Game Review: "Black" on Xbox

I really mean it this time. There's no possible excuse for this sort of behavior on part of game designers. They broke every rule in the book and while some may call that "innovative" and "revolutionary", gamers call it "goddammit why the fuck can't I kill anything?" I'm going to do this point-by-point, or it will turn into a rant.

Overall Look: Beautiful. But the lighting frequently (and this is very clearly intentional) makes it impossible to see your targets, which makes for more frustration rather than more challenge. The guns are rendered beautifully and their actions are faithful, which is great. 8/10.

Plot: Stupid and impossible to follow. Why are russian terrorists following an American leader? What did the protagonist have to do with all this? Why didn't I kill the bad guy in the last level and why are you telling me to start all over? Are you calling me fat? 2/10.

Weapon function: Beautiful as stated, but I've done more damage to people by stepping on their toes. 12 counted shots to the torso per kill, 1 shot to the head works but it's not the sort of thing that works out most of the time. The only good way to kill people is with the most powerful and most rare weapons in the game. Hint for developers: if you have to give me twice as much ammo per magazine as the gun is supposed to have, you're too stupid to breathe. Go back and try again. 3/10.

Suppressors: Totally and in all ways useless. If they take 12 shots to kill unless I hit them in the head, and that's damn near impossible,and they notice me anyway whether I hit them or not, you're pretty much promising me that I'll never have to take the weapon out of Fully Automatic mode. Fuck your suppressors, Criterion Games. 0/10.

Enemies: Robots wearing tank armor. Russian with helmet (12 shots to kill), Russian without helmet (12 shots to kill), Russian with everything-proof hockey mask (empty the magazine), Russian with everything-proof SWAT shield (empty it twice). Apparently in the video game world, bad guys only come in two flavors: Caramel Communist and Neopolitan Nazi. At this stage of my gaming career, I have cut down more Russians than Stalin and more Nazis than the entire Allied Forces. Digital Commies and Brownshirts pee themselves in their sleep if their bunkmate whispers my name. Why can't I ever shoot someone who's threatening me in ENGLISH? Especially if they're supposed to have been led by an American. Then I might have more motivation to wade into yet another ridiculous, obviously position-triggered firefight. 1/10.

Allies: AI is never good, and when you couple it with candy-ass weapons, lazy team programming and crappy marksmanship, you go beyond wishing they weren't there. The only thing more frustrating than your allies' inability is that you can't cut them down from behind with your shitty little Uzi to take their suppressed G36 that they haven't fired once in 20 minutes of fighting. Their only saving grace is that they are usually nowhere to be found. 1/10.

Mission Structure: You know who likes to play entire, 20-minute to half-hour missions and all the while risk losing every shred of progress if they die? Fucking nobody. I have things to do, and there's no excuse for me not being able to save mid-mission in this day and age. I fought my way through 15-minutes of testicle-grinding levels with dipshit teammates against lumps of gun-wielding iron, the least you can do is let me SAVE MY GODDAMNED PROGRESS. It's frustrating to know that you can't start a mission unless you plan to play for a solid hour. I've never actually sat in my chair sighing with impatience and boredom while murdering foreigers before. But I turned it into an art form with this game. 0/10.

Incentives: You can pick up different weapons in each mission, but A) you can't keep them, B) you start the mission with whatever weapons the designers choose, C) you can't pick new weapons to start any mission, even after you beat the game, and D) once you do beat the game, they turn all your weapons silver as if it's some kind of prize ("cool you won, now do it again with sissy-ass nickel-plated guns"). There's no point to completing any objectives that they don't require, because you get nothing for it. There's no point in killing extra enemies, because you get nothing for it. 2/10.

Replay Value: There are eight missions. Beat the game, and it's the same 8 missions just harder. There's no multiplayer. There's no weapon selection. There's no challenge mode. Just eight linear missions and when you're done, roll credits. This game hit the market costing $49.99. With Wisconsin sales tax, that's $52.74. These assholes charged some poor bastards $6.59 per mission, or a mind-boggling $4.35per weapon. I got it for $.87 per weapon and $1.31 per mission. I'm pretty sure that even I got screwed on this one. 0/10.

Final Analysis: 1.78/10
Three-word Summary: Bored to tears.
Unforgivability Factor: 9.4/10

Another game like this, and I'll start studying again.