RipTen Review Blacklight: Tango Down (PS3)
Blacklight: Tango Down was released on the PC (our video review here) on June 7th & 14th respectively, however it was not released on the PlayStation 3 until October 26th. The game is a downloadable first person shooter, with action similar to that of Call of Duty on more than one level as it includes leveling and weapon modification systems.
The first thing I noticed when booting up the game was the sound mix being extremely quiet – to be sure I tried the game on 2 different television sets, to no avail. Continuing with my bad start I immediately tried to look for an online Team Deathmatch game as I expected it would contain the most players, despite my smart assumption it took around 20 minutes to find a single game and even so it connected me with foreign players causing terrible latency. That’s the biggest gripe I have with this game, it’s odd for a company to try and capture a player-base with a downloadable shooter, sure sometimes it works (Monday Night Combat), but you have to have something really special and with broad appeal, and I don’t feel Blacklight: Tango Down has that.
I soldiered on however and enter the game with American players and quite surprisingly the latency didn’t hinder my playing too much, which I attribute to the excellent netcode. The aiming mechanics of the game are solid, and all of the guns have a weight to them and killing someone with a well placed headshot feels extremely satisfying, however if your head becomes the target of an incoming bullet your screen will scramble as if you’re experiencing a hardware failure. That’s the core visual design of Blacklight: Tango Down, dark foreboding world design, futuristic character models/weapons and intense faux-screen pixelation. It’s not a bad idea, however sometimes the pixelation and fake error codes are almost too intense and the graphics often look washed out and rather jagged as a result of it.
On a positive note however, the customization of guns and classes is immense. From changing barrels and stocks, to even adding little key-chains to your weapon and the best part – they all have a statistical effect. Unlocking said customizable parts requires some time put in, as in typical modern day fashion you must play online and rank up before it all becomes available. If you live in a well populated area this should make for a fun experience, however if you live in Dingotown Australia like myself you may be out of luck. There is a single-player component to the game, entitled “Black Ops”, no – not the popular Call of Duty game, but instead it’s a short series of scripted missions you can partake with a few friends, or play solo offline. This mode feels extremely tacked on and rather aimless. If you’re playing solo, it can be a little rough in spots as it feels the difficulty doesn’t scale per player.
Even furthering my confusion about the game is the in-game billboards around the map advertising PC peripherals and companies. Don’t get me wrong, I understand a company who makes a downloadable title might need an extra source of income to fund patching, but the least they could do is make it relevant to the audience.
Blacklight: Tango Down is a strange, confusing release. The gameplay isn’t blatantly bad and the idea of a light downloadable future shooter isn’t offensive at all. It just feels overshadowed by bigger, better and more established shooters and I feel the player base will suffer because of this. However if you can find a full game of players and like yourself some future based warfare then it may be worth looking into Blacklight: Tango Down.
Here’s The Rundown:
+ Excellent Customization system
+ The shooting has a weighty reliable feel too it
- Rather ugly washed-out visuals.
- Small playerbase = less games
Blacklight: Tango Down was released October 26th for the Playstation 3. It was developed by Zombie Studios and published by Ignition Entertainment. Our copy was provided by the publisher. The game was played for 10+ hours. T’was alright.
