Criterion is officially the
blow-you-away company. They were quite ambitious and quickly gained support,
praise and a fan following with the debut of Burnout. Burnout 3 showed us what
happens when movies inspire game developers. On February 28th, 2006, Criterion
will strap us in for another ride – and this time, it really will blow your
head off.
BLACK, the
secretive, talked about-but-rarely-seen first-person shooter is Criterion’s
entry into the world’s most crowded action genre. Medal of Honor: Frontline
and Call of Duty may be king of PS2 shooters (for now). Five minutes with
BLACK and you’ll be seeing, "Call of what? Medal of who?"
This isn’t
just happy thoughts, wishful thinking or my love of Burnout 3 talking.
Criterion did the unthinkable by creating an FPS that includes the following:
-
More
action than Medal of Honor -
Better
controls than Call of Duty -
The most
impressive PS2 visuals EVER! (In a first-person shooter)
Though I’ve
yet to hear much of the music, BLACK’s sound effects make Medal of Honor:
Frontline sound like it belonged to the previous console generation. I’m not
making these comparisons to put down past games – Frontline is one of my
favorite PS2 titles. I merely want to convey what I felt the first time I
entered BLACK’s unbelievable world.
The game
begins in the middle of the battlefield. You’re inside of a building. Tall
windows allow the setting sun to shine through – a beautiful, glowing effect
that Criterion fans will instantly recognize as a trademark of the Burnout
series. The windows are shattered by gunfire, the sound of which is a small
sampling of the chaos going on outside. Why you’re in this room, locked in
with only a rifle, a pistol and a few grenades is unknown. Pump a round into
the only door (environments are highly destructible in this game) to find out
what all the commotion is about.
Sitting
Duck
Zero story
elements were present in this action-packed demo, but one thing was crystal
clear: in this war you are a sitting duck. I guarantee you will be shot
several times the moment you walk out that door before you even know what’s
going on. Red arrows indicate which direction the gunfire came from, though I
doubt you’ll be able to react in time. More likely you’ll be lying in a pool
of blood with the words, "Mission Failed" plastered on the screen. Sounds like
the first time you played Medal of Honor, doesn’t it?
Enemies are
forceful and even somewhat fearful. They look like the typical bad guys,
dressed in armor and determined to kill. Soon you’ll discover that they are
anything but typical. Each enemy comes equipped with bullet-resistant armor
that, with the exception of headshots, prevents enemies from being killed with
just one hit. Hit ’em at close range with a rifle, it doesn’t matter! They’ll
get back up, point their weapon at your face and open fire. With few health
packs and a fast-depleting energy system, staying alive is anything but easy.
Reloading
and switching between weapons poses another challenge. It takes time to
reload, time that usually means the difference between who lives and who dies.
If you decide to reload in plain view (even by accident), you’re almost
guaranteed to get shot. There are too many enemies, and too many enemy
replacements to keep this from happening. BLACK is a game where you’re in
constant need of somewhere to hide.
In the olden
days a beat-up vehicle could be used to shield yourself from gunfire. Walls
worked pretty good, too. Not in BLACK. The enemies are too quick and too
powerful (and too sneaky) to fall for simple evasion tactics.
Feel-Good
Visuals
Like many
Super Bowl ads, BLACK’s visuals are pure eye-candy. You will be blown away, no
doubt. It’s as if Criterion took the Burnout 3 or Burnout 4 engine and
converted it for first-person shooting. Every building is fully rendered (to
give it that three-dimensional, computer-animated look. No "flat" buildings
are present in this game). Buildings are destructible, too. Though it’s
unknown exactly how much of each building you’ll be able to destroy, the demo
included several moments where I could injure or kill enemies just by damaging
their platform.
If the force
of the grenade is strong enough to inflict damage on the wall, the enemies on
the roof will surely be affected. This kind of depth is rarely seen in games.
There is some slow down, and with all the graphical beauties in place you
can’t expect it to be completely alleviated by the time the game ships (not on
PS2 at least). But as far as graphics, animation, and explosive effects go,
BLACK looks almost as good as the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty 2.
