BLACK Preview

Criterion is officially the blow-you-away company. They were quite ambitious and quickly gained support, praise and a fan following with the debut of Burnout. Burnout 3 showed us what happens when movies inspire game developers. On February 28th, 2006, Criterion will strap us in for another ride – and this time, it really will blow your head off.

BLACK, the secretive, talked about-but-rarely-seen first-person shooter is Criterion's entry into the world's most crowded action genre. Medal of Honor: Frontline and Call of Duty may be king of PS2 shooters (for now). Five minutes with BLACK and you'll be seeing, "Call of what? Medal of who?"

This isn't just happy thoughts, wishful thinking or my love of Burnout 3 talking. Criterion did the unthinkable by creating an FPS that includes the following:

• More action than Medal of Honor

• Better controls than Call of Duty

• The most impressive PS2 visuals EVER! (In a first-person shooter)

Though I've yet to hear much of the music, BLACK's sound effects make Medal of Honor: Frontline sound like it belonged to the previous console generation. I'm not making these comparisons to put down past games – Frontline is one of my favorite PS2 titles. I merely want to convey what I felt the first time I entered BLACK's unbelievable world.

The game begins in the middle of the battlefield. You're inside of a building. Tall windows allow the setting sun to shine through – a beautiful, glowing effect that Criterion fans will instantly recognize as a trademark of the Burnout series. The windows are shattered by gunfire, the sound of which is a small sampling of the chaos going on outside. Why you're in this room, locked in with only a rifle, a pistol and a few grenades is unknown. Pump a round into the only door (environments are highly destructible in this game) to find out what all the commotion is about.

Sitting Duck

Zero story elements were present in this action-packed demo, but one thing was crystal clear: in this war you are a sitting duck. I guarantee you will be shot several times the moment you walk out that door before you even know what's going on. Red arrows indicate which direction the gunfire came from, though I doubt you'll be able to react in time. More likely you'll be lying in a pool of blood with the words, "Mission Failed" plastered on the screen. Sounds like the first time you played Medal of Honor, doesn't it?

Enemies are forceful and even somewhat fearful. They look like the typical bad guys, dressed in armor and determined to kill. Soon you'll discover that they are anything but typical. Each enemy comes equipped with bullet-resistant armor that, with the exception of headshots, prevents enemies from being killed with just one hit. Hit 'em at close range with a rifle, it doesn't matter! They'll get back up, point their weapon at your face and open fire. With few health packs and a fast-depleting energy system, staying alive is anything but easy.

Reloading and switching between weapons poses another challenge. It takes time to reload, time that usually means the difference between who lives and who dies. If you decide to reload in plain view (even by accident), you're almost guaranteed to get shot. There are too many enemies, and too many enemy replacements to keep this from happening. BLACK is a game where you're in constant need of somewhere to hide.

In the olden days a beat-up vehicle could be used to shield yourself from gunfire. Walls worked pretty good, too. Not in BLACK. The enemies are too quick and too powerful (and too sneaky) to fall for simple evasion tactics.

Feel-Good Visuals

Like many Super Bowl ads, BLACK's visuals are pure eye-candy. You will be blown away, no doubt. It's as if Criterion took the Burnout 3 or Burnout 4 engine and converted it for first-person shooting. Every building is fully rendered (to give it that three-dimensional, computer-animated look. No "flat" buildings are present in this game). Buildings are destructible, too. Though it's unknown exactly how much of each building you'll be able to destroy, the demo included several moments where I could injure or kill enemies just by damaging their platform.

If the force of the grenade is strong enough to inflict damage on the wall, the enemies on the roof will surely be affected. This kind of depth is rarely seen in games. There is some slow down, and with all the graphical beauties in place you can't expect it to be completely alleviated by the time the game ships (not on PS2 at least). But as far as graphics, animation, and explosive effects go, BLACK looks almost as good as the Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty 2.