Black (Xbox, 2006)

Quite simply, BLACK is one of the greatest FPS games to ever come out on the Xbox. At first, many people were skeptical of this game. The developer (Criterion) is best known for their killer 'Burnout' racing games and have never before ventured into the first person shooter genre. Surprisingly, they gave us a game worthy of the Xbox's retirement party. If your still waiting for the right time to pick up the Xbox360 and you love shooters, this is a game NOT to be missed (especially now that prices have dropped significantly.)

Criterion set out to make a game that would push the system to its absolute limits in graphics, sound, and gameplay. I believe they exceeded in their goal and have produced a game that looks, feels, and plays like no other Xbox game. You can't get any closer to next-gen then this, it is evident from the moment you start playing that your in for a special experience.

The guns you use in the game are the true stars of the show. The game keeps up a pretty intense pace and you'll constantly find yourself in fire fights that remind you of your favorite action movie scenes. There's no deep story here, only glorious and beautiful combat. The guns are all licensed real world weapons and are all a blast to use. They all have moving parts, satisfying sounds, awesome reload animations, and they eject spent shell after spent shell as you fire.

What makes this game truly special though is the environments. Each and every level is awesome and you'll have a great time plowing your way through. Each area looks very realistic and is accented by great lighting and shadow effects. You'll also immediately notice that the smoke and explosion effects are the best yet on Xbox. The most impressive thing is the fact that each and every shot you fire has some kind of environmental reaction. It could be a little dust kicked up in the dirt, a hole in the wall, a chunk of concrete blown out of a piece of cover, a window shattering, or an entire structure that comes crashing down at the force of a RPG. This is what makes it feel next-gen, these are not just simple bullet hole decals or scripted events. Coming into an area that is in good condition, and seeing how that same area looks after a massive battle is always amazing.

The AI is also pretty good in this game. They run, flank, and take cover just like you would expect them to. They fire accurately and you'll find that this is definitely not a run-n-gun type game. You'll need to find cover to survive. What makes the game even more interesting is that much of the cover will slowly be destroyed as more and more bullets/grenades/rpgs hit it. This forces both you and the enemy to constantly move around.

In the end this is a game with practically no negative issues or complaints. While it lacks a multiplayer element, it nails the single player game perfectly. At 10 hours the game is relatively short, but you'll find yourself wanting to come back to play it again and again. Because each battle feels different every time you play it, it just doesn't get old. I would even suggest this game to Xbox360 owners. Ever since I discovered the Xbox360 supports BLACK I've been playing it again. Overall I give this game an A+. To put it simply, if your an FPS fan and you pass this one up you will REALLY be missing out.

Hope some of you found my review helpful, enjoy the game if you decide to get it!

I'm into shooter games big time and love games like Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon, Medal of Honor, Tour of Duty and so on and so forth.

I went into a game store last week and asked about first person shooter used games and the guy recommended "Black". At $13.99 the price was right to try it out and he offered that I could return it within 3 days and get another game if I didn't like it, so what did I have to lose?

The game says "Go in guns blazing" and they are not kidding you! The action is ongoing every moment that you are in "a mission" and you can sneak up on enemies and use sniper tactics, weapons and silencers and wipe them out one headshot after the other or just go for it and wipe them out with machine guns, grenades and RPG rockets or simply shooting stuff around them to make it explode in their faces. While you're doing that, you're also looking for intel to collect, hidden weapons to find, recon objects to search for that will help with your next mission and blackmail items to destroy and last but not least, pick up ammo, grenades, rockets and weapons your dead enemies have no more use for. In the easier levels, you can also collect health packs or first aid kits dropped by dead enemies.

I found the stealthier tactics with silencers or the long range sniping excellent "self imposed" fun ways to get another level of gameplay out of each mission and you don't have to deal with ISSUE 1, which is: enemies take a lot, sometimes a ridiculous lot of bullets before they actually keel over.

ISSUE 2 is that the AI is sometimes really poor. Your companions get in your line of fire ... enemies don't duck for cover quick or long enough and just keep taking hit after hit because they are predictable in their movements.

ISSUE 3: before starting any mission for the first time and after completing the game for the first time, there is no way to skip the video and game trailer. When you first load the game, you can't skip the game intro either. Patience is the key because overall, the graphics and intensity of the game are worth the wait.

ISSUE 4: I found the ending to be very disappointing, very low key end after blazing your way through tons of enemies with GREAT weapons and FANTASTIC graphics, making you go: "What? That's it? Oh man!" ... If you really like these shooter games, you just want to keep going. It DOES create the hope that there will be a sequel to this game though!

I don't have an issue with the fact that it is a one player game only, no on-line play, most likely because of the INTENSE graphics.

All said and done, if you love shooter games, Black is well worth the money to either rent or buy it used. I'm hoping they make a "BLACK II" but please WITH fixes for the issues above and it might even have a shot at "Game of the Year", who knows?!

Have fun gaming, whatever your game of choice is ... just don't forget that there IS a world out there that would like to see you from time to time! ;O)

Black is an intense shooter with its main focus on uninterupted gunplay. All automatic weapons have clip sizes of 60 bullets or higher, and ammo is plentiful, allowing for careless trigger happy episodes without fear of having to resort to melee attacks. Though Black is mindless fun, there are three main gripes that keep it from claiming perfection. One, there is no jump/roll function, so you can't backtrack even over a small ledge and your only means of evading bullets is strafing. Two, certain enemies, especially near the end, take your entire clip to defeat, requiring you to reload constantly just to kill a few enemies. Three, to my knowledge, there is no dual wielding of any weapons, making pistols and uzis almost obsolete, in a game that hypes itself on guns being the main focus of the game you think you would be able rip through opponents with mac 11's in each hand. Those three aside, Black entertains with its destructive elements and waves of enemies, and is a sign of a better things to come.

Electronic Arts have been producing games since the 1980's. Their games range from Commodore 64, Amiga, Windows,PS, PS3, Wii,XBOX XBOX360 and more. "Black" is my all-time favorite first person shooter game. The graphics are spectacular. The way the game plays, the action, the story line and the attention to detail is what makes this game so GREAT! You can shoot a window out of a building 50 to a 100 yards away. If there is a shard of glass in a window, you can shoot that out too! If you shoot a tire on a vehicle, it goes flat! "Black" is a very realistic combat simulation game that even at the lowest level is challenging. "Black was written for the XBOX and PS2 platform in 2006. I can't imagine how much better this game could be if it was written for a more graphics intense platform such as the PS3 or the XBOX360. Black is one of the games you can play on your XBOX360 if you have the backward compatible upgrade loaded. If you like first person shooter games, I highly recommend this game for you!

Black for Xbox was recently released on Xbox 360's "Xbox Originals" feature. However, the $15 price tag, along with the big download and hard drive space required, it's a much better deal to buy the physical game used.

The game's graphics have surprisingly held up despite being a last-gen game. Obviously, the visuals aren't as spiffy as the new 360 games, but they are fairly close to the early 360 games such as Perfect Dark Zero. What definitely sets this game apart from PDZ and the countless other FPS out there is the fun factor and level of destruction.

There are many things that you can blow up in the game, and many times these destructible objects help you clear out areas faster. For instance, you may find a number of enemy soldiers hiding behind a car - you can blow up that car and take out the enemies.

This is a great game, and quite a bit of fun. I would recommend picking this game up, whichever Xbox you have. (Note that you do need a hard drive to play Xbox games on the 360).