Black (Xbox, 2006)

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)