Criterion, now eternally famous for their work with the Burnout series, recently released their prized FPS dubbed by many in the industry as “gun porn”.

Black offers up a healthy dosage of action that, in my best attempts at finding an appropriate simile, is like being in the Diehard movies..

My first impressions of Black were that of “oooh” and “aaaah!”. The graphics are tight, weapon models are gorgeous, levels are decently designed, and the level of action is pretty damn solid.. but every game is bound to have it’s problems.. so let’s get the nasties out of the way first, shall we?

Nasties

Too short!! I won’t give you any indication of how many levels there are (you can find that spoiler info elsewhere), but let’s just say the game is short enough to beat, on normal mode, in a solid day’s worth of playing.. maybe less (so a weekend for the casual gamer).

No Multiplayer!! With such a beautiful game, crisp visuals, and great action.. I’m extremely disappointed that there isn’t even split-screen action let alone internet play.

Okay.. now that that’s out of the way.. the counter point to Black being a short game is that the replay-value is somewhat decent. Beating the game on each difficulty setting requires meeting a set number of ‘objectives’, which are mostly just destroy or collect certain generic items in the game. Completing each mode also unlocks classes of weapon modifiers to make replay very action run-and-gun oriented.

Speaking of run-and-gun, one of Black’s high points is the sheer fun of balls-deep action with tons of enemies around you. It keeps you on your toes and forces you to find appropriate cover, keep moving, use grenades appropriately, and..

There are plenty of items that explode when you shoot at ‘em.. so looking at your surroundings and seeing when to blow something up is a key point to shrink the enemy pool and help stay alive.

Visual effects are top-notch, with particle effects, breakable objects, and explodable objects all looking drippingly sweet. Pair that with the incredible sounds and Black satisfies a media overload.

I must say that while the Normal mode is quite easy for a sesoned gamer.. the Hard mode will most certainly keep you on edge.. There’s also a “Black Ops” mode, which I’m sure is the equivalent to Halo’s Legendary mode in some respects (I have yet to invest the time).

So even though Black is short, it’s worth a play, and a replay.. and maybe a replay after that.

Overall.. I give black a 7.5 out of 10.