The story from Blacklight: Tango down is sadly generic. It’s a 2 faction war and you’re either on 1 faction or another. Kill or be killed, the war rages onward. Here’s the story taken from the official website:
In the near-future, the Blacklight: Tango team has been sent to find recently missing Colonel Klein and his personal Blacklight team in the city of Balik. The country had recently broken out in war after the assassination of its president. The rebel group that had killed the president, The Order, is thought to have captured or killed the missing Blacklight team.
They prepare to attack the Order’s headquarters when Blacklight Command informs them that the civilians have been infected with an unknown virus, causing them to attack everyone they encounter. As they engage The Order in combat, both sides are attacked by crazed civilians. Because the circumstances have changed, they are ordered to stop The Order at all cost.
So yeah, pretty thin on the story. Don’t expect a blockbuster movie out of this game. At the price of either $15 (for PSN and PC) or 1,200 points (x360), I can understand that. I quote Jared Gerritzen from the first developer diary video:
” The game is a DLC exclusive game. We are doing things that most people are charging $60 for… But we are really believing in DLC and decided to do it as a DLC game.“
The idea had me curious as they were basically taking a shot at bigger fish like the Call of Duty franchise.
The other concept that charmed me was the weapons customization. The developers in their diaries mention that there are hundreds of combinations for guns. From scopes, barrels, stocks, grips, and even down to weapon trinkets. There’s a chance to make your own killer gun so that when someone does kill you, you will be infamous for your gun when someone has it in their hands… or so they claim. I personally thought the idea from Borderlands on the 17,500,000 total guns was great, but lack of customization ended up with you having to farm for a gun. With Blacklight’s customization system, you create your own gun to your liking. This enticed me greatly. The concept of the HRV (Hyper Reality Visor) is fun though clumsy. It is cool as it helps you locate hostiles and join up the action, but there’s a “usage bar” under the health meter. It just cannot be used when it is considered recharging. Also with the HRV, you cannot attack with it on. It must be taken off to allow you to fight.
The bad news…
The single player/co-op Black Ops missions are terrible. Mind you, I don’t say this lightly. The computer opponents are able to wall-hack (shooting through walls). Sometimes head shots or melee attacks don’t even register. Add to that the matter they sometimes even get stuck and won’t shoot you. The single player/co-op missions seemed like a terrible after thought. I know that when I played a round with my co-editor Jarret, we noticed these flaws like a sore thumb. The polish is very lacking and it is disappointing as the single player portion of a FPS game should almost be like training mode for multiplayer.
Multiplayer is rather plain and generic. Sadly, it doesn’t help that people can camp close to the spawns and pick off people for easy kills. Sure, there’s a turret at the spawn but sometimes it won’t even do much to pick off spawn campers. Capture games are pretty standard, with the remix of being able to increase the pace of the game by playing mini-game and on success you gain a territory without having to wait out the time. The campers and lack of good map balance really kill the game’s potential quite quickly. Add in the matter that connecting to a multiplayer game can take 6-10 minutes and it’s a frustrating experience. I say this with the fact that I am on a Verizon FiOS connection…
Overall, the game has flaws that just end up making the game a very shallow shooter. The life bar is rather needless as it doesn’t function like one. For example, in games, I have 175 HP. After a 3-4 hits I end up in critical (25 HP), but then like a cover shooter, I regenerate some HP until about 88 HP and it stops. It was a short sighted idea as it was like the developers couldn’t decide to make the game an arena shooter (HP system) or a cover shooter (a la Call of Duty with regenerating HP). The guns sound totally generic. A machine gun and a sub-machine gun sound like the same weapon. The sound of the characters talking on the communicators or the objective giver are completely bland. The unlockable parts for the guns are partially based on in-game achievements. Mediocre players will feel the brunt of this as it will take them longer unlock things than say a very skilled player.
I can’t say I can recommend Blacklight: Tango Down even at the bargain bin price of $15/1,200 points. The flaws just drown out the interesting play concepts to the point of futility. I am gonna have to say that I can easily see the developers at Zombie and UTV Ignition making a pretty penny for “selling” DLC patches to make the game better. I simply do not feel they have kept their stance of providing a $60 game for $15 because the lackluster single-player/co-operative missions just felt like a total last second thought. Add in the total generic feel all around and it is far from a value… If the developers can polish up the game, work out the flaws, and make it perfect, the game could be a definite deal.
[nggallery id=15]
[Official images sourced from the Official Blacklight Tango Down website]
