Blacklight : Tango Down

InkSix

EGO Zealot
http://store.steampowered.com/app/27330/

I'm surprised how good this FPS is at $15. It uses Games For Windows Live and matchmaking, but if that does not bother you it's a really solid game for a low price.

There are 70 levels, four co-op missions with up to 4 players with three levels of difficulty.

12 competitive maps with 7 game modes, some are small and some are pretty moderate in size.

Customizing and unlocking guns parts is addictive. And they aren't cosmetic.

There are over one hundred "tags." Tags are basically key chains that you put on your gun that give the gun or your soldier added stats or perks.

And then, if you didn't know, BL:TD uses a "leagalized wallhack" feature that will let you temporarily see all your enemies. It's a neat feature, and if you use it right it's devastating. It has a moderate cool down to use it again, so it's best to quickly turn it on and off. And it in no way breaks game play. I still play and think as I would in any shooter, being mindful of snipers and corners, but now I can advance or camp with advanced intel of enemy positions, and that's what your enemy is doing as well.

Guns in this game really need you to aim and be mindful of your shots. The gun and crosshairs wont move, but your gun will spread more and more as you continue to hold down the trigger. And if you decide you'll just run around mindlessly shooting, you'll die. BL:TD's gun spread like a thumb on a water hose if you don't look down the ironsights, especially if you are moving.


Besides matchmaking, the only draw back is that Blacklight makes no attempt to help you understand what on Earth some things mean or do. According to an Admin on the Blacklight forums, the three stats bars you have and modify are Power, Speed, and Health. But there are lots of things that don't make any attempt to tell you what they do, or if they do what you think they do.

For example: I changed the barrel of my rifle from a long to a short one. My speed went up, presumably from less wait, but did my firepower go down because the gun will spread more now, or because the game is coded to actually make my gun less powerful with the same amount of spread?

Also, such things like added a longer barrel to a secondary pistol do absolutely nothing to your stats. So, am I to expect that putting this barrel on will make my gun more accurate and have slightly longer use distance? Is this something I am just supposed to know? It's very strange. I remember reading an article that pointed out what each tag did, and some of them do neat things like make your wallhack visor recharge faster, but you are given no such information in the game.

But the developer is going to provide all the missing info soon with a FAQ. I don't know if that's in game or website tho.

Things the developer is working on:
They have expressed they are very dedicated on working on the features and problems have with the game. They aren't doing DLC for the game, so I suppose that's more time for them to fix problems. They are, however, already working on a sequal to the game around summer next year. To me, this is much better than say, buying a new $60 CoD every year, granted I don't care much for CoD.

They are working on implementing a fix to address player concern of no joining a game once it started.

They are working on implementing a fix to address players leaving games early.




Off the top of my head, I can't think of any more, but the developer is very focused on keeping this game going and trying to be the cheap underdog FPS with just-as-good gameplay.





And I'm off! *gets in flying car*

Add me on Steam if you get it! http://steamcommunity.com/id/kittens323
 
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Bought it on the XBLA, it's pretty fun. It's probably also the first game I've been on the top of the scoreboard three times in a row (with 30 kills to 25 deaths =/ )
 
Bought it on the XBLA, it's pretty fun. It's probably also the first game I've been on the top of the scoreboard three times in a row (with 30 kills to 25 deaths =/ )

How many people are on the leaderboards for the Xbox? There's like, less than 2000 for the PC. It's kinda worrying. I wrote to the publisher suggesting they seriously consider a free weekend.
 
BlackLight would probably come out to be one of my favorite FPS shooters if the fine people at Zombie Studios and Ignition weren't idiots.

I come off with the disclaimer that I enjoy playing the game and it's a very fun fast paced shooter. Now, moving on, onto the MASSIVE problems with it:

1) HOW DO YOU EXPECT A FARKING GAME TO SELL WHEN YOUR WEBSITE DOESN'T ACKNOWLEDGE IT'S OUT WEEKS AFTER THE FIRST RELEASE?

2) http://www.gamespot.com/news/6269032.html 'Nuff said. They release a problematic game that's not getting the best of praise and they're already working on shipping out another one in a year. If any of the PR guys at Ignition knew what they were doing then they'd know that's a terrible move. I get the feeling they're just going to be Activision, pumping out a subpar game every year no matter what, albeit at a fourth of the price.

3) The single player is terrible and pointless. They didn't even include any achievements for playing it; you suffer absolutely nothing for ignoring its existance.

It's also ridiculously easy.

4) There's absolutely no balance between the weapon types. The LMG gets on par at later levels (~40), but until then there's not a real reason to use it or a sniper rifle or assault rifle. SMGs just win absolutely.

5) The complete customization kinda goes out the door when you dump 5,000 parts on people AND DON'T TELL THEM WHAT THE HELL THEY DO. Seriously. They generalized three stats, the only one that you can actually notice being "speed," and there's 500 hidden stats that you can only learn through trial and error.

Tags are by far one of the stupidest ideas I've ever seen. If I want to max stats, I can't use the ones I like an instead have to use a stupid bright green assault rifle. I have to literally gimp my defense (which is what WE THINK the third stat is; Zombie won't confirm) to use something I like to look at.

