Also available on Xbox Black is a game that I've had on my shelf for years but never actually got around to playing. When I kept seeing it get recommended on the forums here by various people and to both me and others, I decided that I'd have to bump it up the queue and see what all the hype was about. Seeing the 6-7 hour running time on HLTB made it a perfect fit for my "breather" between long games (three of my last four games averaged 80 hours each). Alright, so let's talk about the story....is what I would love to say, but honestly, I have no idea what that game was about. Something about black ops (hence the name), Russians, and terrorism. I don't know. I don't remember. What I DO know, however, is that there are a LOT of things to shoot, blow up, and otherwise eviscerate in this game. I was pretty happy when the game gave me an AK-47. I was REALLY happy when it gave me whatever assault rifle has the pretty good zoom. I was ecstatic when it gave me a shotgun. I came when it gave me an LMG. Oh man, and the grenades. Shit blows up like a damn mini nuke. Guy's 10 feet away from your grenade? No worries; as long as you at least looked at him the wrong way first, the splash damage will kill him. In terms of difficulty, Black isn't too too crazy, but there are some things I noticed. First and foremost, the controls are utter balls, mainly the aim sensitivity. Let's think about it in terms of a computer mouse. Let's say that the average sensitivity setting for a PC game is 800 DPI, okay? Most hardcore players will probably want closer to 1600 DPI. Black gives you about 200 DPI and absolutely no option to adjust the sensitivity whatsoever. Couple that with the fact that with the fact that there's no sprint to get behind cover quickly when in a sticky situation and the fact that the enemies soak up more bullets than 50 Cent, and you're looking at combat situations that can turn nasty fast. I played around with a few different difficulty settings, and the biggest difference I noticed was the frequency with which health drops (none of that pussy ass regen shit) rather than more damaging enemies. Take Easy, for example - the vast majority of the time, there's very little challenge since health drops pretty often. You make one stupid decision in a big firefight, however, and you can still get rekt more easily than you'd expect. Just because health drops often doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have some within two feet of you when you decide to give an enemy's rocket a kiss on the nose. Two things that REALLY stood out to me, however, even more than the bitchin' gameplay were the visuals and the audio direction. I'd heard even back when it was new that Black's graphics were ridiculously impressive, and that holds true, especially when you take into account how weak the Playstation 2 was compared to the Gamecube and especially the Xbox. Honestly, if you upscaled it to 720p and ran them both through the same cables, it wouldn't surprise me if Black on the Playstation 2 looked at least as good as if not better than Resistance: Fall of Man on the Playstation 3. I want to get the Xbox release of Black now to see just how good a 6th gen game can look. Two things that REALLY stood out to me, however, even more than the bitchin' gameplay were the visuals and the audio direction. I'd heard even back when it was new that Black's graphics were ridiculously impressive, and that holds true, especially when you take into account how weak the Playstation 2 was compared to the Gamecube and especially the Xbox. Honestly, if you upscaled it to 720p and ran them both through the same cables, it wouldn't surprise me if Black on the Playstation 2 looked at least as good as if not better than Resistance: Fall of Man on the Playstation 3. I want to get the Xbox release of Black now to see just how good a 6th gen game can look. It's clear to me that Black would go on to influence later games in the genre in several subtle ways, the most noteable for me being storytelling. If you play Black and then think about to how the story was told in Call of Duty: Black Ops, they're almost identical in method. A now disgraced soldier is being interrogated by some mysterious government official and recalling the events of the mission for which he's in hot water via flashbacks (those flashbacks being the levels that you play). I'm not sure which of those games did it better, but it's obvious to me that Black was a major influence in Treyarch's decision to tell their story that way four years later. My Rating - B |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
March 2024
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