Game Review: Black

Inspired by fellow classmate Eric's post on game realism, I decided to return to a well kept secret in the world of first person shooters: Black. Your character is a special operations soldier named Jack Keller who is on the hunt for a rogue American agent responsible for a professional terrorist organization called 7th Wave. You have to battle your way through various urban landscapes including military border patrols, industrial loading docks and a real creepy bombed out asylum. Black provides what IGN.com calls a "100% visceral experience 100% of the time" and the guys over at IGN are pretty much bang on.

Without question, the most incredible feature of this game is its graphics. Criterion, the company responsible for Black has gone above and beyond what is expected of a shooter, delivering an awesome and engaging treat for the video game senses. Glass will shatter, concrete and wood will disintegrate under a hail of gunfire, and you get to see lots and lots of explosions. Find yourself out of grenades? Just try shooting any of the various explosive objects that are littered throughout each level. And given that you are moving through war torn regions under intense military control, theres lots of targets of opportunity. Glee.

These pillars were in good shape, but they got in the way of Kellar's bullets. Oh yeah, and the bad guys aren't doing too well either..

The game play is smooth, nothing exceptional for the genre, however the extra effort that Criterion put into the games graphics goes above and beyond any other shooter I've played. For instance, everything is governed by real life physics so that when you fire a sniper rifle over a long distance, it takes a few seconds to reach its target. The opposing soldiers will use flanking maneuvers to try to gain a better position on you, and you can hear them communicating along with putting up with regular radio chatter from your own teammates in certain levels. Generally the AI is pretty simple minded, but theres enough challenge to make it interesting (especially on the higher difficulty levels) without feeling like you're shooting up mannequins all game.

The game has two major flaws that I found, which IGN also cites as the game's biggest flaws (see their video review and lots of in-game footage here). The first is a lack of a multi player option, which could have opened the game up to a much larger group of gamers. As it stands, its just a short yet engaging single player game that has very little lasting power. Which brings me to Black's second flaw: the game only lasts about 5 hours total. Usually a good game will last between 10 and 15 hours, with the exception of RPG's which can last much longer (some can exceed 60 hours, or go as long as the gamer can stand playing). However, its short length is probably a good thing because otherwise the game would get dull.. All that running and shooting can only fill so much time, and the storyline can only make a game go so far before it becomes tedious to follow.

Overall, I give this game a great review because of its excellent audio and visual effects, smooth game play and its realistic feel. It loses points for the lack of multi-player options and the one dimensional storyline (which seems to me like a Tom Clancey novel), and an extra .5 deduction for the stupidly long intro sequence and lack of a way to skip the cinematic scenes.

Sheel-Score: 7.5/10