Blacklight: Retribution

Free-to-Play games are a godsend, for the financially deficient such as myself. Therefore, I tend to jump on any and all that come along, except that horrendous poke-in-the-eye of my childhood that is Age of Empires Online. So I was mighty pleased when Steam started advertising Blacklight Retribution, having heard nothing but good things and being in serious need of a competitive multiplayer game of late. Killing Floor occupies most of my shootingness, but sometimes killing mindless zombies isn't satisfying enough.

Speaking of zombies, Retribution is the sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down, developed by Zombie Studios and released on the PC, Xbox and PS3 back in 2010. I have not played it, I had not even heard of it until now, but I suggest you at least check out the Wiki, as Zombie Studios is planning on making a big franchise - including a feature film and comics as well as subsequent games in the series, like Retribution.

Gameplay

TF2 goes Victorian Era

Blacklight Retribution follows a very simple, tried and tested format for online competitive multiplayer. If you've even been near a games platform in the last five years you've probably seen someone play a Call of Duty game/clone online. Blacklight is that, but not shit. By that I mean it has the same game types, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, CTF, Domination etc. but it's not full of Xbox COD asshats because it's a PC exclusive. All hail the PC gaming master race.

There's a nice little tutorial that is similar to those found in the more recent COD games, i.e. set in a firing range, which holds your hand through all the basics of the game from jumping and crouching to calling in heavy support. After that there are servers specifically designed for new players (level limit is 10) where you can improve your skills and level up slightly faster whilst only playing against people of a similar skill level. There is always one Level 10 bastard who's amazing in each round, but usually they usually rank themselves up and out of the server fairly quickly. Once you hit Level 10 it's off into the big, wide world of constantly full servers and unexpected kick-voting.

It's good, but it just doesn't say 'Fuck You' enough

Regarding the weapon choice, it begins very limited but can expanded through either grind play or shelling out real money (more on that later). Each 'Agent' begins with a standard assault rifle and standard gear - combat knife and a grenade. The spectrum of weapon types includes everything you'd expect to find in a modern/futuristic shooter these days; SMGs, LMGs, bolt action rifles, burst fire rifles, shotguns, pistols etc. However, these 'classes' of weapon are only the basic format.

Bigger is always better

After you get your hands on, say, a burst fire rifle receiver, you can add a sniper scope, a silencer, drum mag and better stock and turn it into a long-range, silent death dealer. Each upgrade part is unlocked via 'packs' which are rewarded for completing individual feats or as leveling up rewards or can be bought in the marketplace.

Not pictured: the enemy, fleeing

So the guns do the shooting, the grenades do the exploding and the knives do the kniving; everything works well. The sort-of USP that Blacklight: Retri....y'know what, from now on I'm gonna call it BR. The sort-of USP that BR pushes is the ability to use in-game credits (GP) which you accumulate for kills, capturing points, healing teammates etc. to buy ammo/health packs, specialist weaponry such as flamers and rocket launchers, as well as hulking mech Hardsuits with mini-guns and rail-rifles, in-game. Hardsuits are indeed as bitching as they sound. Nigh on impossible to kill with basic weaponry, unless several players swarm them to take advantage of their oil tanker-esque turn rate. These suits do have a glowing Lylat Wars weakspot, if you scan them with the game's other USP - the Hyper Reality Visor or HRV - which identifies the weakspot, as well as penetrating terrain for some distance, highlighting ammo dumps and other players.

HRV

Clearly a responsible thing to do mid-battle

Crushing your enemies with violent amounts of firepower not enough for you? Well you won't be disappointed with BR, because after humiliating the enemy MVP who's been on a killstreak for the entire game right up until he got your knife in his back, their camera will follow you for a few seconds before they respawn. This gives you the perfect opportunity to use the taunt system. A simple button tap and you can tea-bag, flip off, crane-kick or blow a raspberry and all they can do is watch. This made me giggle, as it seems like an attempt to encourage flaming/trolling in-game but in practice is actually just a bit of harmless fun that no-one takes too seriously.

