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Dom Robinson reviews
EA Games
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1
- Widescreen: Yes
- Dolby Digital 5.1: Yes
- Xbox Live-enabled: No
- Downloadable content: No
So many games promise so much and don’t deliver. Black certainly delivers an intense and engaging experience.
Black does have a plot but it’s one that doesn’t dominate the task in hand whatsoever and as youstart each of the levels, few in numbers, a cut-scene will play out but after a couple of these you’ll justwant to be getting into the thick of the action and not have to worry about the whys and wherefores.
If you have a Dolby Digital 5.1 setup then you’ll welcome the moment the main screen appears as yourears are deafened by the repeated “BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!” of a rifle getting your attention before youselect an option.
The title refers to the Black Ops marines of which you’re a part, but while it’s a single-player gameyou’ll occasionally have help from team members who come along. Thankfully, you don’t have to try anddirect them all over the place – so don’t worry if you’re not a fan of strategy games – and betterstill they won’t always rush into the heat of enemy gunfire only to get shot down five seconds laterlike a dimwit.
Luck must play a part sometimes, though, as in one section where you’re being attacked by snipers, someof them have single-shot guns which they use while you have the chance to crouch down behind headstones ina graveyard, but later on as you walk through enemy trenches that snake in all directions the structureof the enemy’s territory is such that they can literally come at you from all sides and they don’t justuse guns… some have rocket launchers too! Don’t worry, there’s one or two of those for you to use aswell but you can’t carry everything at once (two guns seemed to be the limit, plus grenades of course,which makes a nice change from the average first-person-shooter that lets you run around while carryingan arsenal that’d embarrass the Terminator!) and you’re going to have to work out what you need and when,then go back across difficult terrain to recover the weapon you need next. It is not easy.
In fact, sometimes it can be down-right difficult to get through a level and, unless you pass a checkpointalong the way, it’s back to the beginning when you get capped.
Even though I’m only in my early thirties I can still be a cynical old Hector, so when a game promises“Black is a fresh and unique take on the first-person shooter”, part of me has a hard timebelieving that and having played video games for my whole life it takes something great to impress me.Black does achieve that, and so much so that it has that “just one more go” factor, partly becauseyou want to strive to reach the end of the current level and also because you don’t want the bastard enemyto beat you! It’s also very immersive so drags you right in while you’re not realising and leaves youwanting more when you have to return to reality.
The graphics have the same problem with close-up detail asHalf Life 2,but I’ll let that slide to a degree because it’s brilliant the way you can hide behind many an obstaclein order to get a better viewpoint from afar and shoot away at the scores of enemies to be done away with.This might be difficult to describe in a review but once you play you’ll soon understand. A combination ofcrouching behind things, then zooming in on your target and moving about slightly to get in position willgive a most satisfying result when you pull off a great kill.
Time to pay a visit to the whinge corner now, but there’s nothing here which should put you offtaking part in the Black experience.
The game prides itself on how you can blast away and makes it sound like there’ll be as much sceneryleft as if you’d gone to town as the Hulk jumping up and down on everything. However, while you can shootat pretty much everything, as promised, only the assigned things will fall apart,a la Red Faction.If that detracts from your enjoyment of the game then you’re really not paying attention as they could’vebuilt all that in but then it would’ve come on several discs and made the Xbox slow down to a crawl as itcalculated the trajectory of every bullet into the distance, etc. The game physics do plenty here to keepthe game fresh and entertaining as you make your way through the level.
There is no jump button which is frustrating at first, but there’ll still be a workaround to get to whereyou want to go. There’s also no compass so you can go round in circles sometimes (particularly in the jungle),and if you’re accompanied by someone and they come out with “Enemy at 12 o’clock…”, etc. erm… how doyou know?
Also, there is a difference between “first aid” and “health pack”. The former patches up your health whilethe latter lets you store ‘first aid’ for later and you can hold three of these maximum. At first this wasconfusing as the game told me I picked up a spare first aid pack but it didn’t show up as me holding one.D’oh!
There’s occasionally some foibles, too, such as the non-death of a baddie when stood right in front of a hugeexplosive tanker that I shot at.
In fact, there seems to be too many baddies standing next to explosive barrels and the like, but it wasstill nice to find when I tossed a grenade into a building in the hope of doing some damage to the peopleinside that the whole place went up like World War III! That was a bit too easy there, but it still has thepotential to be rock hard when you’re running out of health and can’t find any packs about.
All that said, this is still a game that every fan of first-person-shooters must play, even if it’s justtrying out on a rental for a night because you’ll want to keep it for longer than that. The action is fastand frenetic, the sound is loud – plus the directional audio cues keep you on your toes and despite a fewniggles at first it’s very easy to get into.
You’ll soon learn also that just rushing in all guns blazingisn’t always the answer – sometimes it’s good to go a little bit off the beaten track into the bushes of thejungle section, for example, to hide from the enemy while walking through the forest before you strike.
Let’s hope the eventual sequel is as much fun.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.