Edgefactor

Black
(From Criterion and EA)

BLACK is a new first person shooter by Criterion. It tries to walk to line between a realistic military shooter (like Splinter Cell or the Rainbow Six games) and a slayers bloodbath blaster (like the old Doom or Halo). There are not many slow moments in the game and the graphics are quite good. But really, that’s to be expected from a big budget title these days.

The problem with Black is that it is annoying. From the opening scene to the final missions it’s like somebody thought of a decent idea for a game and then decided to do everything possible to make that game annoying.

The game is set up with levels that might as well have theatre lights with neon arrow signs along the path you should take. At first I enjoyed this, because I get lost easily in video games. But after being in the game for a while, it is just annoying. There is no reason to do anything creative when you are attacking and in most levels it is not even possible.

To make things worse, Black subscribes to the theory that the best way to make a game more challenging is to prevent you from saving your game at any reasonable interval. Yes, when playing on a hard drive equipped machine that can access the internet, play music, movies and be programmed to feed your dog, you cannot save your game progress at will. Black has special checkpoints that allow you to not have to play the whole level again, oh, unless you decide to interrupt your gaming to go to school, read a book, or watch a catastrophic event on the news. In that case, you have to play the level all over again.

That’s when you really start to get annoyed, because the ten-minute cut scene that you can’t skip has to play all over again. Close up shots, long shadows, smoke-filled rooms and shaking cameras try their best to make the scenes look hard, edgy, and emotionally valid. What they actually do is give you time to go mow the lawn, make a glass of iced tea, call your divorce lawyer, bake some cookies, and I don’t know…become annoyed by the fact that you have to play the same damn level again.

Finally the gameplay itself gets annoying after a while. The aiming features are not adjustable so it takes about twelve seconds to turn around. This can be somewhat annoying if a man with a shotgun walks up behind you and starts unloading ammunition into the back of your brain.

I don’t mind that the game makes you actually put effort into aiming. It can be a little annoying at first but it lends a realistic edge to the game. It is difficult to hit people in pressure situations, or on the move, and justifiably so. However, this is not balanced by realistic capabilities of your guns or your opponent’s armor. Once you have managed to turn around all the way around to deal with the aforementioned shotgun wielding bad guy, you can aim your fully automatic, chain driven assault rifle at his chest and blast away. For some reason, this does little or no damage to the man unless you hit him in the left eye. I understand not killing somebody at point blank range when I shoot them with a .45 pistol but in reality they would at least fall down and not be able to see straight for a few minutes.

If you like walking through the exact same paths over and over again, watching pointless cut scenes over and over again, playing levels over and over again, and fruitlessly emptying clips of ammo into guys over and over again. You will love Black.