Black (PS2 and Xbox)

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I died a fair few times, its the guys with the shields that are a pain in the buttocks. But i worked out, lob a grenade at them & shoot it, it blows up straight away not giving them time to run away/hide.

I changed my mind. The magnum is my fav gun. Its kicks serious butt.
 
555
I died a fair few times, its the guys with the shields that are a pain in the buttocks. But i worked out, lob a grenade at them & shoot it, it blows up straight away not giving them time to run away/hide.

I changed my mind. The magnum is my fav gun. Its kicks serious butt.
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Yes the guys with the shields that hold either the shotgun or the magnum. Sometimes both guys come at you at the same time!! :ouch: yes grenades are your friend at that point.
 
DQuaN
I will hopefully have this game tonight. I can't wait. :D
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Your going to love it. When you make it thru the game on normal. Go thru it again on hard. Very Very difficult on hard after a couple levels. Hopefuly you have a great surround sound so you can fully enjoy the game. :)
 
Not surround sound, but i have it wired through the big stereo in my room so i get good quality and a lot of bass if i need it.
 
DQuaN
Not surround sound, but i have it wired through the big stereo in my room so i get good quality and a lot of bass if i need it.
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Aww mate you need to get surround sound. You will thank me after you do it. Makes games sooo much better. You actually know the exact direction you are getting shot from in surround sound. They did an incredible job with the sound effects in this game. I would say the sounds are virtually flawless. When you shatter glass in surround sound you hear it get shot in front of you and if you turn around it falls to the ground thru the surround sound behind you. :dopey:
 
Is this a function that's easy to plug into the PS2? Do you use the optical output or something?
 
DQuaN
Is this a function that's easy to plug into the PS2? Do you use the optical output or something?
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I think there are some systems that you can just plug into the PS2 but a decent one usually requires a reciever. You said you already have a stereo. Does it have surround sound on it? If it does you would only need to pick up a couple speakers. I plug my optical cable into my reciever and thats all. Its that easy. Optical cable is about $20.00
 
No, it's just a bog standard stereo. A fairly good one, but also quite old and unable to support surround sound. It does however have an output for a sub woofer. :D

If would have to buy the whole surround sound setup to do that, and there are other things i need to spend my money on at the moment.
 
DQuaN
No, it's just a bog standard stereo. A fairly good one, but also quite old and unable to support surround sound. It does however have an output for a sub woofer. :D

If would have to buy the whole surround sound setup to do that, and there are other things i need to spend my money on at the moment.
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I understand completely. Gotta have priorities. :)
To get set up with a decent surround sound you would probably be around $150-$200. Mine was only $200 in the game room. I am extremely picky with sound quality and it is very impressive for only $200.00 👍
 
It is something i want to do though, so it is on my list. It's just a matter of time.
 
You don't need to use the optical output to get surround on PS2 games though, because PS2 games only support Dolby Pro Logic II ingame, and that's dividing a two channel sound to 5.1. You can use the regular RCA cable. I do.
 
FatAssBR
You don't need to use the optical output to get surround on PS2 games though, because PS2 games only support Dolby Pro Logic II ingame, and that's dividing a two channel sound to 5.1. You can use the regular RCA cable. I do.
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Yes thats true, you can use the regular red and white RCA component cables instead if you want. I use the optical because its easier for me to swap surround sound between PS2 to PS2 to xbox to xbox. Because all I do is pull 1 wire and plug into whatever system I am using. However the optical cables do sound better than the component cables. Probably not noticable to everyone but I can tell the difference.
 
I'm a bit stuck on 'Gain entrance to Tivliz Assylum interior'. I am at the building, there are two little rooms at either side, steps up the middle, but i cannot find a way in. Help please!
 
DQuaN
I'm a bit stuck on 'Gain entrance to Tivliz Assylum interior'. I am at the building, there are two little rooms at either side, steps up the middle, but i cannot find a way in. Help please!
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Did you figure everything out? Level 5 was my favorite level of the game. After I beat the game, I actually went back to level 5 a couple times just to play that level again.
 
Yeah, before i had posted that message, i had dropped 4 or 5 grenades on the turret in the middle. After wandering around for ages, i threw one more at it, and it blew up giving me access!

Remind me what happens on level 5. I think I have done more than 5 levels now, can't remember which level 5 was though.
 
