Retrospective: Black

Black's third Achilles heel was a lack of multiplayer. A fourth heel that I've just thought about would probably be its insistence that you kept on finding stuff like the blueprints of the Pentagon, terrorist plans to infiltrate the CIA and compromising pictures of the Queen doing a handstand in Eastern European stables. But I've now got myself too excited to bang on too much about such matters. Because not only was Black's technology utterly astounding, and still able to look the next-gen behemoths straight in the face without flinching, but the level design was immaculate.

The early levels were a bit duff, but whoever came up with the idea of blending degradable cover with a gigantic graveyard should be awarded so many medals that they can't walk. Hiding behind the headstones under a barrage of sniper fire with chunks of masonry falling around me will forever remain one of my favourite FPS moments. Likewise the Sniper Alley gunfight in the scrapyard, clearing up in the outhouses that surround the farmhouse, or any of the stuff in the asylum and the dockyards. Everywhere felt so real and so hard-edged that I fell in love with it.

Likewise the lack of a map, or a constant flashing 'go here next' marker, meant that levels - some of them designed to feel commendably non-linear - had to rely on the nous of the level designer and the encouragement of exploration to guide you through them. Remember exploration in shooters? That used to be brilliant. (In this glib statement I am ignoring both Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3. And S.T.A.L.K.E.R.).

Without wanting to be too brutal about it, Black also inspires (or at least inspired in me) the kind of bloodlust that curls your top lip, disables your profanity filter and has you shouting blue murder even when the living room window is open. Taking out its white-masked shotgun guys, with the statutory two blasts to the chest that the game demands, cannot help but elicit a bellowed victory howl - while any near-miss from a smoke-tailed rocket launcher provokes a yelp just as obscene as any only-just-prevented crash in the Burnout series.

The destruction and the explosions may have been matched and bettered since, but the simple feeling of feathering the right trigger to ensure a consistent rate of fire to an enemy's cranium with such an excellently built range of weaponry honestly hasn't. If you have any Microsoft Points floating around then it's honestly more than worth a purchase from the Xbox Originals service.

Black deserves a sequel, but seeing as things have been so quiet on that front for so long, bar the occasional rumour, it's hard to get your hopes up. Black had its failings, there's no doubt about it. It showed more than a little hubris in its conviction that every bugger gave a toss about two men blowing smoke rings into each other's mouths between every level, and those going into it merely wanting a challenge were instead presented with an act still considered illegal some of the more conservative world nations.

What it also did though, if I can get a little flag-wavey for a moment, was demonstrate that British developers could make Hollywood-style first-person set-pieces that were up there with the very best. Well, one British developer could. With all due respect to the TimeSplitters series, sometimes you need more than monkeys - no matter how great monkeys are.