Smooth control is always something an FPS needs and Black really excels here. Unlike many EA games before it, Black offers the player full button customization so you can map any action you want onto any button on the pad so adjusting the game to suit something you’re used to, the Halo style for example, means control is instinctive right from the word go. For some strange reason though, there isn’t the option to alter the sensitivity of the sticks. While the default setting is arguably smooth and accurate enough for most people, others like those who play Halo with ‘10 sensitivity’ may struggle to adjust. It’s a shame that having given the player total button customization they ignored the fact that people have different preferences when it comes to look speeds.
Much of the hype around Black has been about the explosive selection of weaponry it has on offer, and in many regards it certainly lives up to the hype. The list of guns in Black reads like a compilation of Hollywood action movies. When you think of Assault Rifles the names AK-47 and M16 are on the tip of your tongue. Think Sub-Machine Guns and the words Uzi, P90 and MP5 are top of the list. There’s a Magnum hand gun, a SPAS 12 shotgun and even the bullet devouring M249 makes an appearance. There’s also the usual selection of Sniper Rifles, RPG’s and Grenade Launchers on offer too, so there’s something to suit every situation. As seems common for FPS’s these days, only two guns can be carried at once which, as you expect, adds a bit of thought and strategy to the game, especially when certain weapons such as shotgun and explosives allow you to access areas that are otherwise unreachable.
Black's gun models are highly impressive.
Each gun feels how they should do, all with their own advantages and disadvantages in various situations. Grenades pack a punch also, killing anything that it happens to land near. Interestingly, you can shoot grenades causing explosions at will which can be incredibly satisfying should you nail one in midair in between a cluster of enemies. But even weaker weapons like the pistols or the MAC 10 become useful should you happen to pick up a silencer laying around. Silence can be a great asset to have throughout Black. One predominantly memorable part of the game came in one of the later levels where you enter the ground floor of this multi-layered hall, heavily patrolled with guards on all sides. With careful selection and planning it was possible to clear almost the entire room without raising a single alarm.
But that’s not what Black really is. It’s about destruction. It’s about explosions. It’s about causing as much chaos and confusion as you possibly can. The game is predictably full to the brim with conveniently placed explosive barrels and large gas tanks perfectly nestled under what appears to be a normal looking balcony or walkway. The death animations go a long way to adding to the enjoyment to. Using a mixture of scripted animations and ragdoll physics, the way in which enemies can be killed can be hilarious. Throw a grenade and their body will fly across the room, shoot them near a wall and they’ll hit it with force, or best of all is to take a shot at an enemy near a balcony or window and watch them tumble over the ledge, hanging on for their life before falling to their death. It’s when all this is going off that Black is at its best. Without wanting to sound like some hyped up developer press release, every bullet really does have a consequence in the game thanks to the real time damage the game world takes. It’s mostly minor things like bullet marks in a wall or dust being sprayed up from the ground, but there are times you can really use the destructive nature of the environments to your advantage.
A couple of moments stand out particularly, the first being rather reminiscent of the shower scene from the film ‘The Rock’. Here the enemies have taken cover at the far side of the room and thanks to other enemies above they essential have control of the room as that can get you from both angles. This is where the interactive engine comes into play as you grab a shot gun and proceed to literally destroy the wall in front of you. Then the wall in front of that, and the one in front of that and so on until you reach those enemies guarding the rear of the room. Suddenly, they have nowhere to go and you’re just meters from their position. There’s also a similar moment where two enemies with bullet proof shields are guarding a narrow hallway. There’s no way to take them head on so by slipping into a nearby room you can blast your way through the walls in sequence to get closer to them without risking damage.
Such is the clever use of dust particles, Black often looks like a scene from The Matrix.
