Product Description

BLACK is the world's most brutal and enigmatic strike force -- and you've just joined them. The BLACK tactical squad operates under the cloak of complete anonymity and deniability to protect the US from threats foreign and domestic. It answers to no one, allowing it to carry out brutal and covert operations around the globe. From manipulating politicians to controlling intelligence networks and militaries, BLACK operatives are trained at the highest level in psychological warfare, espionage, and lethal arts. Go deep into the world of clandestine warfare as you use any means necessary to get the job done.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3837 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 15104
• Released on: 2006-02-28
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Xbox
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Features

• BLACK operatives do not hide in shadows or sneak behind walls waiting for the right time to engage their foe - they destroy the wall, enemy and anything else that gets in their way
• An explosive arsenal of weaponry lets you experience the awe-inspiring power of the world's most exotic lethal firepower
• Reduce cities to rubble in a world where virtually nothing is impervious to your bullets -- if you can see it, you can shoot it!
• Visceral, destructive action sucks you deep into the gameplay as you blaze and blast your own path through open-ended enviornments
• Use destructible worlds and explosive objects to take out enemies in cover, frag multiple enemies at once or just wreak massive destruction for its own sake

From the Manufacturer
Join the world's most brutal and enigmatic strike force. The Black tactical squad operates under the cloak of complete anonymity and deniability to protect the U.S. from threats foreign and domestic. It answers to no one, allowing it to carry out brutal and overt operations around the globe.

Features:

• Overt action: Black operatives do not hide in shadows or sneak behind walls waiting for the right time to engage their foe--they destroy the wall, the enemy, and anything else that gets in their way.
• The guns are the stars: an explosive arsenal of bleeding-edge weaponry lets you experience the awe-inspiring power of the world's most exotic lethal firepower.
• If you can see it, you can shoot it: reduce cities to rubble in a world where virtually nothing is impervious to your bullets.
• Get your blood pumping: Adrenaline is your friend. Visceral, destructive action sucks you deep into the gameplay as you blaze and blast your own path through open-ended environments.
• Black-style kills: use destructible worlds and explosive objects to take out enemies in cover, frag multiple enemies at once, or just wreak massive destruction for its own sake.

Customer Reviews

A thrilling, if momentary, diversion
"Black" is a thrilling, if temporary, diversion from other games with more depth and replay value. This is a fast-paced shooter that the developers have described as "gun porn". It's made by Critereon, the team that does the outstanding "Burnout" racing series. If you've ever played those games, you know they specialize in spectacular scenes of destruction.

"Black" doesn't disappoint in that regard. In fact, that's the whole point of the game. Basically, you are handed an arsenal of weapons and expected to expend as much ammo as possible shooting everything that moves, and a great deal of what doesn't. You shoot until something either dies or blows up, and there ain't much that doesn't blow up. Wooden planks blow up in this game, for crying out loud.

The gun models are highly detailed. Supposedly the head of Critereon decided to make the game after spending time at a Las Vegas gun range. The scenery graphics are decent, perhaps on par with "Mercenaries" but well shy of the Xbox gold standard set by the likes of the "Splinter Cell" series. From what I've seen of the first couple levels it's a bit dark. The trick is to find the fuel cans and crates of explosives littered around the maps, and blast those to light up the area with serious fireworks.

Let me talk about the sound. Oh, the glorious sound! This game probably has the best sound of any Xbox game I've played. Despite the inclusion of 5.1 Dolby on a lot of Xbox games, I have never found in-game sounds to be especially satisfying. Not so here. Each gun sounds distinct, and deafeningly loud. Since I can only enjoy the smell of virtual napalm and cordite after my kid goes to bed, I have to keep things quiet. But this game is so outrageously noisy that I have to turn the sound system down to a setting that, if I was watching a DVD or TV, would be nearly inaudible. I'm not complaining, mind you. This is a good thing. At a normal setting, the sound effects rumble and boom like a thunderstorm in your living. Seriously, this is a huge component of the game's enjoyability, and I find it puzzling that more developers don't get this right.

I said "Black" will only be a temporary diversion for most people. That's because it's apparently really short. Seasoned FPS fans will probably be able to blow through it in 6 hours or so. I expect it will take a butterfingers like me more along the lines of 10 hours or more. There's no multiplayer whatever and very little replay value beyond unlocking silver weapons with unlimited ammo and finally an M16.

But what a ride in the meantime!

