Black

��We want to give you the feeling of what it��s like to be shot at,�� Criterion��s Alex Ward tells me with a cheeky grin before I��m ushered into a darkened room at Electronic Arts�� Redwood City campus. The demo I��m about to play is apparently from ��somewhere in the middle�� of the game, but that��s all I��m told. Criterion isn��t ready to get too specific yet, as the group��s primary focus is on getting Burnout Revenge out the door. ��We can��t tell you the story yet,�� I��m told, ��and don��t ask about too many specifics��we��re just not sure yet.�� The purpose of this hands-on demo is purely visceral.

I start in a tiny room, windows to my right and a door directly in front of me. Two seconds later, before I��ve got a handle on what��s going on or figured out if the control scheme is set up the way I like it, stuff starts exploding. Windows shatter into thousands of pieces, bullets tear into the walls, and there are sparks everywhere. A box on the floor flies across the room, stuff starts to break, and there��s the relentless sound of gunfire. There��s no music, no pleasantries, just the loud crackle of automatic weaponry. ��Crouch!�� someone yells. Not in the game, but in real life. The guy from Criterion is looking at me like I��m nuts. ��How the hell do I do that?�� I shout back, suddenly afflicted with that desperate inability to play videogames that often occurs when thrust into an unfamiliar experience. I edge forward and fiddle with buttons. By some fluke, I drop down just as a series of bullet holes spatters across the door in front of me. The wood splinters convincingly, and it��s blatantly obvious that there��s a bad guy on the other side of the door with a very big gun. What the hell��I click off a few rounds from my pistol directly at the door, run forward, wait for a pause in his fire, and then burst through. The guy drops and now I��m out in the open.

Looking across the street, I can see a guy ducking down behind a smoking wreck of a car, but the shots that are pinging off the wall near my right shoulder are apparently coming from somewhere else. I grab the dead guy��s AK-47, duck back into the room, and pause to catch my breath. Sheepishly sticking my nose out, I squeeze off a few rounds in the general direction of the car, and somehow I score another kill. My other assailant is above me to the left, but I can��t really see him. I can see the tracer from his shots, though, so I point the machine gun in his general direction and unload an entire clip. Nothing. ��Try the pistol, it��s more accurate,�� says Criterion��s chuckling representative. I switch weapons, poke my head out, and the ensuing spray of bullets forces me back into hiding again. Deep breath, peep out, hit the zoom button on the trigger, and squeeze a single shot at the guy��s head. Down he goes. Ha! Take that.

Argh! More gunfire is coming from the right, but I can��t see anything through all the smoke. I see an alley across the street, and there��s a conveniently placed dumpster that I can duck down behind for a quick breather. Reaching there fairly unscathed, I can see that my health bar is divided into three separate chunks. I��ve taken damage, but now I��m out of harm��s way and my health is regenerating Halo-style. I stand up and peep around the corner. Wait. Where are those shots coming from? Bullets are hitting the masonry near my head, and there��s dust everywhere. Those shots came from behind me!

Ignoring the guys in the street, I duck back down behind the dumpster, switch to the AK, make sure I have a fresh clip, wait for a break in the firing, and stand up to blast randomly down the narrow alley. In the split second that I��m standing, I can see two bad guys. I pop up again, and by some fluke I whack the first guy straight in the face, hide again, and notice that I��ve been holding my breath. This isn��t one of those shooters in which you can just wade in and start blasting at stuff. You move slowly, purposefully, and you have to get a feel for where the bad guys are with just the quickest of glances.

For the a moment it��s remarkably quiet, but as I move to the end of the alley, the action resumes with shocking intensity. Gunfire, explosions, junk flying everywhere, and suddenly I��m aware of voices shouting instructions in the distance. Apparently, I have buddies helping me out. I��m no lone soldier, I��m part of a squad, and as far as I can tell, they��re kicking considerably more ass than I am. I try to poke my head out of the alley to see what��s going on, but it��s very quickly shot at, and I lose one of my three blocks of health. My second block is nearly empty too, so I run for cover and try to work out who was shooting at me.

And so it continues. When we first saw Black in action back at E3, the only concerns raised were whether Criterion could maintain the tension and the ferocity of the experience through the typical duration that it takes to play through a game of this nature. Sure, the spectacle of all that��stuff��happening is jaw dropping, but there was always the worry that it would just be emotionally exhausting. Although this look at the game was only the briefest of experiences, it��s clear that Black��s pacing is dictated by the way it forces you to carefully pick your way through each encounter as you methodically work forward.

Pub. EA Games

Dev. Criterion

Release Q1 2006

Black: the Goal

��We set out with the goal of making something that��s not just a throwaway shooter,�� Jeremy Chubb, Black��s producer told us. ��We don��t want this to be a really simple game, we want it to be something that you want to return to again and again. We want people shooting the environment, and we really don��t want them just charging around like nutters with guns. We want them to have to think about what they��re doing.

��We��ve had enough of covert gameplay. We��ve seen a lot of games in this genre, and when you say a game is about black operations [people] immediately make assumptions about stealth, and squads, and tactics. We just want to put you in the world and give you a gun. The only covert thing in this game is that you kill everyone, so there��s never anyone left to know that you were there in the first place.��

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine.