Surprise comes in many forms
I have a very specific attachment with Black as I own the demo disc for the PS2. I played the hell out of that demo disc but never played the full game until now. I have to say I am pretty damn impressed with the game overall and had a good time despite its flaws.
Ahead of its time
When you play this game it doesn’t dawn on you it's an OG xbox/ PS2 title as they really pushed the hardware to its limits. To explain, The game looks VERY good for the time when you once again consider what platform it's on. Guns feel great to shoot and sound great and the area by area gameplay is just fun even though repetitive. Attached to all this is a nice little story that we will sadly never see a continuation of which is sad since I do feel this game deserved way more than it got. Playing through Black makes me wish Criterion would make another story driven FPS game because the potential was unreal with Black through and through.
Issues
Sadly the game does have some issues that held it back for me but not overall ruining the experience completely. To begin , While the gunplay is fun the levels become extremely repetitive as they never try to break the formula. Most levels play out the same exact way making you go through the same exact hordes of enemies only adding very few new types of enemies along the way. It's a blessing that the core gameplay is such a good time because this issue doesn’t fully ruin the game for me personally. However , what I felt DID hold the game back was its very high TTK. To explain , you will notice how magazines are extremely large for every gun ranging from 60 - 90 for SMGs and assault rifles which sounds like a lot. However, you will quickly learn this is due to the fact that enemies have an insane amount of health and if you don’t focus shots onto their head you will be dumping most of your clip into one enemy. You will need to mix grenades into the mix as they will shred enemies and shotguns will as well shred enemies. Furthermore , keep an eye out for special guns in each level as they are the most OP weapons during the game. I just wish they balanced out the TTK with the regular weapon pool because some sections were annoying due to this. As mentioned before the enemy types are very limited and this hits extremely hard when you get into sections where you are supposed to take out a specific person. Due to how bare bones the enemies are, some sections which should feel epic end up feeling like every other section. “Go and defeat this person!!!” okay cool but why do they look like enemy #93328 doesn't aid in its story when the section by section gameplay doesn’t add specific bosses or unique enemies for specific characters. Maybe I seriously missed it but I as well didn’t see any way to change camera sensitivity which quickly annoyed me as the camera moves soooo damn slow. I can bypass no jump ,and sprint but having to drag your camera from country to country to aim at a damn enemy becomes annoying sometimes.
In the end
As I said , despite its flaws I honestly had way more of a fun time then I would have ever expected with this game. I am glad I finally got around to it and do recommend it as it's pretty cheap to buy and is on xbox game pass. With games like Dead rising , GOW1 , Oblivion and Saints row 1 coming out the same year it's no wonder this game failed. I never understood why they left it to rot on the previous gen consoles. It's truly a shame. If they could remake this game and modernize it I honestly believe it would be a hit.
I have a very specific attachment with Black as I own the demo disc for the PS2. I played the hell out of that demo disc but never played the full game until now. I have to say I am pretty damn impressed with the game overall and had a good time despite its flaws.
Ahead of its time
When you play this game it doesn’t dawn on you it's an OG xbox/ PS2 title as they really pushed the hardware to its limits. To explain, The game looks VERY good for the time when you once again consider what platform it's on. Guns feel great to shoot and sound great and the area by area gameplay is just fun even though repetitive. Attached to all this is a nice little story that we will sadly never see a continuation of which is sad since I do feel this game deserved way more than it got. Playing through Black makes me wish Criterion would make another story driven FPS game because the potential was unreal with Black through and through.
Issues
Sadly the game does have some issues that held it back for me but not overall ruining the experience completely. To begin , While the gunplay is fun the levels become extremely repetitive as they never try to break the formula. Most levels play out the same exact way making you go through the same exact hordes of enemies only adding very few new types of enemies along the way. It's a blessing that the core gameplay is such a good time because this issue doesn’t fully ruin the game for me personally. However , what I felt DID hold the game back was its very high TTK. To explain , you will notice how magazines are extremely large for every gun ranging from 60 - 90 for SMGs and assault rifles which sounds like a lot. However, you will quickly learn this is due to the fact that enemies have an insane amount of health and if you don’t focus shots onto their head you will be dumping most of your clip into one enemy. You will need to mix grenades into the mix as they will shred enemies and shotguns will as well shred enemies. Furthermore , keep an eye out for special guns in each level as they are the most OP weapons during the game. I just wish they balanced out the TTK with the regular weapon pool because some sections were annoying due to this. As mentioned before the enemy types are very limited and this hits extremely hard when you get into sections where you are supposed to take out a specific person. Due to how bare bones the enemies are, some sections which should feel epic end up feeling like every other section. “Go and defeat this person!!!” okay cool but why do they look like enemy #93328 doesn't aid in its story when the section by section gameplay doesn’t add specific bosses or unique enemies for specific characters. Maybe I seriously missed it but I as well didn’t see any way to change camera sensitivity which quickly annoyed me as the camera moves soooo damn slow. I can bypass no jump ,and sprint but having to drag your camera from country to country to aim at a damn enemy becomes annoying sometimes.
In the end
As I said , despite its flaws I honestly had way more of a fun time then I would have ever expected with this game. I am glad I finally got around to it and do recommend it as it's pretty cheap to buy and is on xbox game pass. With games like Dead rising , GOW1 , Oblivion and Saints row 1 coming out the same year it's no wonder this game failed. I never understood why they left it to rot on the previous gen consoles. It's truly a shame. If they could remake this game and modernize it I honestly believe it would be a hit.