A frenetic FPS game
"Black" is a great FPS game. It is more of a "shoot everything that moves" game than a strategy shooter. It does require some thought to the tactics you need to complete a level and some of the levels are very tough. If you don't do some planning you probably won't get very far. The graphics are good, the sound effects great. There are several different weapons available, shotguns, SMG's, pistols etc. The AI is average with the bad guys being pretty predictable but still tough. It is an excting game that should be very challenging at the higher difficulty levels. I have been playing on "Normal" and it is tough. The violence and language are pretty rough so this is definitely not for young kids.

There's better "Gun Porn" available elsewhere......
Initially, Black was a disappointment, I felt like I was playing a game not much better than that of Terminator: Rise of the Machines, but Criterion's FPS turned out better than my initial impression. Black has been in development for as long as many of us can remember. And even after it's announcement, the title was quite elusive. But finally, Black is on store shelves, though it has met lukewarm critical and communal review, giving off the impression of an over hyped and generic shooter. And while to a significant extent it is indeed somewhat generic, it still offers some admirable qualities.

The story in Black really isn't why you play it, which is good because it is fairly simple and not very involving. You play a loose cannon named Jack Kellar, a CIA black ops agent who is facing dishonorable discharge and life in prison if he doesn't cooperate with the higher ups in pursuit of information on a weapons dealing terrorist operation known as "Seventh Wave", run by an ex-operative known as "Lennox". The story is told in an interrogation room, four days after Jack's first mission in Veblensk. This is the gist of Black's story, it's simple and nothing we haven't seen before in other first person shooters of this sort. While the subject of terrorism is timely, there is nothing truly captivating or interesting about the plot or any of the characters involved. Had Criterion payed more attention to this facet, Black would have been more motivating and appealing. Other than that, what it does, it does well in this respect. The cutscenes aren't hard to follow, and they certainly look great, but I did find myself hammering on the A and Start buttons trying to get to the next mission.

In the gameplay department, Black comes out shooting, and seriously never stops. Really, that's all you do. It's not that I mind old fashioned gameplay design all that much, but a lot of time has passed, and something more would have been ideal. Black really improves nothing, everything you see in Black has been done in series' like 007 and Volition's Red Faction, which featured destructible environments thanks to the GeoMod technology. Although unlike Red Faction and in some cases 007, there are no vehicles, so there is nothing to break up your primary activity. In fact, the amount of shooting in Black gave me a headache if I played for longer than a half an hour without a break. The game does not let up, cars are exploding, grenades are bursting, architecture is being utterly demolished, mines are blowing in chains of destruction and death, all while smoke is filling the air. It's a game that should be beaten one mission at a time. But even then, the fact that many missions are over a half an hour long, and your checkpoints aren't valid if you turn off your console and come back later, makes it even harder to load up the next day to finish a 45 minute mission. It's the most frustrating thing in the world when I reach a checkpoint but am tired of playing, and have only two choices: redo half of the mission or pause my game for the night. There is no practical choice, if you can't save at any time, anywhere, you should at least be able to save at checkpoints and turn off your console without having to start the mission all over again when you come back. This one aspect really bothered me about Black, because it is essentially forcing me to beat the level, when I either don't have the time, or am weary from the repetitious gameplay.

A game like this is nothing without a quality arsenal, and gladly Black delivers on this front with seventeen weapons at your destructive disposal. Sadly, the rate at which you can obtain these weapons is somewhat disappointing, in that in a given level there aren't many weapons. And the worst part is that the best weapon in the game, the Magnum, is only obtained on the latter half of the last mission. So unless you have cheats that can unlock all weapons, you may be somewhat disappointed in the fact that there are only a few different guns that you can actually utilize in each mission. What makes this worse is that in a game like this, where there is even more shooting than Halo, you should be able to carry more than two guns at a time. I mean for a game billed as "gun porn", Criterion should have let you carry more than two weapons, and should have placed more weapons in each level. Despite my squabbles, the weapons themselves are quite good. And the fact that a handful of the guns can be silenced makes me especially happy. Although I found that I could only silence my gun after a certain point in a given mission, which is somewhat of a head scratcher. The sniper rifle, while of extremely limited use due to the fact that ammunition for this particular weapon is scarce, isn't bad, but you are unable to use it without the scope view. It makes sense, but I enjoy my options. I'd say the four best weapons in no particular order are the GLOCK 19, the Magnum, the MP5 Machine Gun, and the M249 SAW. Bottom line: Gun junkies will be happy with this arsenal.

