Genocide's Profile

The type of weapons you'll find in Black aren't exactly anything new, with the typical set of Machine Gun's, Pistol's, SMG's, Shotgun's and RPG's. Although this may sound basic, the weapons all look and feel super realistic. Play another game if you wanted a tactical shooter, because within minutes of entering a building, you'll have destroyed support columns, broken glass, blown up vehicles, ripped holes in the bad guys and left a nice carpet of brass.

You could spend all of your time playing Black destroying your environment, and although that does give alot of satisfaction - especially with a few interactive ways to leave the bad guys dead - there is actually a story to follow.

Eastern Europe is where the game is set, and you play as Sergeant First Class Jack Kellar, a Black Ops agent whos having a rough time being interrogated about a mission gone wrong. Basicaly the levels you play are just flashbacks from what's already happened.

The difficulty settings are: Easy, Normal, Hard and Black Ops. The difficulty setting effects the way you play, so Easy will only have the Primary Objective, and have more than a few health packs lying around conveniently. Normal sets you Primary and Secondary Objectives, there aren't as many health packs around, and you can unlock new wepons to use.

The game really is centered on its guns, and there are alot more things to do than just pulling the trigger - like equipping a silencer for a stealth kill, changing the fire options or simply pulling off a melee combo - for when you feel the need to just smack someone with your gun. Visual effects arent the only thing to enjoy, you'll occasionally hear orchestral pieces from Michael Giacchino which just adds to the suspense.

The lighting and texture detail will be better on Xbox, but the PS2 version also looks surprisingly sharp.

Sadly there is no multiplayer for Black, so it looks like we're going to have to make do with the single player component.

Black isnt a completely new style of gameplay, but it is an improvement on the FPS genre as a whole, and it looks like a suitable game to salute the final days of Xbox.