Great graphical showpiece for current gen systems that will satiate your hunger for explosions, destruction and guns!
Controls in the game take a little bit of time to get used to, but feel second nature once you play through a level or two. The default controller layout wasn't the best for me but you can map the button commands to fit your play style needs. There is no look adjustment so you can look around quicker, nor is there a jump button. The lack of look adjustment was frustrating at first but I realized later that this gave the game a more authentic feel to it. Aiming the rifle was pretty easy and the different fire modes were most helpful with doing head shots and conserving ammo when a secret weapon was found. Moving the character around was easy and second nature to me, along with arcing your throw for grenades. The melee attacks seemed soft, because I never got the feeling that I really butt-stroked a guy with my AK-47, even though he would go flying backwards. The A.I. for the game was decent. The AI usually would always try and find me by splitting up and flanking me which made me act more defensively until I had put some of them down. There were some problems I noticed with the AI. For example, I would headshot an enemy without a silencer and drop him to the ground but this did not seem to alert the two other guards within 30 feet of him. AI also seemed to have trouble tracking me when I got really close to them. I hope Criterion beefs that up if they make a sequel.
The gameplay was fun and very immersive for myself. The intense firefights made me keep my head on a swivle and my eyes wide for enemy troops. It always felt like there were lots of them to deal with and I had to have some decent situational awareness to where they might be coming from. Then, whey RPGs were fired on me, the intensity kicked up to a 10! Trying to shoot the RPG guy while dealing with the baddies on the ground got pretty intense quite a few times. While playing the game, you will find that you cannot charge ahead with guns blazing because you will die quickly, even with your health packs. This game forces you to be deliberate with your actions. You will find yourself firing for a while, then finding cover as the enemy returns fire to you. This gave the game a more thinking approach rather than run through a shoot everything while expecting to live. Black also added two tension builders to the game: health packs and when you could save. Going through on normal and easy difficulty allows you to pick up health packs to store for later use. However, when your health gets low, you the player must actively use a health pack because they will not refill your health automatically. This gives you another item to pay attention to, along with being aware of enemy positions, where cover is and how many bullets are left in your clip. In Black you cannot save whenever you want. You must work your way through the mission in order to save your progress. If you die, then you must go back to the last checkpoint and work your way through everything you just did. Now, I didn't die on normal difficulty, but I probably will on hard and Black Ops.
The audio experience of Black was great! Each firearm had it's own unique sound to it, much like they do in really life. Explosions had a great bass sound to them and when I was receiving enemy fire, the sounds of richocets and whizzing bullets had me literally moving my head to avoid being hit. I can only imagine what this game would be like with a surround sound system.
As for the game's value, felt I had to mark it down some because the number of unlockables is pretty small, from what I've seen. I can definitely see myself playing through this game quite a few more times, but there isn't much else to do but play through the game. I would have liked to see the game extended beyond its 6-10 hours (depending on how much time you spend looking around) of campaign play. The end did seem stark. I thought I might be facing off against the main baddy, along with a bunch of his Seventh Wave cronnies, but this was not the case. The end does leave it open to a sequel, which I will look forward to.
In the end, Criterion did deliver exactly what they said, a FPS that makes guns the star of the show, lots of destruction, creative kills, bigger and louder and every bullet is your baby. They delivered a straight forward shooter, pure and simple, like Duke Nukem 3D. Why did you play through Duke Nukem? To shoot and destroy your enemy for little reason. For this reason, I really love Black. If you like the shooter genre and want a focus on guns, shooting and destruction, pick this title up. If not, rent it and enjoy the destruction anyway.