BLACK Review – Xbox

What is it?

1st person shooter – everything explodes!

Is it fun?

Yep

Is it worth the money?

No – too short, combined with no multiplayer, naff story and weak replay incentives.

Tell me more!

I`ll keep this brief. First up, the good stuff:

• Explodeable scenery and destructable cover, great stuff.
• Mostly superb level design.
• It’s a pretty-looking game, lots of blur and bloom effects.
• Lots to shoot (always a good thing in a shoot-em-up).
• Enemies that pretend to act smarter than in most games (circling around you, etc) – and I don’t remember any instances of the enemy doing any really dumb stuff, like ignoring you when only feet away (which they sometimes do in Killzone).
• Good variety of distinct weapons to muck about with.
• Controls are good! You don’t feel like they hinder you like in some console shooters.

Now for the bad:

• Secondary objectives are rubbish – find red documents on the walls, or briefcases, etc. Seems thrown in at the last minute to ‘add value for money’.
• The game is too damn short, and most levels seem a bit samey with just a few that stand out.
• The pre-mission FMV looks and sounds cheap and nasty, cliched story and lots of wizzy video effects to hide the naffness of the video production. It doesn’t really sit well with the exciting madness of the game and doesn’t work as a calm contrast either.
• The game is not realistic in the way you (the player) can survive shooting your way through an entire army, so why make the FMV a poor ’24’ rip-off?

Roll on the sequel I say, more locations around the world would be cool, as would a less contrived FMV style (hopefully more like Metal Gear Solid cheesyness). This is a well-made product, but too darn short for the cash they are asking for :(