Black is a first person shooter developed by Criterion, and released on the Xbox and
PlayStation 2 back in 2006, just over 10 years ago.
At the time, Criterion was most known for their wildly popular Burnout series, and the
studio decided to step out of their racing comfort zone and take their unique brand of
extreme and apply it to a first person shooter.
The result was of course, Black.
Despite Criterion being new to the FPS genre, Black was well received at the time.
IGN gave the game an 8.6 out of 10, stating: “BLACK is everything you'd ever want in
a shooter if all you ever wanted to do was shoot stuff.
It's an extremely focused game that offers one of the most visceral gaming experiences
you'll find anywhere.”
Eurogamer came to a similar conclusion, giving the game an 8/10 stating: “Thanks to Criterion's
otherworldly technical ability to pull off graphical effects that wouldn't look out of
place on next gen machines and some truly inspired set-pieces, BLACK is the most progressive
and exciting shooter to emerge on the console platforms for years.”
And finally, 1up.com gave the game a B-, proclaiming: “Like its namesake color, Black is bold
in its simplicity, an elemental force that makes a strong, singular statement: It intends
to be the most adrenaline-pumping, testosterone-infused shooter ever.
And in that regard, it succeeds.”
So, with an entire decade of time behind it, is Black still worthy of all the praise?
Let’s find out.
The game opens with a Black screen, as one would expect from a game called, Black.
The opening credits roll with some wonderfully haunting orchestrated music that would sound
right at home in a big budget movie.
It’s truly exceptional stuff.
After a few minutes, we get a montage of news clips letting us know this is a black ops
game.
After this, the story begins.
Surprisingly, the game uses live action FMV, rather than computer generated.
This harkens back to the FMV craze of the 90’s, and I find this departure from the
norm a welcome addition.
Unfortunately, the story isn’t much to write home about.
Basically, you play the role of a black ops soldier named Kellar.
Apparently Kellar likes to improvise and go off-script, leading to some uncomfortable
circumstances for the US government.
You are told if you reveal what you know and cooperate, you’ll be a free man.
Otherwise, spend life behind bars.
Of course you decide to reveal the actions of the past 4 days.
And this, is how the story plays out.
The interrogation is the present, and the actual gameplay are the missions Keller is
revealing to the government.
Keller’s mission was to take down the arms dealer and terrorist group, Seventh Wave,
headed by an American named Lennox.
Lennox ultimately captures Kellar, but lets him go, for no real reason.
And this is pretty much the whole narrative.
It doesn’t really make sense, but it serves the purpose of getting us from location to
location and providing a break in the action.
Speaking of action, this is the real heart of Black.
In interviews with magazines and post mortems posted on their old website, Criterion stated
they wanted to create a first person shooter that put 100% of the focus on, well, shooting.
Everything else takes a back seat, like the aforementioned story.
There isn’t even a map.
While I found the bare bones approach somewhat offputting at first, I came to appreciate
the simplicity.
It reminds me a bit of a classic retro game, where developers focused their game around
just one or two core mechanics, and then perfected those mechanics, instead of cramming unnecessary
features into the game.
Like many shooters since Halo, you can carry just two weapons and a handful of grenades.
These weapons occasionally offer different firing modes, like single shot, burst shot,
and fully automatic, in addition to optional silencers as well as zoom modes to help take
down far away foes.
The sniper rifle also offers a true scope, with 2 and 5 power magnification.
It all works rather seamlessly and the controls never get in the way of the game’s core
mission of letting you shoot bullets.
I don’t need to go too much into the strategy behind a limitation of two weapons either,
as it’s been done to death, but it adds a nice wrinkle to the gameplay, occasionally
forcing you to make a tough choice between a shotgun or sniper rifle as your secondary
weapon.
Again, nothing revolutionary.
As you would hope from a game focussed on shooting, the controls in Black are pretty
much perfect.
Over the past year I made my way through Red Faction, an early FPS on the PlayStation 2,
but found the aiming to be a bit outdated, feeling more like an N64 game.
I also made my way through Halo, which still feels extremely modern and smooth.
Black definitely falls more in line with Halo.
