'Black' Review: Gun Porn and a Fetish for Reagan Era Destruction (XboxOz360)

XboxOz360 writes:

Back in 2006 on the eve of the original Xbox's demise, renowned developer Criterion of Burnout fame released a naked, high energy homage to the FPS genre. It was a slickly produced Eastern Bloc romp, juiced up on steroids and widespread collateral damage that became as guilty a pleasure as any action movie from the 1980's. Courtesy of Microsoft's Xbox Originals this game has now been re-released as a 1200MP download.

So is it worth the price of admission to the latest Rambo flick? Well if first impressions counted for everything, the answer is a resounding yes, but that's not the case and so for Black the answer is not so straightforward...

[highdro]

y review a game that old now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[Superfragilistic]

The game was re-released on Xbox Originals last month, hence the new review. You could of read the description above to find that out! lol

Personally I thought it was pretty tight and was an almost old-school shooter in its simplicity. Still looks good to!

Would be nice to see a sequel really push the next gen hardware to the limits, and give some competition to the destruction orgy of Battlefield: Bad Company.

[pharmd]

this game was awesome on ps2, thats all i remember of it, but its DEFINITELY worth dl'n if you dont have it

great game

i wish they would make a next gen sequel!!!

[Timesplitter14]

Ok... delete this story

[MK_Red]

Wow, an old and flawed review. This game was a classic and one of the best FPS games of last gen. Lack of multiplayer was it's only major flaw and since I never care about multiplayer, Black was the perfect FPS for me.

Criterion FTW!

[Superfragilistic]

I disagree MK. I never played the original game and I only downloaded it because it was $15. I can understand why the game would've rocked in its time but I tend to agree with the reviewer who marks it down because a re-released Black has to be compared to current competition like CoD4 and Bioshock.

EDIT: And according to the site the review was published 31 May 2008. So it's not old.

Having said all that I'd love to see a BLACK 2. :)

EDIT:

@MK I agree with you if the game was being reviewed in context of its time. For its time I'd give it a 9/10.

But the angle of the reviewer is specifically whether it's worth 1200 Microsoft Points today as a download when there's so much else to play.

[MK_Red]

Well, of course in the age of BioShock and COD4 it loses most of it's magic but Black had that graphics and gameplay way before PS3 and 360 were released!

Nut I understand what you mean about the review being about the modern release. Still, I think all old games should be treated a bit more different. All oldies may look pale compared to modern titles but they were great back in the day :)

[Dark General]

I like CoD4 online. It reminds me alot of Black with the fast paced action and the gun porn aspects (reloading animations are top notch). It reminds me alot like of Black and i think if Black had a online mode it would be kind of like CoD4 online.

[Clinton514]

No need to review the same EXACT game. There were no changes made to it.

Suggestion: don't click through.

[highdro]

wtf....makes no sence!!!!!!

[Aclay]

I can't believe that this game got a 7.5/10. BLACK was one of the best shooters I ever played on the PS2 and that game had some of the best graphics in a PS2 game at that time. But I do remember that BLACK was only a Single Player game and there was no Online, so maybe that's why it got a low score... also Black was pretty short too, there was only like 7 or 8 levels, but it still was a good game. I can't even remember how many times I've played that game over and over again.

I wish that EA would make a BLACK 2 or something because I know that it would rival shooters like Call of Duty 4.

[AppleSlime]

Not trying to start a riot here...just throwin' that out.

Seriously, though, aside from the retarded story, and over-abundance of exploding barrels Black is a DAMN solid FPS.

[gaminoz]

That's because Haze is ordinary at best from what I played. It doesn't bring much new at all (It's like Turok without the dinos or the foiliage that moves around), whereas Black, though also not original, brought something to the shooter table at the time.

Is Black worth the download price now? Well it's worth it more than Haze is worth today's full retail, that's for sure.

[Snoozer282]

Black was ace, more greatness from Criterion.

[XboxOZ360]

One thing that Black added to games of that "era" was persistent destructible environments . . something many of the newest 360 and PS3 titles do not have or are only now starting to have.

In Black, you could shoot out any window that you spotted within a scene. If you shot it in the corner, the glass would shatter diagonally, shot it in the middle and the whole pane broke. Shoot a window frame and the frame broke, as did door frames, walls etc.

If you knew a guy was on the other side of the wall, and you had a shotie . . hello dead guy . . . Straight through the wall, taking half the wall with it. Try that in COD2 COD 3, it was only starting to be included in GRAW 2 and in COD4 (full penetration perk). Shoot the ground in COD2/3 and see what happens, do it in Black and see the difference, you'll be surprised. Criterion used the same engine they used in their Burnout destruction derby style racers in Black to get a similar reactive environment, and it works perfectly

Short, yeah, if you RUSHED through it you could do it in 6-8 hours but then you couldn't do it on the hard level until you played it through once on normal, then to get Black-Ops open, you had to play it through on Hard in order for Black-Ops to unlock. So there's around 25- 30 odd hours of gameplay doing all 3 top tier difficulty levels.

And lastly, but definitely not least, Black was SP for a reason, anyone bothering to following the storyline would see it was a "reflection of what took place", how in gods name can you make a MP out of a memory based game.? The ending gave way to the high probability of 2 more games.

There's a Black Storyline on the net that follows the game through two more iterations that was scripted up for Criterion (EA simply published the game btw), both of which are then played out as Co-Operative style games. As the ending dictated that you'll now be chasing the guy that got away right at the end, along with you will be the female lead you did some of the levels with in the first game.

Why is it that no one reads stuff, but makes comments based on no facts . . it just amazes me.