oddly shown using live video in a highly stylized method. At first I cringed at the thought of live human actors, but as the "story" went forward the initial trepidation I had towards the scenes faded. Oh, and be prepared to watch the scenes completely as you cannot skip them until you earn the right to do so in hard mode.
One of the coolest graphical tweaks that caught me off guard but really makes sense when you step back to think is during reload animations, the focus shifts. Meaning the only thing sharply in focus is your gun, while the rest of the screen is a blur. Initially I was put off by this, but as time progressed and I became more comfortable with the title, this little enhancement really helped boost some realism into an otherwise very unrealistic title.
Audio:
Now this is a section of the game that Criterion nailed. Essentially every aspect of the sound is perfect in Black. Whether it be the orchestrated musical score that plays while you're blowing the living hell out of everything in your way or the sound of your RPG taking out the building down the street, it's all done spectacularly here. Black really takes advantage of your Dolby Digital sound system here as bullets fire all around you, explosions pack some serious punch, and the overwhelming action comes at you non-stop from all 5.1 speakers. Job very well done here.
The only flaw I found with the audio was the voice work during the cut scenes; the acting seemed sub par and the quality of the sound recording was lacking, especially when compared to the rest of the in game audio.
Conclusion:
Ultimately I was somewhat under whelmed with the final product that is Black. Sure the audio and visual components are fantastic, and for some people that will be more than enough to warrant a purchase. For me, the small disappointments outweigh the good points within Black, starting first and foremost with the lack of multiplayer support, be it co-op or online. It's a lot of fun to run around blowing stuff up, but it's about a million times more fun doing that with friends or even people you meet online.
Also the lack of unique enemies to take down with all this firepower is somewhat disappointing; blasting the same characters gets old after the first couple levels. Also the lack of variety in missions is a slight letdown, each is basically a linear quest from one checkpoint to another with side tasks along the way to destroy or collect data, not very exciting after the first level. The biggest reason why I'm giving this a rental recommendation isn't because it's an overly bad game, because obviously it's not, but the short gameplay time lends itself extremely well to a weekend rental from your local store. Rent it.
Criterion games known for their engaging Burnout series, decided that since people love blowing crap up with their cars so much, they might want to do it with some big ass guns. Then it began, the ball was set in motion to create a game that relied almost solely on destruction and shooting. I mean not many games out these days force you to empty a third of an AK47 clip into a bad guy to take him out, Black does that here in spades.
Gameplay:
As a member of the elite Black-ops you obey no one. You kill when you need to kill; you go where you need to go when you want to go. That is, until something goes dramatically wrong and you are forced into explaining your actions to a superior officer. That is the basic premise in Black, the "story" follows you as you explain some history of a mission to said officer, and the game will then put you into the shoes to tell the rest of the story, with your guns. In fact, if it wasn't for the forced cutscenes most players (this one included) would have rather skipped over any story and just got straight into the action, with gun barrels blazing.
Since Black is all about the action, the game puts you smack dab in the middle of it from the very first mission. For those familiar with the basic controls and premise of a FPS then you'll have absolutely no problem adapting here, except for one minor detail. This time around, ammo is more than plentiful and you'll be required to pump a body with lead before it drops.
The game is excruciatingly linear. Even when playing at the hardest level Black Ops, you'll find yourself prompted constantly to make it to a new checkpoint. Now unlike a lot of other shooters, the checkpoints aren't marked on a map so there may be some occasions where you'll find yourself walking in circles, but thanks to a great linear level design, getting lost is the exception not the norm. As you advance in difficulty levels, you're tasked with various secondary objectives and must complete them to different degrees, based on your level. These objectives range from collecting blueprints to destroying secret papers in safes and laptops scattered around the levels. While this might sound like a nice diversion, it really just seems tacked on to add a little depth to a rather shallow, yet oddly thrilling shooter.
The guys at Criterion really know how to pack explosions into a game, and with Black they've really taken it to the next level. On nearly every mission, you'll find the standard red exploding barrel as plentiful as pigeons at a city park. Around every corner, in every nook and cranny, and near almost every enemy you're treated with a nice barrel to shoot. While gamers have been complaining about the abundance of exploding barrels in most games, it actually works here simply for the wow factor. But why the developers would program the enemies to hover and congregate near these buckets of death, I'll never know. Explosions aren't limited to the red barrels either as you can make red boxes explode, as well as any operational vehicle you might see laying around. Chain together a nice barrel and truck explosion and you are treated to a house shaking, room lighting explosion that can take down a building, and baddies located near it.
The real question should be, is this an enjoyable game? For the first couple hours, yes. The sheer amount of stimulation that this game provides should keep your mind rolling and frolicking with stimuli for at least the first couple times you play. But it's like the old saying, if you ate apple pie every day it wouldn't be such a treat. Same thing applies here, the explosions and level of destruction is very cool in short small doses, but anything beyond that becomes monotonous.
Graphics:
In keeping the promise to have fully destructible environments, everything in this game deforms when you blast it with your artillery. Whether it is the tree stump that splinters, the building that collapses under the pressure of being pummeled with rocket propelled grenades or one of the many conveniently placed transport trucks; they all take damage in dramatic fashion.
Aside from a very generic and very small catalog of bad guys to take out in the game, the rest of the game looks quite sharp; especially when you trigger some of the massive explosions that are paramount in this title. In looking at some of the blast effects here, I'd have to put them on par with the effects that I see if Burnout Revenge when you trigger a crash breaker. Now this would make a lot of sense seeing as the developer is the same and borrowing code would only help development of a title.
Cut scenes are oddly shown using live video in a highly stylized method. At first I cringed at the thought of live human actors, but as the "story" went forward the initial trepidation I had towards the scenes faded. Oh, and be prepared to watch the scenes completely as you cannot skip them until you earn the right to do so in hard mode.
One of the coolest graphical tweaks that caught me off guard but really makes sense when you step back to think is during reload animations, the focus shifts. Meaning the only thing sharply in focus is your gun, while the rest of the screen is a blur. Initially I was put off by this, but as time progressed and I became more comfortable with the title, this little enhancement really helped boost some realism into an otherwise very unrealistic title.
Audio:
Now this is a section of the game that Criterion nailed. Essentially every aspect of the sound is perfect in Black. Whether it be the orchestrated musical score that plays while you're blowing the living hell out of everything in your way or the sound of your RPG taking out the building down the street, it's all done spectacularly here. Black really takes advantage of your Dolby Digital sound system here as bullets fire all around you, explosions pack some serious punch, and the overwhelming action comes at you non-stop from all 5.1 speakers. Job very well done here.
The only flaw I found with the audio was the voice work during the cut scenes; the acting seemed sub par and the quality of the sound recording was lacking, especially when compared to the rest of the in game audio.
Conclusion:
Ultimately I was somewhat under whelmed with the final product that is Black. Sure the audio and visual components are fantastic, and for some people that will be more than enough to warrant a purchase. For me, the small disappointments outweigh the good points within Black, starting first and foremost with the lack of multiplayer support, be it co-op or online. It's a lot of fun to run around blowing stuff up, but it's about a million times more fun doing that with friends or even people you meet online.
Also the lack of unique enemies to take down with all this firepower is somewhat disappointing; blasting the same characters gets old after the first couple levels. Also the lack of variety in missions is a slight letdown, each is basically a linear quest from one checkpoint to another with side tasks along the way to destroy or collect data, not very exciting after the first level. The biggest reason why I'm giving this a rental recommendation isn't because it's an overly bad game, because obviously it's not, but the short gameplay time lends itself extremely well to a weekend rental from your local store. Rent it.