20 years ago today, the Criterion development team created a first-person shooter called Black, made in the GTA engine, exclusively for the consoles of the time.
The Criterion Games development team is remembered for the BurnOut and Need for Speed games. However, in the short period between those two series, they also made a first-person shooter, called Blackwhich was launched on PlayStation 2 and Xbox on this day in 2006.
Black was a military shooter in which we are like CIA agent Jack Kellar prevented terrorist activities in the territories of Chechnya and Ingushetia. The game followed the then “modern” principle of shooters where the player could only carry two weapons at a time.
Black entered the market in 2006, which was already dominated by numerous other shooters, and tried to stand out among them by focusing on weapons. It’s in Black the weapon was very destructive and the firing left visible marks on the surroundings. They also tried to simulate different effects, for example, when loading ammunition, the image would blur and only the weapon would remain in focus.
As the game came out relatively late in the era of PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles, it was one of the most graphically impressive games of that generation. It is interesting that it used the RenderWare engine just like BurnOut and GTA titles.
Although Black received very good ratings upon its release, it failed to develop into a series. The game’s co-creator Stuart Black parted ways with the publishing house Electronic Arts and later tried to create a successor to Black, called Bodycount. However, that project did not go very well.
Unfortunately, Black is one of the games that never got its digital release and remained playable only on old consoles.