Overall the fighty-shooty-stabby stuff is pretty damn good.

Aesthetics

Imagine taking Killzone 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and doing this with them:

After one thing leads to another, you'll get the great style of BR. It's got that brown/grey/black palette of Killzone, but not to the extent that it resembles 3-day-old curry, blended with the more 'realistic' style of COD. Also, some good character and weapon skins. There's lots of bloom as well. On one level I was genuinely blinded by the sun so much I died before I saw the enemy. Yes, I died, but I died because of lovely, lovely looking level design.

Looks damn good for FREE

My rig handled BR ramped up to Ultra, as it always does (smugface) but the game looks great even on the lowest settings. Bear (rawr!) in mind that we're still talking about a FTP game here, a game that's cost you nothing at all and yet can still compete visually with those so-say "Triple A" titles. I was very pleasantly surprised.

Given that the game is entirely online-competitive, I'm shocked that so much was invested into the visual style. I'm certainly happy that it was though, as the game is a pleasure to look at whilst I'm dominating every game. Ok, that happened one time, 25-1 KDR without a Hardsuit bitches!

Longevity

Seems a bit superfluous to include this section, so I'll be brief.

Dr Misunderstood

The game is an online shooter. They have no limit, other than a level cap or individual boredom. I see myself dipping in and out of this game for many months to come. It's currently not possible to power through a good few hours because the sheer weight of players has done some serious damage to the servers. I've often signed in and have been greeted with a message informing me to basically "fuck off and try again, you didn't pay for this so you're not entitled to complain when all our servers are full." Which is fair enough, considering that the game went live on 3rd April, and by 30th April it had ONE MILLION DOLLARS, I mean, PLAYERS!

I'll let it cool off for a few weeks.

Freemium

The word applied to a FTP game that has optional in-game content to be bought with real money. And it's never been done better.

Rental system

It is entirely possible to unlock roughly 85% of the items, weapons and aesthetics in BR through simple grind. For each round you play in, depending on how well you and your team did, you can expect to earn about 200GP. This is the amount the game's internal marketplace charges you to rent a weapon for 24 hours. That's right, RENT. I flamed a tad at this when I first started playing; I only had an assault rifle and desperately wanted to play as a sniper so I checked out the store, found myself a custom-built bolt action rifle and spent my hard-earned GP on it. The gun was great, but I was irked when I logged on the following day and was told that my rental had run out and did I want to renew it.

Simple marketplace, nuff said

I went away, sat in my Zen Garden and raked some gravel for a few hours, contemplating why the game's developers (Perfect World, also the guys behind Rusty Hearts, Torchlight 1 + 2 and the great Star Trek Online that I'm addicted to) chose to organise the marketplace this way. The conclusion I came to was simple and brilliant. It's a 'try-before-you-buy' system. You spend a little GP, which is free as you earn it in-game, to see what a certain item is like. Should you hate it, then you've lost barely anything. But should you love it, as I did with my sniper rifle, then you've paid a tiny amount to enjoy a different play style for 24 hours. I am now currently saving up my GP to afford the 5500GP price-tag on permanently buying the bolt action receiver, so I can start building my own sniper rifle.

What the hell is this?!

Even though you can grind your way to affording all the shiniest looking guns, bitches and bling you can also just pay money for them. Should I choose to, I can spend less than I feel the game is worth to buy some Zen Credits, which cost actual money. I can then use these in place of GP in order to get my gear instantly. This system is the basis of the Freemium model. You give the gamer the options of hard graft to get their reward for free, or shell out a small amount to get it now. BR does it perfectly, as at no point does it throw up pay-walls which block off certain content only available for purchase with Zen Credits. Well, at least not so far.

Conclusion

This is a solid FPS, with great online play and a healthy amount of customisation. It has all the elements that make the multiplayer aspects of games like COD attractive but without the £40 price tag. Wholeheartedly recommend it to all FPS fans, but also to anyone who's ever wanted to get into FPS gaming but doesn't want to A) pay £40 for the privilege, or B) have the sexual activity of their mother called into question by members of the opposition.