Black (PS2)

When i first played Black the first word which escaped my mouth were wow and oooo look at the pretty explosions. The game is absolutely spectacular in those respects, the explosions are huge and the action and gunplay are brilliant. This is beyond doubt the best action shooter on PS2 at the moment. The graphics are brilliant, the action immersive and truly enjoyable as well as being extremely tense. All of the weapons have a superb solid feel to them and although it may not be realistic it is truly fun to simply stand up and empty a full box magazine for an m249 into a group of enemies. Once you complete the game and play it again on the same difficulty level you get unlimited ammo which adds immensely to the fun and carnage. However this is where i must mention the games most severe flaw; it is incredibly short. There are 8 missions including a shorter prequel type mission and each mission first time round will take between 45 minutes and an hour to complete. I completed the game for the first time in under 8 hours. PS2 games cost £30 upwards and for 8 hours of gameplay this is just not worth it. Even with it being so short i may have given it 4 stars but there are other gripe to be made. For example the voice acting is terrible and your character often seems to be shouting over the radio when he should be stealthy. The gameplay eventually gets slightly repetitive and although there are some interesting twist such as making your way through a minefield, even this is used twice. In addition the explosions - the games selling point - are over used and the enemies are incredibly hard to take out, most taking more than 15 rounds to put down. This forces you to look for stuff to blow up which means that you are rarely being tactical and constantly looking for stuff that blows up which just gets repetitive.
Overall this is an excellent game and has easily the best shooting of any game on PS2. With a little more length and variety it could have been a classic. As it is it is just good. I would suggest renting this not buying it as £30 is just too much money for 8 hours of game. Either that or wait for the price to drop.

Good:
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*Outstanding graphics - atmospheric, detailed and superb particles and explosions.
*Really satisfying weapons - The M3 and Uzi make you squeal with joy!
*Awesome sound - Explosions, bullet hits and gunfire all sound great. The environment noises add a lot too.
*Pretty good AI - They take cover quite a lot and try to sneak up behind you sometimes. They tend to stand next to explosive things, which although is really dumb, it makes it more fun!
*Very well designed levels - especially the sniper alley and bridge levels. Lots of alternative routes.
*Good replay value - Hard level provides a very good challenge and once finished, you get infinite ammo, so youre encouraged to do the 'destruction' objectives - Ie, shoot everything up!
*Superb destructible environments - The amount of stuff you can destroy is incredible! Shoot out walls, pipes, barrels, cars etc. The difference is great when you do a 'before & after' comparison of the environment of a gunfight.

Bad:
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*Quite short - only about 8 levels
*Plot is a bit pointless - Just seems tacked on & you dont really care about the outcome.
*Cant jump - Backtracking is prevented by strategically placed tiny ledges that you cant pass. You get used to this after a while though.
*No multiplayer - Again, this doesnt really bother you so much because the single player mission is so good.

I really enjoyed black, and although it seemed a little short, I still feel compelled to play it again and again, on harder difficulty levels. Its loads of fun to play, and can be tricky to achieve all of the secondary objectives. Its got nearly everything that Killzone did so well, but without the samey gameplay and bad AI. Its the best, most intense and fun shooter ive played since Halo2 - i highly reccomend it.

Black truly is a game which will end the PS2's time on the planet in a grand spectacle. I pre-ordered the game a month in advance and it came on a friday and i completed it on saturday. Its THAT good you wont be able to stop playing it. As medal of honor was the game that ended the PS1's time black will end the PS2's time. Visually black is as stunning as Killzone and twice as addictive as goldeneye for the n64, to be honest it is better than goldeneye. The graphics look as if they belong on the next generation of consoles however EA have been able to achieve the great detail on the weapons by using many visual "cheats". For example when reloading your weapon, everything goes fuzzy apart from the gun you are reloading. Your enemies will not all be on the screen at once. When you have dispatched a few, more appear from out of nowere! This though in itself is not really a let down. Who cares if black does not have networked play? This allows the player to become totally immersed in the gameplay. If you are one of those players who hates using stealth tactics and prefers an all out gun fight then you will be elated with black. Everything you shoot at will dissappear before your eyes. The enemy AI is quite good aswell, and if you have 5.1 channel surround sound then the game becomes a whole lot better. The shootouts have been taken from hollywood films. Many a time will you need to shoot at objects such as cars, trucks, petrol containers etc to take out a group of enemies. However be careful were you take cover because this tactic works both ways. Black could do with being longer as i craved for more gun toting mayhem by the time i finished the game but without giving the stroyline away, it looks as if black is going to have a sequel. I completed the game in 6 and a half hours in normal mode which i did think was dissapointing but not dissaponting enough to totally shelve the game. In a nutshell, black is truly and excellent fps and totally addictive. The disc WILL remain in your ps2 for weeks and you WILL go back to play the harder and black ops modes to unlock all the features of the game. Buy it now!