Much of the environments are destructible, and while the game world isn't quite as destructible as I had thought it would be, I certainly couldn't complain. It actually enriches the gameplay in that, sometimes you will need to blast down doors and shoot through walls to progress through a level. It's simple incorporation, but it makes a big difference because Black without it's physics wouldn't be near as entertaining, not only visually speaking, but gameplay wise aswell.

Sadly, Black's AI is terrible. For example, at the start of the Graznei Bridge mission, you encounter two guards standing next to a car, leaving an open opportunity for you to shoot at least one of them in the back of the head from behind. But here's the problem, when you shoot one of them, the other doesn't react. Even though he is standing a mere six feet away, he doesn't even move. And I tested this over five times, and every time it was the same exact reaction. In a game with such limited gameplay options, why did it take this long to ship, and why didn't Criterion take some time to create a competent AI system? One that is consistent. If only guards reacted to slain comrades like snipers react to enemies, because Black's enemy snipers are highly competent. But what especially bothered me about Black was the fact that it takes up to ten bullets to take down even the lowliest of enemies. This is not only unrealistic, but also inconvenient in that when you have to spend so much time on one enemy, you can't really defend yourself against those around you. It should have gone in accordance to wound. If an enemy is shot in the leg, there should be a corresponding effect. But if I should him in the legs five to ten times and he dies instantly, that is disappointing, and something seen in far too many games today. Even if the hit detection wasn't that advanced, I would have been happy with better head shot detection and maybe three bullets for the basic enemy soldiers. There are only a few enemy types, basic soldier, sniper, RPG, masked shotgun toter(who take twice the hits to kill), and these shield carrying S.W.A.T types that show up later in the game. It's probably one of the most generic enemy lists with the most generic combat capabilities I've ever encountered in an FPS. There is nothing particularly interesting about any of them besides the fact that the masked goons pick themselves up after taking a shotgun blast from five feet away. Who made that design call?

Oh, did I mention the fact that there is no multiplayer whatsoever? It's a seven hour experience at best, yet it has no mutliplayer component to keep you coming back? I think we know why Black is priced at $40, there just isn't a lot of value here.

Black's gameplay isn't anything new or particularly special, but when ignoring some of the bigger flaws and taking into account the physics and the great arsenal, you might come away satisfied with the gameplay experience offered in Criterion's FPS.

Perhaps the greatest single thing about Black is it's outstanding sound. Criterion had Michael Giacchino(of Call of Duty fame) and Chris Tilton(also of Call of Duty fame) compose the music for Black, which is a huge plus for the sound department. The music is moderately stirring with it's action movie charm, but even in it's quality, it takes a back seat to the amazing sound effects for weapons and explosions. The sound of every gun is perfect, every single detail is present, from the echoes to the reloads, it all comes across with the highest precision and polish one could ask for. The voice acting is fittingly convincing for a game of this style, especially in cutscenes. I was actually surprised with the amount of swearing I found in Black. The industry is definitely not as shy as it once was concerning the F word and everything in between. Black actually uses it to a level which I found completely unnecessary. In truth, Black could have easily been a T rated title, had it not featured such strong language. That aside, I couldn't praise Criterion's attention to detail enough, the sound in Black is ace all around.

The source of Black's hype was largely due to some initial screenshots that showed off defined gun models and the destructible environments. Just as with Path of Neo, we find that the hype wasn't quite as founded as many had previously thought. Hype aside, Black's graphics are good. The gun models are all high quality with exceptional attention to detail, and very little aliasing if any at all. The texturing on the environments are good but again we have a multiplatform game that doesn't make up for it's technical disadvantages with some sort of unique art style. Therefore it goes for a more realistic look, but lacks normal mapping and other advantages that we're seeing in the Halo's of the world. So while the hype was entirely unwarranted, the fact that the physics are so good, and the core look of the game isn't bad, Black's visuals are not hard to look at, and will definitely satisfy anyone who hasn't been playing Doom 3, Half Life 2, Halo 2, or Far Cry for a year straight without exposure to any multiplatform console FPS's. The framerate is also consistent, which is a plus.

The Black hype machine captured the community's attention initially, but wasn't able to deliver the kind of quality many of us had hoped. The graphics are only good, there is nothing overly impressive or distinct about them besides the physics. And again the sound is really what's most impressive in Black, but superb sound isn't anywhere near enough to warrant a purchase. What you have in Black is an average FPS that is moderately fun for a weekend, but not really worth anyone's money when all is said and done. If you're an action junkie, you might just want to rent Black.