Not really the Burnout of shooters but it does a great job capturing the look and feel of huge action movie shootouts.
If you're an FPS veteran than you have no trouble diving right into Black. Controls are fairly standard for a shooter and you have all the usual things in your HUD. You can carry only two weapons at a time so make sure you choose them carefully. As you take damage you can restore your health by either using health packs you carry with you (unless you play on hard or black ops mode where health packs are omitted from the game) or picking up first aid kits which are randomly dropped by enemies. Each mission gives you primary and secondary objectives. You must complete all primary objectives and a certain number of secondary objectives in order to complete the mission. The number of secondary objectives depends on which difficulty level you play on.
Levels in Black follow a pretty standard FPS formula. Have a big area with a firefight, narrow path leading to the next area, another big area with another firefight, and so on until you reach the end of the level. Mostly the pacing is fairly fast that is until you have to really start finding the secondary objectives on harder difficulties which requires you to slow down and really search every nook and cranny of the levels. I don't really have a big problem with this except well this is supposed to be the Burnout of shooters. Burnout is a very fast paced game that keeps you on the edge at nearly all times and really tests your reflexes and therefore this game should evoke the same feel which is just doesn't do unfortunately. There are 8 levels in total which will take anywhere from 20 minutes to nearly an hour to beat. So as stated before the game is over just a bit too quickly. This is where multiplayer could have made a huge difference for this game, adding a lot more replay value. But there is still black ops mode for those seeking a real challenge which it definitely does deliver. And replaying the missions with infinite ammo is plenty of fun for a while.
Well if Criterion didn't quite hit the mark with the pacing on the game they definitely helped make up for it with the visuals. When you first turn on Black and start playing I guarantee you will be stunned. Graphics and effects are almost up to current gen standards. Weapons and environments are all highly detailed and when the lead starts flying the carnage and destruction that happens all around you is a sight to behold. Black does a fantastic job of making you feel like you're right in the middle of one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's movies with tons of over the top effects, a seemingly endless supply of bullets and lots of bad guys to kill. When cars or propane tanks or anything marked with an explosive symbol take enough bullets, they explode in a spectacular fireball sending any enemies nearby flying through the air. Stray bullets cause bright sparks and large dust plumes when impacting a surface and certain objects in the environment are slow ripped apart as more bullets hit them. Most weapons in the game also have unrealistically large clip sizes. Most of the time they hold 2 or 3 times the ammunition that the real life clip holds. But this was obviously done because in action movies it seems no one ever has to reload their weapon no matter how many times they shoot it during a firefight.
The gorgeous visual are also complimented by a some awesome sound effects. In fact to help enhance the action movie feel even more Criterion used some weapon sound effects from movies like the sound of Bruce Willis's MP-5 in "Die Hard" and the sound of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Uzi in "True Lies". All the weapon sounds are great and really give each one a real sense of power. The music I think isn't quite up to par but it does it's job well enough. The voice acting is also well done even if it doesn't add a whole lot to the experience. The enemies could have been done better though. I swear they only have like 3 lines of dialogue.
One thing that will definitely trouble many novice FPS players is the difficulty in Black. I was quite surprised at how good the AI for enemies was. They will seek cover when under fire but aren't afraid to come at you when you're vulnerable. Especially when they have a shotgun. Not only are enemies surprisingly smart and aggressive but they take insane amounts of bullets to kill unless you shoot them in the head. Another thing sure to get on your nerves is enemies with RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades). These guys start showing up all over the place in the later levels. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't always appearing way up on balconies and in windows where they're rather difficult to hit and like other enemies, take quite a few bullets before dying. Though I certainly love the effect when one of them does die. It's not that I don't like a good challenge but Criterion could have been a bit more forgiving on the difficulty to make the game more appealing to a wider audience.
While Black may not have quite lived up to being the Burnout of first person shooters, it does a great job of letting players experience the thrill of an action movie shootout. Although Criterion could have made the game longer and maybe added more weapons; and needless to say multiplayer would have been a great addition even if it was only local multiplayer. But even with it's drawbacks Black is one of the PS2s best shooters and here's hoping Criterion decides to make a sequel. Any shooter fan looking for plenty of thrills and a good challenge will be satisfied with Black.