Black is about shooting 100+ terrorist in a 40+ minutes mission. Combined with Awesome Graphics.
Black is a very well done game in some ways, and god I hoped they would just put some more effort in making this game but they didn't, they probably got satisfied from what they done with the game visuals and sounds and forgot they had to create a Story and a Game play.
This game has the most sophisticated in game visuals I have ever encountered in any game, remember the shock you had when you first saw Doom 3, well it’s not that shocking after seeing Crysis and all those Next Gen movies, but still no one thought the Current PS2 would be able to deliver such awesome effects.
the terrain environment is almost fully destructible, all crates, barrels, glass which is everywhere, doors ... just about everything can be destroyed, even some building can be partially damaged.
when you get to the game Story, well there’s nothing to talk about really, you always get stuck with the pre-mission debriefing, your that guy I don't remember his name and someone is asking you about past accidents ... terrorist, bombing in Arab countries I think and some place called Trivia or Trivial I really cant remember because by the time I was at this point I had lost all interest in knowing why I was playing the game, I just wanted to get in the action and start the killing again.
You ever wanted a 50 hours game once again, well no Black isn’t that long, in fact the game is ridiculously short, you can complete the whole game in about a day or two, but trust me you won't, because each mission is about 20 to 55 minutes long. and I am not kidding, this has got to be the most boring level design I have ever seen in my whole life, and I have seen boring games before but not hat boring.
when you play the game you feel many feelings, frustration, enjoyment, and above all Bored.... let me explain in details.
The game starts of with you in the streets of somewhere, with some grenades and a handgun. You kill some enemies like 10 or so then now you get access to the AK47, So strong and unrealistically Accurate. kill kill kill, when playing on Easy Mode, you will find so many Health Packs even the lousiest wouldn’t need, later you will have access to the Mighty RPJ which will kill everyone on the screen. seriously.
If you haven’t seen any trailers, movies or even Screenshots then you apparently you don’t know what I am talking about. Well I will try to put you in the picture.
imagine this, you are holding a gun in your hands and your firing it, now you have to reload so you pull the empty magazine out and put the loaded one in. while your doing this you are looking at the gun so your focusing on the gun and therefore everything else on the screen gets out of focus and that’s how the Graphics of the game go, explosions look so real, even when you throw a grenade in a building you will see the windows exploding one by one just like in the movies. Now you are really satisfied and so happy that you picked this game and you’re really grateful.
Well you will keep this feeling until you play through the first couple of levels, then nothing. The game keeps repeating itself, maybe the only new thing you will find is a new machine gun and that’s about it. Now you are really bored and that’s not all yet. When you complete the first level in about 15 minutes you will tell yourself that’s aright because I am still not used to the controls and the game sensitivity maybe, but when you play along you find yourself playing a 50 minutes mission. Well I could keep playing the game in the same day after I beat this mission on normal.
the difference between Normal Mode and Easy Mode is HUGH, on Easy Mode there plenty and I mean Plenty of Health Packs everywhere, on Normal mode, well there isn’t much .... or enough, but every good player can play with less Mid kit but No One can replay any level when Dying in it after playing along for 40 minutes, yes I mean it. checkpoints Don’t count and you still have to do the Primary and some secondary objectives as well, but on easy mode you can simply die when your health is too low and you are running low on health packs and reload from the latest checkpoint and its more fun this way.
Did I mention the game weapons? Look, you get to use about 10 or so weapons, a very strong Hand gun sometimes with a silencer, Machine guns, which are weak and not very accurate, the Uzi and short range other machine guns are very strong and not accurate. and finally the mighty Shotgun ... the SPAS and the Pump Action the Spas sucks but the Pump Action is truly strong and surprisingly good at medium ranges.
ENEMIES..... The usual ones use your default weapon at each level, the stronger ones are the ones with the shotgun and the annoyingly two--magazine-at least-to-penetrate Vest. you must shoot him in the head to kill him and he moves so fast and later there’s those dudes with the shields ... the Steel shields cannot be destroyed so you must use a grenade, rocket or destroy something near them to kill them but the ones with the fibre shields can be killed after shooting about 100 or so bullets at them, and there’s default foes as well holding Mini gun and hiding in bunkers and that’s about it.
The game on Easy Mode isn’t Impossible to complete only on tougher Modes it is, not because enemies are smarter or there’s less health packs, its just because of the level design itself, level 5 might be easier than level 3 because level three is too long and have to kill more than 130 terrorist, but in another level you only have to kill 70 so you complete it in less time and this is much more fun.
A word to Black creators, when you started making this game and I know you have a very nice picture about the game in your minds, maybe you been pushed into making this awesome Idea into the absolutely Ugly game you released, if you were to make a sequel to this game I'd recommend that you put more effort into Game testing and level design; we all want longer games but we all hate the fact I cant go out because I been playing the same level for an hour and when I am about to finish it one man with a shotgun kill me so I must start over.
to all you gamers out there, I advice you to play this game, the effort made to make this game look absolutely beautiful can not be ignored, this game is worthy of being a Hollywood picture but as the Game play, Level Design, AI drags the game down.
all I can say eventually is Black isn’t a very good game but still its worthy of checking it out ... you might like it after all or I might be wrong all along.