It the moments of genius like this that you can forgive many of Black’s faults for. Its AI is adequate, but it’s far from intelligent. Enemies will commendably take cover often, but at other times will stand around in the open wanting to be killed. It’s not consistent. Combat in general can be engaging, especially in the latter half of the game where there are a fair few intense shootouts to be had, but again it’s inconsistent as there are maybe a few too many forgettable rooms or areas where the game didn’t engage the player enough. The amount of bullets an enemy can take can be a little of the absurd side too at times. A headshot will always kill in one shot which is to be expected, but body shots can be nothing more than a lottery at times with it taking around 30 bullets sometimes just to put a single enemy on the floor. And on the whole the game can be a bit simple at times. The secondary objectives that litter each level are really nothing more than collecting a few red folders spread on random walls or destroying some laptops in various rooms. Combined with the use of health packs too for healing mean the game has a very deliberate old-school feel about it. Maybe it’s wrong to criticize the game for trying to be a simple run-and-gun FPS, but the lack of depth the game has wouldn’t be so much of a problem if it wasn’t so short.
At 8 levels it’s really at least 4 stages short of what it should be. While others have stated it’s closer to 8hrs long, it’s actually significantly less in all honesty. With each level being, on average, around 45mins long, it’s much closer to 5-6 when you ignore the first level which takes about 15 minutes maximum to do. Length isn’t so much of a problem for games that are constantly good and involving from start to finish, but Black has spurts of mediocrity spread throughout so suffers as a result. The complete lack of multiplayer really doesn’t help its cause either. The lack of online/deathmatch is understandable if all they were interested in was making a single player game, but a co-op mode would have been nice at least, and would have worked well when you consider the fact you often have CPU controlled teammates with you. A few silly things also harm the game somewhat too. Checkpoints are too few and far between as you soon find out on the harder difficulty settings when you’re having to replay 15mins of a level each time you die. You can’t save either, so when you play Black you’re going to have to at least do a whole level. Given the arcade-like nature of the game it seems silly that you can’t play it in short sessions.
For all its faults, there’s one area of the game that constantly impresses and that’s the presentation. Graphically it’s one of the best looking games on current generation consoles, and even gives a few Xbox 360 FPS’s a run for their money in some ways. Black runs at 60 frames a second, every second. It never splutters, even with multiple enemies on screen, rocket’s being fired all over the place and huge explosions all going on at once. This is impressive as it is, but throw in the destructible environments and the gorgeous looking particle effects the game engine pushes and you’ve got an amazing looking game. The level design is impressive too as it manages to throw 8 very different looking levels at you, but most of which retain the same brown/grey urban setting as the last. The game isn’t afraid to open things up either with plenty of outdoor areas broken up by the usual complement of corridors and rooms. Special praise must also be directed towards the weapons themselves which are all superbly modeled and animated, especially the reloading animation with is accompanied with a neat blur effect taking your focus from the environment to current the job at hand; reloading the gun. It also has 16:9 and 480p support for those who are able to make use of them too.
Lighting is used brilliantly throughout the game.
Equally as impressive is the use of sound throughout Black, Rarely have guns heard this good in a game. Everything is loud and crisp with each gun sounding different from one another. The use of 5.1 sound is amazing as you hear each gunshot from your AK-47, each enemy yelling pain and each explosive barrel testing the limits of your subwoofer. Call of Duty withstanding, you won’t find anything that sounds as good as Black does. Music is used sparingly, but fits the game well much like the way Half-Life 2 does things. The voice acting isn’t too bad either, especially in the pre-level cutscenes that are reasonably well acted, if entirely forgettable. In game your character does have an annoying tendency to shout over his radio at all times, killing the immersion in some of the quieter areas of the game as you’re trying to move through a room without being heard.
Black is one of those games that makes life tough for a reviewer. How do you rate a game that’s immensely enjoyable, but flawed in a few vital areas? For all the enjoyment the chaos and destruction brings, it’s hard to ignore its short length, lack of multiplayer and inconsistent AI. Black has all the components of a great FPS – the guns are a joy to use, the control is wonderfully smooth and the level design remains interesting throughout, but it somehow falls short of greatness. The core gameplay is an adrenaline rush from start to finish thanks to the fast paced combat and set pieces, but its old-school, arcade style design mean there’s little else when you look deeper than flashy explosions and gritty headshots. Black is definitely a game all FPS fans should try, just given its length and lack of options, it’s a game that would be best holding out for a price drop before investing.
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