DQuaN
Yeah, before i had posted that message, i had dropped 4 or 5 grenades on the turret in the middle. After wandering around for ages, i threw one more at it, and it blew up giving me access!

Remind me what happens on level 5. I think I have done more than 5 levels now, can't remember which level 5 was though.
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I am almost positive level 5 (where you were at) is where you start blowing thru walls like crazy. The most famous part of level 5 is the bathroom scene. Everything shatters and explodes in there. Its insane. Then if that isnt enough, you walk out of the bathroom and your introduced to the shield holding shotgun guy. You can walk around him blowing all the walls out. I loved that entire part of the level. Nothing more cool than blowing thru walls to get around enemies. Then BOOM shotgun blast to the back of his head. :dopey: There is also a hidden AK47 or something like that in one of the walls that you blow thru.
 
You mean M16? I'm on that level at the moment. The shower room looks like the one from The Rock. I hate those guys with the shields, they even seem to survive grenades going off infront of them. They never poke their heads out or anything. They are so hard to kill.

It's a great game overall. The only drawback is how many shots these guys take to kill. If you get a perfect headshot, they go down in one. But sometimes i have unloaded 5, 10 or even 15 rounds in to their face and torso, and they keep going.
 
DQuaN
You mean M16? I'm on that level at the moment. The shower room looks like the one from The Rock. I hate those guys with the shields, they even seem to survive grenades going off infront of them. They never poke their heads out or anything. They are so hard to kill.

It's a great game overall. The only drawback is how many shots these guys take to kill. If you get a perfect headshot, they go down in one. But sometimes i have unloaded 5, 10 or even 15 rounds in to their face and torso, and they keep going.
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Oh yeah mabey it was the M16. The shield guys are indeed difficult but you better get used to them because level 5 is only a tickle of what is coming up towards the end of the game. (especially the last room in level 8) Throw the grenade behind them. Try to always save your grenades in case you run into one of those shield guys.
All the guys are hard to kill because they are all wearing bullet proof vests. If I knew a crazy guy was coming I would have a bullet proof vest on too. :sly: Yes headshots are the way to go or blow stuff up around the enemy. The game was designed so you use as much of the items in the level as possible to kill people. :dopey:
 
I'm a couple of levels past there now. The last room in level 5 was pretty intense.

The headshot thing is still bugging me, and i have worked out why.

For a perfect headshot, you have to hit their helmet. You hear a little dink, the helmet flies off, and they drop to the ground. If you hit them in the face, it doesn't count as a headshot. :grumpy: You can hit them 4 or 5 times in the face, and they don't go down.
 
This game was phenominally better than I was expecting. The last level raised the difficulty bar a LOT compared to the relatively easy-breezy majority of the game...

I didn't like the cutscenes whatsoever, I think they could've just had a little written briefing ala Goldeneye and then straight into the level. It doesn't need to pretend it has a plot. Too much fast cutting between images etc in the cutscenes made them annoying to follow anyway, I just zoned out and waited to see what the next amazing looking level would be like...

The art direction is truly beautiful too, that is often ignored given the non-subtlety of the gameplay... The controls and the pure class of the level design make it seem like it'll be a truly classic-to-be-remembered console shooter, like Goldeneye is or Halo is, just in its own way.

I do think the gamespot review is too negative. I remember each level perfectly, and will play the game every now and then to get my Black 'fix'... Sure its simple, but there is still a lot of fun to be had with repeated playing... the platformer analogy is spot on. Its always fun to play a level of Super Mario 3 even though its linear and you know what to do... the core mechanics are just FUN. I believe the gamespot people just didn't understand exactly what the game is about. The AI doesn't matter, the game sets up a challenge for you, it doesn't matter that the enemy soldiers don't behave like in Farcry or whatnot. The enemies in Mario ain't exactly smart... Its just about understanding the pattern of the enemy and taking advantage of their behaviour... The act of pulling this off in an efficient way where you take least damage is still very fun indeed.

The ONLY thing I don't really like is the (IMO) unneccessary cutscenes and the lack of splitscreen multiplayer (online you couldn't do all that stuff breaking and exploding – even with broadband IMO - imagine the level with 8 people in it blasting away... it would just be too much for the game to handle...). I also didn't really like the 'docks' level, just seemed the most generic in style (bad looking water on PS2 version (no idea about Xbox)) and there was the least amount of stuff to blow up in that level too... it became too much of a NORMAL first person shooter...

