BLACK: Game Review

BLACK was supposed to be this amazing first person shooting RPG, or atleast that's what all the people around me seemed to think. I bought the game off of eBay for around $30, and wanted to play it as soon as possible. The graphics were amazing, to say the least. However, the game lacked original content. Games like Call of Duty 2, and older games such as Halo all have their own original storyline. Call of Duty 2 is based off of World War II, and the Halo games are games with a storyline coming strait from the mind of the creator.

Not only did BLACK lack creativity, but it was very repetitive. The game is all just running around shooting people. Though this is a great stress reliever, it becomes quite dull after a while. Call of Duty 2 has some levels where you're in a turret of a tank, of a plane, and things of this sort. BLACK is definitely lacking in this category. The game has amazing graphics, which kept me into the game for quite some time, but none the less it was still a very repetitive game.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is the short cutscenes in the middle of levels. The levels apparently take quite some time to load, because 5 minute cutscenes play in between each level. This may be to cover up the fact that the loading takes so long, because there is no way to skip these small video clips. That being said, the cutscenes definitely have a great mix of animation and actual footage, and the cutscenes definitely help tell the story.

So can the game really back up all the hype people are making about it? The great cutscene on BLACK's trailer shows some pretty cool special effects, such as destructible environments, basically meaning almost everything in the game can be damaged, broken, or blown to bits. That's a pretty great aspect of the game; one of its best. Though there is the destructible environment aspect, the game doesn't take this to the extreme that Battlegrounds 2 is expected to, which will be released later this year. The game has destructible everything, including sections of walls, rather than the whole building collapsing. But that's not what this article is about.

So I guess the bottom line is this: the game has really great graphics, but the storyline isn't as impressive as expected, and the destructible environment effect certainly could, and should improve.