Blacklight: Tango Down Review for the Xbox 360 and PS3

     A lot of podcasts out there have really been pimping this game a bunch, talking about how much work was put into the game and that it really deserves our hard earned dollars. Well it's just a multiplayer shooting game and $15, to me, is a bit of cash. I did take the dip though and bought the downloadable title.

Gameplay

= Shooty, shooty, bang, bang! - It's got the fast paced action of Modern Warfare 2 and it's got the slightest feel of Killzone and Halo. In other words, you play hard and fast, but you won't die SO immediately all the time. The thing that really turns me off about the gameplay is how much headshots matter. They're literally the difference between life and death. Because of that, you're going to have a tougher time starting out since you won't have the enhanced guns of those that have been playing a while. If you can get those headshots though, it's a pretty level playing field no matter what rank you are. Let me state, however, that although that aspect bothers me, Blacklight Tango Down is a pretty balanced game when it comes to low level players against high level players. If you're good at shooters, you'll be good. If you're bad, then you're bad.

+ Customize this! - Customization is the name of the game in Blacklight. You are able to mod every section of the gun, from the muzzle to the clip. It's said that every weapon upgrade and tag (tags are little trinkets you attach to your gun like soda cans or boxing gloves that give you special stat boosts) actually have secret effects although no one knows what they are yet. Still, when you make your weapon, it most definitely becomes an extension of yourself through the way that you play and your personality.


+ No Disc! - I always wanted a shooter I could just boot up from my Xbox instead of swapping out a disc and this is exactly what I wanted!


+ Modes, and maps, and machine guns, oh my! - There are 7 game types and 12 maps to play on and they're all pretty intelligently designed. The maps are varied and range from arenas to straight-forward shafts with lots of hiding places littered in-between every inch of them.
     Listing off the modes: You got your Deathmatches, Retrieval (capture-the-flag), Detonate (bomb-run), Dominate (territory-capture), and Last Man Standing Deathmatches. Dominate has been my favorite so far. You have to hack consoles to capture territories and when you hack into them you play a Simon-Says minigame. It really speeds up the pace of the game mode and has provided a ton of thrills such as racing to a console with someone chasing you down, tossing down a proximity mine and beginning the hack, and right as they're about to stop you, BOOM! Right after that, you whisk off to the next console!

+ Thrills and chills - Blacklight holds the same moments in the multiplayer that you get from the big names. If it didn't, I don't think the game would be worth my time. There are the panic-sprays from Halo when you just can't aim because you're too damned close to the enemy and you twitch down to a mess of bullets on the screen as the other does just the same (Good luck not feeling like a dork when you walk away from that particular situation), and there's running through guys like a lawnmower from Call of Duty where you find yourself just getting damn lucky as you sprint through a hall where the other team spawns and you get through 5 of them without dying. If you just wanted to get your quick fixes like these without swapping a disc and playing for a full-priced game, welcome to Blacklight: Tango Down.

- I'm going camping - When it's you vs. three to four other players because everyone on your team quit out, you're likely to be spawn camped. Luckily there are two ways out of the spawn base so you can make a run through the second way out but no one tends to do that. My advice is to try it because everyone will be watching your movements and if they catch a glimpse of you, it's back to spawning. It just sucks that some games boil down to this...

+ I can see clearly - HRV's allow you to change your view to a networked vision of where everyone and everything is in the map. This stops the annoying wonder of where that sniper is or why you keep getting shot around a certain corner. You can't shoot while it's activated and the longer you use it, the longer it takes to recharge for the next use. It's use is incredibly well-balanced and it serves a great purpose of keeping the flow of the game moving and fast-paced.

- Don't expect a challenge... or a good one anyway... - There's a mode called Black-ops which is a 1-4 player campaign against bots. It's difficult, meaningless, and isn't the point of Blacklight anyway so just ignore it. It's cool that you can play with 4 of your friends though.

Story and Presentation

= Story? What story? - There's background info on the two factions (Blacklight and The Order) that would make for a cool story perhaps but that's all there is. Not good or bad, just there (Most likely for those who want to know why one faction's red and the other's blue).

+ In... The FUTURE! - The HUD is definitely futuristic as well as how the weapons interact with it. It's not super futuristic, it's more like Ghost in the Shell or Batman Beyond. So instead of using a military helmet, you're wearing more of a motorbike helmet with a high-tech visor. What makes it fun and clever is that, instead of using flash-bangs and smoke grenades, there are EMP and DiGi grenades. 

     EMP grenades that work like flash-bangs except that instead of flashing your vision, they give your visor a blue-screen-of-death and you have to wait for the program to reboot before you can see again. Also, you can be flashed by it yourself but when it goes off, and electrical shockwave will pixelize your vision momentarily. DiGi grenades create fields of electrical disturbance. If you're caught in one, your vision is completely pixelized and your HRV can't see anything. Outside of the field, it's hard to see anything within it and your HRV just picks up a huge black spot on the map. They're creative and effective and work with the time in which they exist.

Graphics

= It's alright - Some people say it's the best looking downloadable title yet and some say it looks like an N64 game. This is going to sound opinionated but they're both very wrong. An N64 game looks like polygonal mess as well as anything out around that time period on any other system. I can also think of some better looking games on the Xbox Marketplace and PSN Store like Shadow Complex and Super StarDust HD. Blacklight: Tango Down looks good enough that it isn't pushing many boundaries but is anything but horrible or painful to look at. It's just ok.

Sound

= Never again will I repeat myself - It's alright. The soundtrack can be maddening after a time and the guns and explosions sound as they should. I do enjoy the dialogue that the player characters use in battle, it has a creative use to let teammates know you're beside them or when you're being stalked by someone.

Should you buy it?

     Try the demo. You get to play for an hour and they time you fairly; only when you're actually in play. It won't count down when you respawn or going through menus. I say download it and then play a couple games. Leave it alone and then come back after a time. This should help you figure out if you want a convenient game like this and whether the gameplay works for you. I wouldn't recommend purchasing before you've played the entire hour though. 

     I do think it's worth the purchase though. You're constantly rewarded throughout your games whether you did well or not so you'll always feels like you're progressing. And while you can tell that the developers were on a tight budget, you can feel that they really put the buck to the limit. Also, I heard Ignition, the publisher, was in financial trouble and they tend to bring us some cool, different games from Japan to the states. Tossin' a few their way doesn't hurt.

Blacklight: Tango Down was developed by Zombie Studios and published by Ignition Entertainment for the Xbox Live Marketplace, PSN Store, and PC. Pwned noobs for 25+ hours and reached rank 38 out of 70. Reviewed on the Xbox 360 version.