Black

I absolutely had to do a preview of this game (for PS2 and XBOX) when I saw that it was being made by Burnout developer Criterion. However this time Criterion isn't out for takedowns, they're out with guns. They aren't trying to make an ordinary FPS game either. They want to make the best shooter the Playstation 2 or XBOX has ever seen, at the expense of a story. This is definitely risky, but if they can take gameplay to the next level like they did with Burnout, I think it will be a hit. Ok, now the actual gameplay. There will be 13 guns in Black. Criterion's designers are paying a lot of attention to details like loading the guns and their rate of fire. One kind of sad thing is no dual wielding. So, the guns are going to be great.......great. Where Black really gets interesting is the environment, the graphics, and the sound. Black is destructive. You'll be able to blow the environment to shreds. Doing things like blowing doors off their hinges with shotguns, blasting letters off buildings and making them fall on enemies, and doing the same with signs. That's only where Black begins to break away from average FPS games. In most shooters, if someone were hiding behind a car, you'd have to walk around and kill them. Black doesn't want you to have to do that much work. They want you to have fun. They want you to be creative. So, in Black, if you are faced with the scenario of killing enemies behind a car, you have a few choices. Blow out the tires so the car lowers enough to get headshots on the enemies. Fill the car so full of bullets that it explodes, destroying everything relatively near, including your targets behind the car. Blow the doors right off the car and shoot straight through. That's probably only half of what you could do. Adding to the creativity of executing kills, you can do things like ricochet bullets off of things and still have them kill enemies. The graphics are....well......next-gen...on Playstation 2 and XBOX. Seriously, some of these screenshots make me wonder how a PS2 could possibly run this. Then again, that's what I said about Burnout Revenge, and Criterion made that work. But how are they going to manage when there is going to be such an onslaught of dust and debris coming from every single explosion (and this game is full of those)? Once again, it's Criterion. The sound that will accompany Black should be just as spectacular, with every shot sounding crystal clear. So, Ton, you said Black wouldn't have a story, right? Well, that's not totally right. This game is based on the extreme missions that you won't see on CNN. You are playing the role of Jack Kelar, a member of the elite military force named Black, which only takes the best soldiers. You're in Eastern Europe, trying to kill America's biggest threat, who's a traitor to his own country. In Criterion's quest to create a kick-ass shooter for these consoles, they have dropped the multiplayer features. This may sound like a bad thing, but it means that they will be focusing all of their time on the single player, which should prove great. My one issue with this game as of now is the fact there are only going to be 9 levels. However, if you think about it, it would be worth playing them over to see what kinds of kills you could do. I can't wait to get my paws on this game. As a matter of fact, this it the first non-team based FPS game I have been truly excited about in a LONG time. Sadly, we have to wait till February to check this game out.