I had so much hope for this game as being great, but it's just alright. I'll still play it and I'm still doing really good (because, given the amount of whining on the Ignition Forums, people have no idea that THEY can use the HRV properly and seem to wall themselves into a corner where they complain it's bad because people use it against them) and it's good for a $15 price tag, but if they fixed a number of the problems and had actually launched a superior weapon customization system (quality over quantity) I'd have paid a full $60 for this game.
 
2) http://www.gamespot.com/news/6269032.html 'Nuff said. They release a problematic game that's not getting the best of praise and they're already working on shipping out another one in a year. If any of the PR guys at Ignition knew what they were doing then they'd know that's a terrible move. I get the feeling they're just going to be Activision, pumping out a subpar game every year no matter what, albeit at a fourth of the price.

-snip-

Sounds like Activision.
 
3) The single player is terrible and pointless. They didn't even include any achievements for playing it; you suffer absolutely nothing for ignoring its existance.
I didn't even know the game had a singleplayer. Honestly all the trailers,videos and interviews make it out as a multiplayer only game.
 
I didn't even know the game had a singleplayer. Honestly all the trailers,videos and interviews make it out as a multiplayer only game.

The single player portion is four maps against AI bots and it can be played with up to three of your friends on three difficulty settings. It's a fun diversion from online multiplayer and all the experience you gain in the co-op missions counts towards your multiplayer rank.

I honestly don't see why someone would think it's a drawback of the game. This game is meant to be a competitive multiplayer FPS. The co-op simply just a tacked on change of pace. Nothing more. The developers don't even heavily emphasize its existence.
 
The single player portion is four maps against AI bots and it can be played with up to three of your friends on three difficulty settings. It's a fun diversion from online multiplayer and all the experience you gain in the co-op missions counts towards your multiplayer rank.

I honestly don't see why someone would think it's a drawback of the game. This game is meant to be a competitive multiplayer FPS. The co-op simply just a tacked on change of pace. Nothing more. The developers don't even heavily emphasize its existence.

At some point in the development cycle and browsing official word on Ignition's forum I was promised an actual campaign. They never game me that and, considering they've expressed major interest in turning the BlackLight world into a multimedia campaign, has left me knowing absolutely zip about the universe other than the tiny blurbs on their website.

They could've turned out a passable single player. Meh. My key problem with Black Ops as it stands is that up until about level 30, when playing by yourself, you can get about half a bar of XP per mission. However, if you bring in three friends, the XP gained shoots waaay down because 99% of it is based on NPC kills. So you're splitting that XP with four people.

My last final, major rant about the game while I'm close to being on the subject: Zombie decided that if you like getting XP and leveling up, you shouldn't play certain game types.

Domination, Retrieval, and whatever the Sabotage (a la MW2) game mode is offer LESS XP per kill than team deathmatch (50 XP per). On top of that, you gain no bonus XP for playing the objective; you gain nothing for winning, you gain nothing for capturing the flag, you gain nothing for defusing the bomb.

You just get gimped XP per kill, whereas you can go through lightning quick matches of Last Team Standing/Last Man Standing for 150 XP per kill, or you can play Team Deathmatch or Deathmatch and walk out with 30+ kills at 100 XP each.

I enjoy playing those game modes, but I also reeeeally want to get to 40 because I want my LMG. And those two just don't go together at this point.
 
How many people are on the leaderboards for the Xbox? There's like, less than 2000 for the PC. It's kinda worrying. I wrote to the publisher suggesting they seriously consider a free weekend.

I never actually thought to check, so I don't know.

I actually never heard of this game until release, because I check the XBL Marketplace every wednesday (the days arcade games come out.)
 
Sigh.

I really like it. But this is like the most super rushed, unfinished, or either super rookie effort.


But honestly I'm getting a lot of value out of it. The HRV makes the game play really different and I had a blast yesterday. As long as they patch and support the game up until the next one next summer, I think I'll probably be a "Blacklight" guy, whereas most are Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Medal of Honor.

:D
 
Sigh.

I really like it. But this is like the most super rushed, unfinished, or either super rookie effort.


But honestly I'm getting a lot of value out of it. The HRV makes the game play really different and I had a blast yesterday. As long as they patch and support the game up until the next one next summer, I think I'll probably be a "Blacklight" guy, whereas most are Call of Duty, Battlefield, or Medal of Honor.

:D

Yeah. I'm really having a lot of fun with it (especially because I can do stupid tricks like 360 kills on the Xbox; can't do that very easy with the mouse), but Zombie just needs to take a step up and release all the info they can about the game (and announce that it's out!) and patch up a few things.
 
Some people actually like finding out hidden stats for themselves.
Unfortunately, those people tend not to be a part of the Online FPS crowd.
 
I just played a full two matches! This game is awesome and really fast paced with lots of people.
 
I'm starting to feel really positive about Blacklight now. I decided to jump into a game really quick because MMOing, and I was searching for 5 seconds before I was trust into a FULL TDM. And there was actually enough to end the game with just 1 kill shy of winning by kills before the time ran out.

FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC.

I am so glad to see this game being played, and there's more and more people on the leaderbaords every day!
 
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