Review

A few years back Criterion Games arrived on the scene with a little racing game called Burnout. As we know, this arcade racer took a fairly tired genre and stripped out all the bullshit and concentrated on keeping it fun. Now three blockbusting sequels later they are one of the most successful developers around and setting their sights on another seemingly exhausted genre - the FPS, but can they work the same magic twice?

Thanks mainly to the Tom Clancy games, the modern FPS has been getting more and more complex. Consequently they have all begun to get a bit tedious and, dare I say it, boring. Black is all about keeping it simple: take an arsenal of high-powered weaponry and create mayhem, carnage and death (preferably in that order), but more importantly it’s also about keeping it fun. Want to open a door here and all you have to do is pick-up a shotgun and blast it off its hinges!

The tenuous, tacked on plot merely serves as a reason for you to run around shooting. Each level is deliberately clichéd so you’ll find yourself waging war across bombed out streets, dockyards and graveyards but they could have been set anywhere as the action very rarely allows you to look around and admire the scenery.

This is actually a shame as well, as it’s certainly a looker, possibly even the best on the Xbox. As you run around shooting you’ll see dust particles from newly formed bullet holes, clouds of smoke from that truck you just blew up and magazine cases flying out of all weapons. Then there’s the sound, which makes brilliant use of surround sound to help engulf you in the moment, it’s highly recommended that you pump the volume right up to get the proper experience.

Two very questionable decisions, however, prevent Black from attaining the greatness it so clearly deserves. This is a title crying out for online support yet there’s not so much as a split screen co-op mode and this is unforgivable for a game that clearly would be superb against human opponents. It’s not like they would have had to design new levels either as there are many sections that seem perfect for deathmatches! Secondly the FMV used for the cut-scenes is jarring and, worst of all, unskippable.

So it would seem that Black has borrowed a little more than it bargained for from the Burnout series as there was a big gaping void of untapped potential in the first episode there too. Hopefully this means we can expect an improved sequel sometime in the near future. I certainly hopes so.

Even with these flaws however Black is still well worth investing your time and money, as there are plenty of secrets to find and multiple difficulty levels to try out. At times it out-shines even Halo 2 for adrenaline-fuelled action but I just can’t help feeling a little disappointed.

About the Review

Platform

Microsoft Xbox

Developer

Criterion Games

Publisher

Electronic Arts

Released

24th February 2006