G-pinions

I never want to play Black again. How's that for a catchy lead? Didn't see that one coming, did you Nick? Believe me, this has nothing to do with my hatred for EA (which isn't so much hatred anymore. We'll call it a throbbing-ache of coldness). I'm not even terribly upset that Criterion ripped off the name of a perfectly good song. No, the problem with Black is that, like most First Person Shooters out there, it does very little to distinguish itself. Aside from using realistic guns - which gets a big thumbs down in my book compared to the Cerebral Bore and even the Klobb - and slightly improving on the Geo Mod craze from five years ago, there isn't anything in Black that's all that memorable. It's a darn shame too, because the Burnout guys have a ton of talent.

I actually had a good time playing through the first half of Black on Thursday with Nick. As I sat down to write about the game today, though, I realized I have had no desire to play it again the last two days. As satisfying as it was to blow up tanker trucks and shoot out someone's legs with a shotgun, the experience was so derivative for the most part that I have no need to see what happens next.

It's a shame that the thing Criterion worked hardest for - creating weapons and environments that react how they should - is the biggest weakness of the game. Because Black tries to be a strictly realistic shooter, you're left with boring levels and only about four different types of guns. The automatics all felt pretty much the same to me, and then you've got a pistol, rocket launcher and sniper rifle. With little variety in weapons you would think the levels would at least be different. Nope. They all play exactly the same. It was fun while it lasted, but what's the point of playing through the last four levels when I've seen it all in the first four?

Also, even though they touted destructible environments as one of the main selling points, that is a mixed bag as well. Just like in Red Faction, you can only destroy a small percentage of the environment. For instance, in one scene Nick walked down a hall with identical rooms lining the sides. He entered one room and walked up to the wall. Ooo! Grenades on the other side! So he shot the wall down with his shotgun. Awesome, right? The problem was, though the rooms and walls were all identical, he wasn't able to knock down every wall with his shotgun. These sorts of inconsistencies were frustrating after awhile. What you could and could not destroy is completely arbitrary. In the beginning, I was shooting ever surface to see what would happen. After I realized that most things just took my bullets with a smarmy smile, I resigned myself to merely shoot the people.

Another example! I came upon a guy in a tower. The tower was made of wood. You could say that I came upon a guy in a wooden tower. I was pretty close to him, looking up, so I couldn't really get a shot off. Unperturbed, I let loose on the floor beneath him. I assumed with a few well placed shots I could bust it open, causing him to fall to his death. Unfortunately, the floor sucked it up like a porn star, laughing at my feeble attempt to dent its surface. Booo!

Also, while the game stresses realism, it isn't actually realistic. Nick was constantly getting mad at me for my kamikaze tactics - I run at guys, firing at them the whole time. For some reason, this strategy doesn't work in Black. You see, my first experience with a realistic shooter was Goldeneye. In GE, when you shot a guy in the arm or leg he would wince, This allowed you to get a few more shots off without the fear of being attacked. It makes logical sense that someone, even if they're wearing Kevlar, will recoil if you shoot them. In Black, they just stand there and take it like a Super Man. Very frustrating for me, especially since I never adapted my strategy to conform to what the game wished.

There are a lot of good things about the game, though. For instance, the death animations are pretty awesome. At one point, Nick shot a guy who was stupidly hanging out by a rail. He flipped over head first and actually hung on to the rail for a second or two with his feet. I've never seen a guy just dangling above the ground like that before, head first, waiting to finally drop. Another time, I shot a guy and he also flipped over a rail. He held on with his hands, though, while I lined up a finishing shot. Nick was giddy with anticipation. He was like a kid in a candy store, except the candy store wasn't selling sweet but the chance to shoot a man dangling helplessly from a railing right in the back. As I fired my magnum I heard an ominous "click" and saw I was out of ammo. He ended up falling to his death anyway - through a pain of glass. So satisfying.

As I think back on the game now, though, all I really remember are the bad things. Because they stressed realism to such a high degree, every level just involves walking around and shooting people. There is no level with vehicles. Nothing with different objectives. There's one part where Nick was holed up on a building with a sniper rifle, gunning down advancing troops, but that was the most variety we encountered. It's like they put so much time into the weapons and semi-destructible environments that they forgot to make the rest of the game special.

Anyway, it is certainly fun and did not make me curse its existence like Full Auto, but they could have done so much more. As it is, it's just another game.