It's hard to describe in words how horrible this game is.
User Rating: 3 | Blacklight: Tango Down PS3
I have to use a classic "like x but y" statement for this review. In this case it's "Blacklight: Tango Down is like Call of Duty but it sucks." This is a game that you can tell wants more than anything in the world to be Call of Duty. You die as easily as you do in Call of Duty, there's a full create a class mode like in Call of Duty, you have ranks and leveling up like you do in Call of Duty, there's even a separate mission based mode called "Black Ops". The game also feels like a wannabe Halo in the fact that everything is all sci-fi related and the characters all look like home-made Master Chief costumes, except the craft store was out of Green plates so they had to substitute for black. There is a story, but I really don't care enough to know what it is. I played the "Black Ops" mode, which is really the only story based single player mode, and after I had to fight the atrocious A.I. for a couple of minutes and do a "Simon Says" type of puzzle, I was done. Then I hopped online, and was met with an experience that was decent. The game is kind of fun. Like I said, it's a lot like Call of Duty, except not as fun. For some reason (probably the fact that no one really cares enough to get really good) I found Blacklight to be much easier that Call of Duty, which made it more enjoyable, but then I ran into the grenades. There's this little grenade in Blacklight which has the power to make even the strongest and healthiest man in the world shudder with epilepsy just by watching it for a few minutes, and it's obviously really annoying. Basically there's some sort of virtual reality aspect of the story (again, I didn't care enough to find out what the story actually is), so there's a lot of virtual reality-esque effects such as: disintegration, cool warping in stuff when you re-spawn, and the not so cool flash grenade effect which flashes a jumble of ugly gray squares at you until you puke yourself into submission. Throw in the annoying quirk of PlayStation Network that is the fact that no one has a mic except annoying eleven year olds, and the people who actually do have important stuff to say end up with mics that sound all garbled on my end, and you end up with a nice little headache. Did I mention that trying to connect to a server is like lobotomizing yourself with a dull golf trophy made of pure bacon fat? Well, it's really annoying and painful. I also believe I forgot to mention my favorite aspect of Blacklight: Tango Down: The hilarious loading screen hints. I don't know who the target audience is for this game, but according to the loading screens it's either four year old children or 50 year old moms. I quote: "Ducking behind cover is a good way to protect yourself during a firefight." Enough said. The bottom line is this: When I play Blacklight: Tango Down it has three effects on me:
-It makes me laugh (unintentionally)
-It gives me a headache
-It reminds me of how awesome Call of Duty is and makes me wish I was playing that.
These are not three things that a game should do to a person. If you have these three goals listed on your checklist while you're developing a game, you really need to consider a different field. May I suggest a job as a Dull-Bacon Fat-Golf-Trophy Lobotomy Surgeon?