Now, I’m certainly not the most seasoned at this particular genre, but Black did a
wonderful job making me feel like a badass.
Aiming is very precise and the auto-aiming felt very natural, and it was very hard to
pick out moments when the game was providing me a bit of assistance.
And this is exactly what I’m looking for in a shooter, gentle guidance when needed,
but nothing abrupt to suck me out of the experience.
And of course, the experience is every bit as awesome as Criterion promised.
There are a number of reasons for this.
First, Black is a gorgeous game.
I’ve played more Xbox games than I have any other console, but Black just blows me
away.
The fundamentals are sound.
Level geometry is above average for the Xbox.
The gun models look excellent, enemies move naturally, buildings look wonderfully detailed,
and the texture work is terrific, especially considering the Xbox has just 64 megs of ram.
But beyond this are all of the special effects.
The particles definitely warrant a mention.
Every bullet on the screen seems to interact with the environment.
If it hits something metal, there are sparks, if it hits a wall, pieces break off, if it
hits a body, there is some blood splatter.
The screen is also constantly littered with smoke and dust effects, reacting realistically
with the world presented.
It’s truly stunning stuff.
The lighting is also wonderful.
Like a well shot movie, Black does a great job using lighting to help enhance the scenery.
In this outdoor area, the moon light leaks through the trees, lighting the way forward
in a very natural way.
In another area, the sunrise combined with overcast, creates a gloomy mood over this
cemetery.
Further still, the mid-day sun paints a nice contrast on this warzone, helping the war
torn area feel even more lifeless.
Lastly, indoor areas are lit with harsh lights, enhancing the claustrophobic feel.
Another neat trick is how the field of view is drastically reduced, blurring out your
surroundings as you reload your weapon.
And of course, when you are down to one bar of health, the screen goes black and white,
and into a slow-motion mode.
I love little touches like this.
Next is the sound.
While the visuals are terrific, it’s still obvious this is a 10 year old game.
Acoustically however, Black still feels like a brand new AAA title.
Again the developers used the sound to enhance the simple act of shooting.
Every single bullet makes a fantastic, if not exaggerated sound, making each and every
bullet feel like a special event.
Enemy bullets offer the same weight, and the game engine will even alter enemy bullet sounds
so each is unique and distinct.
The orchestrated music from the game’s opening credits is sprinkled through the game as well.
Key battles in each of the stages is highlighted by a booming score, like you'd expect from
a 90’s action flick.
In fact, this scene right here looks as though it was ripped straight from The Rock.
Again, I love little touches like this.
Criterion set out to make the act of shooting a gun the central part of the game, and I’d
say they knocked it out of the park.
From the smooth controls, sublime audio, and terrific graphical effects, Black delivers
the goods and offers perhaps the most satisfying sense of shooting I’ve ever experienced
in a video game.
But all of this shooting bliss would be for naught if there weren’t fun environments
to actually shoot in.
Again, I have to say, Black delivers.
I mentioned the lack of some sort of map was offputting at first.
The truth is, the game doesn’t need a map.
While the levels look very dense, complex, and open, the progress is extremely linear.
I didn’t even notice it at first, but every object, every enemy, and every piece of light
is gently guiding you forward.
As you move from enemy to enemy, you’re slowly making your way forward through the
map.
It never feels like a corridor or pre-determined path either, there is just something extremely
polished about the overall map design.
Once in awhile you might notice you can’t backtrack.
You might have walked over a small step without even realizing it, but you can’t walk back
up it.
Black does not allow you to jump, but this is used to stop you from backtracking through
a stage and potentially getting lost.
There was only one time I didn’t understand how to progress forward, and this was because
two sets of stairs essentially looked the same, and I didn’t realize one set was actually
a new area.
In all, Black features 8 stages total.
The opening stage works as a tutorial of sorts, telling you how to swap weapons, throw grenades,
and the like.
It isn’t too obtrusive and playing through Black a second time, I didn’t find them
annoying in the least.
The remaining seven stages are the heart of the game.
Each of course is a flashback from the ongoing interrogation, taking you from your early
mission of taking down the Seventh Wave, to your final goal of taking down Lennox.
