Black Playthrough
22006, PS2, Xbox. Rating: 1.5 out of 4 stars
Black, in spite of its pretentious (and severely undercooked) storytelling approach, is about one thing and one thing only: Shooting a lot of bad guys with high-powered weapons. On that approach, it succeeds well enough, though it’s a shame we don’t get more weapons to work with. The ones we do get are powerful and destroy a lot of things. The environments themselves are fairly destructible and the enemies are ripe for the plucking. It’s a low-rent Call of Duty in that respect and serves its general purpose well enough. Beyond that, though, Black has little to no need for strategy. It’s all about blowing things away.
The story involves a CIA black ops unit trying to stop a terrorist organization run by a former CIA operative. The story is told in flashback (complete with hazy yellow lighting, sepia tones and cigarette smoke. How original) and we eventually reach the present. A lot of what he hear and learn is through the flashbacks. It’s all done off-stage and to no discernable effect. One is led to care, even in a game like this, and I couldn’t give less of a damn. Everything just… happens and it's an excuse to move on to the next thing.
Still, it blows things up pretty damn good and there are some decent setpieces here and there and it has the decency to wrap things up fairly quickly. Overall, though, it doesn’t amount to a whole lot of anything. Plenty of shooters in that day much better than this, which feels like it needed more time in the shop.
0:00 Veblensk City Streets
7:53 Trenska Border Crossing
28:46 Naszran Town
47:15 Naszran Foundry
1:13:54 Tivliz Asylum
1:38:56 Vratska Dockyard
1:57:34 Graznei Bridge
2:14:00 Spetriniv Gulag
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