This Sunday's opinionated retro rant is about Black, the Criterion-built shooter that graced the last generation of consoles towards the end of their shelf life. During the following, somewhat feverish discussion of its impact, or tragic lack of impact, at no point shall Eurogamer mention that a game released in 2006 cannot be considered retro.
GF365: "Here are eight games that need sequels. These games are ones that players would love to experience another time, bigger and better."
Bloodborne is a game I still restart and play every few months. I would welcome just a re release in 60fps with a visual upgrade. It's a perfect game. If I was king for a day I would include the randomizer mods because then it would be a kind of rogue like and I could play it forever.
thatHITBOX: We reveal behind the scenes info on the production of Criterion's Black, including plans for its cancelled sequel.
Would love to see a Black 2. This game was incredible when it came out. Played it a lot and enjoyed it immensely.
Bodycount was sort of a spiritual successor to Black, but nowhere near as good. I liked Black, but it was hard. I never managed to beat it.
Yeah I agree. Bodycount being deemed a "spiritual successor" always felt like an attempt to capitalise on the goodwill towards Black.
Polygon: Game designers face a great challenge: How can they demonstrate that a player’s basic actions are meaningful?
The developers of a game have to reinforce why each action is important, especially if I’m going to be repeating it thousands of times across the campaign. This is true whether I’m picking a flower or pulling the trigger of a gun.
It’s worth revisiting Black.
So glad someone took the time to revisit this absolute gem of FPS...this game blew my face off back in the day. The enemy behavior, sound design, particle effects and general atmosphere was something short of a revelation at the time. This is perhaps my second favorite FPS title of all time and a close 2nd to Killzone 2.
I still remember the distinct metallic sound when shooting someones helmet off in Black, also the atmospheric lighting (something very new back then). So glad I picked it up when it released.
To this day that game is more satisfying than most FPSs out there. Still blown away by the way it handled explosions and they their effectiveness is actually affected by rather they are indoors or outdoors (more lethal in enclosed spaces) and that if it's thrown into a small room with doors/windows the pressure wave will actually cause all windows and doors in that room to break and the explosion would actually expand out those openings
Damn I totally forgot about the destruction, tons of little details that made the game just really fun to play.
Thanks to EA the team that made this gem was dissolved, so unless most of them team up under a new wing (or form their own studio) to make a spiritual successor to Black you should forget about a sequel.
Is effing awesome, I would love to see a sequel.
The game was, simply put, brilliant.
The graphics and sound design were really ahead of its time. Too bad it was so short. That game was amazing.
Great game.It was better than most of the shooters this generation except for Cod4
I too loved Black. Too bad the guy never finished the game or he could have found out the awesome ending to it that took me by surprise. Also I see CoD4 as taking nods from Black. Golden weapons and silencers you could place on almost every gun. Black was indeed ahead of it's time.