14 DAY TRIAL // 
Blacklight: Tango Down is a downloadable only multiplayer shooter that aims to provide the online experience to be found today's triple-A titles for the lesser price of 15 dollars. This is a review for the PC version of the game, but unless I specify otherwise, everything I have to say applies to the Xbox 360 and the future PlayStation 3 renditions.
From the start screen it is obvious that this is a shooter that aims sky high, delivering slick and shinny menus to be found in big budget games like Call of Duty of Killzone 3. The first impression gives players the sensation that the developers were patting each other on back and congratulating themselves for doing such a great release all along the development. Blacklight: Tango Down is clearly a game that thinks very highly of itself, almost daring the player to find something to criticize. Unfortunately, for every good thing I have to say there is a niggling problem, a sloppy piece of design or a downright bug that is to be found.
The graphics engine used by Zombie Studios is the Unreal 3.0 and I must say that for a downloadable game it looks really good. Furthermore, it is quite a stable implementation of the technology. I have seen not one texture loading after entering the game and it runs at a solid 60 frames-per-second, something that many current triple-A Unreal Engine 3.0 titles have not managed to achieve (yes Singularity, I am talking to you!).
Art direction is another discussion though. Like many other aspects of this title, it is not really good, but not really bad either. It seems rather bland, failing to provide an unique setting that would make Blacklight: Tango Down stand out of the crowd. However, the environment do not look ugly, there is quite a nice idea to be found here and there.
The only big criticism I have for the visual department is the shoddy implementation of 4:3 resolution and by shoddy I mean none at all. This is game that was designed only for wide-screen monitors and TV sets, so anyone using a 4:3 aspect ratio device will be left to see what this title has to offer on a quite small portion of their screen. This is really sloppy design and, while I'm sure that the budget and time restrictions were hard on Zombie, I cannot see what the developers were thinking when they did not put this in.
Surprisingly, there is a story to Blacklight, but it's underdeveloped and it is relegated to one of the cluttered help menus. There is something about post-apocalyptic Russia and two factions that are at war. It is nothing really interesting, but something to serve a backdrop for all the multiplayer battles. However, it seems that Zombie and Ignition are really trying to turn this into a franchise. A comic book series and even a movie set in the Blacklight universe are to be released at some point for reasons that I do not really understand. All I can say is that you can safely ignore the narrative and imagine you are playing Call of Duty in a near future backdrop.
There is also something that resembles a single player campaign, a cooperative mode called Black Ops that could be fun if it was not so badly supported. Whether you are playing on an Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC you have to invite friends, as there are no matchmaking options. As I rarely use Games for Windows Live, for obvious reasons I might add, I did not really get to explore those four missions. I tried to play them alone, but the first time you die the mission ends, so it quickly becomes a frustrating experience. Again, a simple respawn option when playing alone would have fixed this, but has been overlooked like so many other elements.
Controls feel tight, with the only one big issue that there is no option to turn off zoom toggle. Furthermore, when you press the fire button and then the zoom in button it will only aim down sights after you lift the finger from the fire button and not instantly as it should happen. This is really, really annoying and will cause many undeserved deaths.
The main portion of the title is the multiplayer component. As it stands, it offers quite a lot to do with 12 maps and seven game modes available. There is little innovation though, with the Hyper Reality Visor power that allows seeing through walls for a limited time and a digi-grenade to block this ability.
Furthermore, there are tons of customization options for the weapons and armors to unlock. While there is only one assault rifle, one sub-machine gun, one light machine gun, one shotgun and one sniper rifle, the various muzzle, barrels, scopes and other such equipment do a lot to make the many builds possible feel like different weapons. There are also some more aesthetic elements like camouflage colors and other such items that can be unlocked during the 70 levels that players can achieve and I can say that the developers have really delivered on this promise.
On the other hand, there are quite a lot of hindrances in the multiplayer component. While it tries to look and like a big budget release, in action the restrictions of being developed independently start to really show. The weapons are not really balanced, with some builds being really over-powered, while others aren't good for nothing. Assault rifles, for example are terrible up close, but deadly like a sniper rifle from a distance. SMGs are too strong across the board, while shotguns seem to be quite ineffective.
PC gamers should be warned that there are no dedicated servers, but a matchmaking system similar to what Modern Warfare 2 has to offer. What is worse is that PC version uses Games For Windows Live and it is as unwieldy as I remember it was when I decided not to bother with titles that use it every again. The good news is that it works good in terms of online performance and I have not had the I-shoot-him-he-shoots-me-I-die series of events that plagued my experience with Infinity Ward's shooter.
As with every chapter of this game, there is one big problem here and this is the fact that on-going matches cannot be joined by other players. This is quite bad, as whenever you press quick play and the system does not find a lobby, it matches you to an on-going game. Moreover, it will show you a cheery and annoying Search Succeeded message while you wait minutes at a time for the match to finish so that you can play. This is not the case only for PC, as the Xbox 360 version suffers from the same overlook.
Map design has, yes you guessed it, one big issue and that is called spawn camping. It is really disappointing to see that nobody thought that allowing enemy players to basically storm the other base and kill players who leave the safe surrounding of the spawn points would ruin many matches. This does not happen on every map, though and objective based game modes are smartly build to avoid this problem. This clearly shows that there was some consideration about this, but the budget limitations probably did not allow Zombie to properly address this trouble.
Another big problem with this game is the lack of tutorials and help. The vast customization options and some of the mini-games required in Black Ops and objective based multiplayer modes are not explained anywhere, so new players must learn all of this one the go. It is not anything really hard to understand, but in a fast-paced game like Blacklight: Tango Down there is no time to sit and try to figure out what you have to press to arm a bomb while five enemies are approaching.
All in all, this is a “what you pay is what you get” kind of situation. Despite all of its pride, it is still a budget game and what is worse is that Blacklight: Tango Down refuses to accept its status. Many other independent tiles have figured out how to evade this conundrum by thinking small and concentrating on delivering a shorter, but more polished and out of the ordinary experience. Blacklight: Tango Down tries to be Call of Duty without Infinity Ward's experience or budget and fails mostly because it does not accept its own limitations.
When it works and when you learn how to avoid the many issues that the game has, it becomes quite frantic and fun. This is a game that will live or die based on how fast the developers can fix the nuisances I have talked about in this review. Until then I cannot really recommend this game, unless you who really like this kind of multiplayer and want simple pick-up and play sessions.
