Black Xbox Review San Jose CA

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Criterion is best known for its unbelievable racing series Burnout. They took arcade racing to the next level and gave racing fans exactly what they wanted - high speed, fast cars and huge smashes with insane graphics. Burnout is one of the biggest franchises in gaming today, and Criterion is one of the biggest names. So what does the developer who's owned the racing genre for the past few years do? They take their penchant for destruction and put it in a totally new genre which brings us to their latest game, Black. Black, on the surface, seems like a very generic shooter, but once you experience what Criterion has done, you realise that this is one of the coolest, if not most complete games you've ever played.

Black focuses around a conspiracy story involving the CIA and a group known as Seventh Wave. Played retrospectively, the storyline is displayed through a number of live action cut scenes with some of the best voice acting and camera work you will ever see. It may seem repetitive and all the same, but Criterion has really managed to capture what it may be like for secret agents who find themselves on the wrong side of the US Government.

Black, as you may have guessed, is played in a first person format and in some ways doesn't do that much different to other games. The best way to describe Black is Serious Sam with a realistic story. The main goals of Black are to get from A to B alive, however depending on the difficulty level, you can also be tasked with other goals such as recovering blackmail evidence and intelligence on the enemies you are taking on. At the lowest difficulty level, you just have to complete primary goals, but crank it up and not only do you have to deal with harder enemies, you also find yourself running around the huge levels trying to find small bits of information. It does add to replay value which is important considering Black does not have multiplayer.

The other big feature of Black is, like Burnout, the whole level is practically destructible. We aren't talking about blowing up fuel canisters near enemies, its more along the lines of leveling buildings and taking out structures. The game heavily promotes this due to the fact the AI has an insane level of accuracy. Normally we would criticize developers for this approach, but Black can be forgiven due to the aforementioned destructibility. The first time you see a building or vehicle explode and shatter into millions of pieces, you will be in awe at the power on display. This is most definitely a game where spraying windows with bullets to hit an enemy hidden behind a wall is worth trying.