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It’s not unheard of for a great game to come along and not see a sequel, as it happens fairly often. Typically, it’s due to poor sales despite critical acclaim, restructured game studios and layoffs, or expiring license rights. When it comes to a sequel for Black, neither of those aspects was the cause, as a sequel was desired and in the works for some time. Unfortunately, the all-too-familiar problem of “creative differences” made moving forward with a sequel impossible. While this sucks for fans of the game, a spiritual successor, Bodycount, was released in 2011, but it was not a sequel.
Black Is an Amazing FPS Modern Players Should Check Out
Black came out when FPS titles were just getting their formats right, and the devs at Criterion Games nailed it. The game is set in Ingushetia and Chechnya, where Sergeant First Class Jack Kellar, the player character, is a member of a CIA black ops unit. It begins with SFC Kellar being interrogated under threat of declassifying his activities, with a court-martial being a certainty should he not reveal the events that led him there. This begins the narrative, set four days earlier, where Kellar and his unit go up against the Seventh Wave terrorist organization.
Numerous missions follow, and Black’s plot unfolds with extensive detail and excellent voice-acting performances by its talented cast. In terms of gameplay, Black is a fairly straightforward FPS, following the mechanics you’d find in any game of the mid-2000s. You can equip and carry two weapons at a time, which requires some strategy considering what you might face on any given mission. It features objectives, targets, destructive environments, and a complex HUD that delivers information to the player as they progress. Part of what makes Black so compelling is its environment, as great care was taken in producing just the right sounds for every weapon’s action.