This isn’t a spoiler either, Lennox is obsessed over for pretty much the entire interrogation,
leading to no other logical conclusion.
Black offers three different difficulty levels, plus a fourth unlockable difficulty.
The biggest difference between the three difficulty levels are the secondary objectives and the
health packs.
Black features no regenerative health, instead offering a life bar similar to shooters of
old.
So if you’re playing on Hard, uh, don’t get shot.
The secondary objectives are basically collecting goals.
Throughout the stages are documents to collect, or evidence to destroy.
That’s pretty much it.
Beating this game on normal, with my moderate skill level, I found the difficulty was average.
Now, I tend to sit back and go for headshots, play extra conservative when low on health,
and save my grenades for emergencies.
Perhaps different play styles will yield different results.
Generally speaking, I would die once a level until the second half of the game.
Here, different ambush situations would present themselves and I would fail, and have to start
back at a checkpoint.
I would try a different strategy, or find a secret sniper rifle, and attack the situation
differently, learning from my mistakes, and then find success.
I never found myself overwhelmed with challenge, but I never found myself breezing through
a stage either.
Black is relentless and there are very few areas that are not packed with action.
The difficulty and challenge felt satisfying, and never frustrating.
I would call this, well balanced.
This brings us to the final level.
Here, we have finally reached Lennox’s underground base.
As one would hope from a final level, this is pretty tough.
You face an onslaught of difficult situations, from heavily armed enemies, well covered enemies,
and an abundance of both.
The final section is brutal.
A door slams shut behind you, forcing you to fight through an absurd hoard of enemies
with a limited stock of ammo and health packs available to complete the mission.
The final wave features a barrage of enemies with machine guns behind a fortified wall
while Lennox launches RPGs at you.
It’s a heart pounding moment, but when the dust clears and you make your way towards
the exit, you can’t help but feel an immense feeling of satisfaction.
Black threw everything it had at you, and you persevered.
The final cutscene reveals Lennox actually survived.
However, the government has created a false death for you, so you can proceed with taking
down the terrorist.
This leads perfectly into a sequel.
But that sequel, never came.
Queue, the credits.
So, I’ve offered quite a bit of praise for Black, but let's take a few moments to point
out some of it’s shortcomings.
First, there are only 8 stages.
Critics noted the lack of length a decade ago.
The single player campaign should take 6 hours assuming you don’t die, or closer to 8 if
you find yourself repeating a few of the trickier sections.
As a retro gamer, I find 6 to 8 hours to be totally adequate.
For one, it means I can play through it in a single sitting, and second, it means I’m
more inclined to play it again in the future.
If you do choose to play it again, you can either repeat the same difficulty with the
new silver weapons, offering unlimited ammo, or try a tougher difficulty.
Beating the game on hard unlocks Black Ops mode, which requires you locate all items
in a stage, without health packs, in order to beat the game.
This was another sticking point with Black.
There is nothing but a single player campaign.
No real unlockable content, no multi-player, nothing.
Just a 6 hour campaign.
So, at this point, I think I’ve covered just about everything there is to cover about
Black, which leads us to the question asked at the beginning.
Is Black still good?
Without a doubt, my answer is yes.
Black is still an extremely satisfying shooter.
While not high definition, the graphics are still pleasing with nice contrast and oversaturated
color, and the sound itself was way ahead of it’s time and is absolutely amazing.
But more important than all of this is the gameplay.
In all honesty, this is my new favorite first person shooter, as for as single player campaigns
go.
The simple act of shooting a virtual gun has never been as dramatic and satisfying as it
is in Black.
Something about the sound effects, tight level design, and buttery smooth controls really
clicks with me.
Sure Black makes a few minor missteps: the story feels like an afterthought, the enemies
don’t really change in the second half of the game, and some better unlockable stuff
would have been welcomed.
But these things are very minor.
Black delivers the goods where it counts.
The action is nonstop, and the focus of the game, shooting, is always at the forefront
of the experience.
If for some reason you passed this by back in 2006, whether you already moved onto the
Xbox 360, or were saving up for a PlayStation 3, spend a few bucks and give this one a go.