There are so many memorable bits... gamepot are full of crap! The gravestones getting snipered off as you duck between them... the massive silos blowing up... the matrix lobby scene pillars blowing out chunks... the bathroom scene and walls you can blow right though... even just the lovely differentiation of styles and colour palattes of each and every level. They all look different and each seems to be a classic level in its own right IMO... I did actually really like the bridge ripped straight from Half Life 2 also...

Its definately worth getting. Just forget about pretending it should be approached as a normal FPS with normal FPS expectations. It is a super fun game regardless of genre conventions.
 
James,
Your review of the game is the exact same opinion I have. I could easily pick this game up and play it over and over again. Which is not something I can usually do in any single player game. I also agree that the cut scenes were rediculous and not even necessary. Great review. 👍 Throw some online multiplayer into the next edition of Black and I think it will be a major hit.
 
Thanks! I really do believe Black deserves a score at least in the 90's. Taking marks off for lack of normal FPS bullet-point features (excuse the gun, err pun) these games usually have like multiplayer and intelligent AI when its clearly one of the most memorable and FUN games you can buy is just a product of over-analysing, jaded and tired video game reviewers who have to pan a game cause it isn't what they were expecting given the hype (killzone got hammered due to these things too - its still an inherently fun game although its NOT halo...). If Black wasn't presented in a FPS format (and perhaps a 3rd person game like Splinter Cell or Prince of Persia/God of War/etc etc) it wouldn't HAVE to have multiplayer or smart baddies etc (from the jaded reviewer's perspectives, cause genre conventions MUST be obeyed according to them...). The game is inherently FUN, more fun than anything I've played in some time. Therefore a great score is justified IMO. It's not an average game in any sense of the word.

I wish games were just reviewed and given a good mark if they were really fun!
 
👍

First rate write up, and I quite agree with all you have said.

Black in my opinion is one of the finest FPS I have played in a long, long time; the reason as you quite rightly say is simply because its so much fun.

For too long games have had to have more features, more option, more everything. It got to the point that it was almost impossiable to pick up a good shooter that did not require you to memorise the damn manual and spend an age on set-up.

Black was a blast of fresh air, just pick it up and blow the hell out of everything (and at least you can skip the cut scenes when you replay), the last FPS that was this good (in my opinion because I never rated Halo as highly as most - the vehicle bits sucked) was the original Timespliters when it came out.

Right might have to go off and replay level 5 again - I love the last room on that level - falling pillars - the place looks such a mess when you finish.

Regards

Scaff
 
Heck yeah. Level 5 was by far the best level in the game. The walls you could blow thru, the bathroom scence, the walls after the bathroom scene, then all the pillar action at the end. Your right, the entire level is completely blown to pieces by the time you are finished. I really really have to get videos of that level. When the guy was over last weekend hooking my new PC up I showed him level 5 in full surround sound and you should have seen his face. :drool: :drool: :drool:
 
While I agree with all of the above. I am still miffed at the headshots. A SHOT TO THE FACE SHOULD KILL THEM!!!!

I am still in awe of this game however, and there is something very satisfying about getting two headshots in quick succession from range.

*dink* *dink*
 
DQuaN
While I agree with all of the above. I am still miffed at the headshots. A SHOT TO THE FACE SHOULD KILL THEM!!!!

I am still in awe of this game however, and there is something very satisfying about getting two headshots in quick succession from range.

*dink* *dink*
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Quite agree about the headshots and the satisfaction factor. Level 5 (again) has a great moment like that, the first room in the asylum, the first guy is easy, silenced MP5 to the back of the head, but then getting the ones wandering around the balconies is a real challenge.

Regards

Scaff
 
I've been playing the demo for the past few days. This game is real easy and hard. It's hard if you try to Rambo it, but easy if you squat and move slowly and pick off your enemies one at a time. The AK-47 in single shot mode rules for long distance shots while zooming in. Medium range requires burst mode, and then full auto for suppression fire. Fun stuff but I seem to have a glitch. My character keeps slowly moving to the left even if I don't touch the controller. Is that the norm?
 
It could be just that your controller is sticking slightly?

That happens to me sometimes in other games, the position which the stick ends up in is ever so slightly pulled to the left or right which causes movement. I notice it mostly in racing games and I haven't noticed it in Black.

However it could just be a glitch in the demo...
 

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