official Blacklight: Retribution

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Official Site

• Perfect World Entertainment
• Developer(s): Zombie Studios
• Genre: Action
• Release: Apr 3, 2012
• ESRB: RP

Free to Play, PC Exclusive

 

Blacklight: Retribution (formerly Blacklight 2) is a free-to-play first-person shooter video game, scheduled for release on personal computer (PC).^[1] On 14 January 2011, Zombie Inc. revealed that it would be developing the sequel to Blacklight: Tango Down with a free-to-play business model.^[3] At the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the company announced that Perfect World would publish Blacklight: Retribution.^[2] Also, the game went open beta on February 27, 2012.
Blacklight: Retribution models itself after Call of Duty's multiplayer components and borrows certain gameplay elements from Crysis and F.E.A.R.

Features:

 

• HRV

The first in-game tool that players should learn how to use effectively is the Hyper Reality Visor or HRV for short. Pressing V will activate HRV enabling the player to see through walls, locate opponents, team mates, weapon depots, and even detect a weak point in the structure of the Hardsuit.



While HRV is active weapon depots will glow light blue, team mates blue, and the opposing team orange. Keep in mind that once the player has used HRV it will take a short period of time for the ability to recharge before it can be used again. Knowing the location of the enemy is vital to success. Pairing good communication with the extremely useful HRV will lead your team to victory.

• Weapon Depots

Weapon depots are small kiosks scattered throughout each map where players can spend combat points earned in battle to obtain upgraded weapons, refill ammo and health and deploy the obliterating Hardsuit.


Use HRV to locate a weapon depot and press E to pull up the list of items available to purchase. Scroll through the items available to check out the CP cost, and press the space bar to make a selection. The weapon depot loadouts are customizable and can be changed in the armory. Buyer beware, while shopping for an upgrade players are prone to being shot down, allowing another player to take the purchase.

• Hardsuit

Armed with a minigun and railgun the Hardsuit is the ultimate weapon. Purchase a laser designator at a weapon depot and find an empty spot on the ground with a clear descent path from the sky. Hold down fire for a few seconds to trigger the drop.



This would also be a good time to activate HRV to ensure there aren?t any lurking players waiting to shoot you down and steal the suit once it lands. Although the Hardsuit is incredibly difficult to take down, it isn?t impossible to destroy. The flamethrower will effectively burn the opponent out of the suit allowing a player to steal it once the enemy has been eliminated. Or simply use the HRV to detect a randomly generated weak point in the suit. Shooting the weak point will cause the suit to take ten times normal damage.



 

Screenshots:

Videos:

Beta Gameplay:

 

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Blacklight: Retribution -- More Than Good Looks

But it certainly is a handsome little game.

Blacklight: Retribution might end up being the most visually impressive free-to-play game out there when it launches. The first-person-shooter from Zombie Inc., sequel-of-sorts to the Xbox Live Arcade title Blacklight: Tango Down, uses Unreal Engine 3 with full DirectX 11 compatibility. If that sounds like a bunch of techno mumbo-jumbo then here's all you need to know: Blacklight: Retribution looks damn hot.

I first busted some skulls in Blacklight a few months ago, but the difference in visuals between that play session -- on a crummy gaming laptop -- and my most recent one -- a full-fledged DX11-enabled rig -- is like night and day. Light bounces naturally off different surfaces -- the wet cobblestone road blazes with vague sketches of the overhead neon lights, while nearby metallic walls provide a much closer approximation of the sign's glow.

The tessellation feature, which algorithmically predicts how otherwise-bump-mapped surfaces should appear as fully polygonal objects, is the most astounding. Those cobblestones don't just look vaguely three-dimensional because of their texture, each and every block actually rises from the mortar that surrounds it. Anyone who has played Crysis 2 with DX11 enabled will know what I'm talking about, and many readers may not find it particularly significant, but production-values of this level are not common in the free-to-play sphere.

That's not to say that you'll need to buy a brand new rig to run Blacklight: Retribution -- you won't -- but you won't get visuals quite so nice on your mom's three year old PC. Luckily, Unreal Engine 3 is extremely scalable, so while Blacklight won't look as pretty, it ought to run buttery-smooth.

But visuals alone don't make a game. Blacklight is a first-person-shooter in an era overwhelmed by a glut of first-person-shooters. The difference between a poor shooter and a great one is in its mechanics, and Blacklight seems to -- at this pre-Beta stage -- still be very solid. The team at Zombie Inc. is slowly trickling out Blacklight: Retribution's feature list though, but I was shown a new game mode, called King of the Hill, on a map designed specifically for it.

The map, Piledriver is centered on the abandoned ruins of a half-finished Sky Scraper. Vehicles and concrete barriers are scattered on the road around the structure, while a network of scaffolds, concrete pipes, and three traversable floors of the building sit within the fenced-off center. It's a barren shell filled with construction materials, which provides a massive amount of potential cover and plenty of spots for snipers to find long lines of sight to key areas.

And there are plenty of key areas. King of the Hill is a capture-point game mode, where the node players need to capture moves to a new location between captures. Capturing a node requires players to stand near it -- the more players nearby, the faster it captures. Capture progress doesn't decrease, even when everyone originally capturing a point has been blown to bits, which makes it a race of sorts. Once a team captures a node, it will move to a new location somewhere on the map.

All of the possible node locations that I saw allowed for multiple approaches. One node was just outside an elevator. While approaching through the elevator would immediately give away my position, it would also put me right in front of the node. With a powerful close-range weapon like the flamethrower at my disposal, I could just bust in and secure it. If I'm not feeling quite so sure of myself in close-quarters, I could approach from either the left or the right (or even from above) throwing a grenade in first to send my enemies fleeing.

The construction-yard setting allows for more freedom of movement than the other map I played. There are a lot of ways to get to areas quickly or aggressively, like jumping between scaffolding or onto piles of lumber. That's really all I want out of a shooter map: variety -- so I'm satisfied I'll have fun with Blacklight: Retribution.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

[trag3dy]

Do you just copy & paste everything that looks remotely interesting from gaming websites into new threads?

Anyways, tried to get into this game a week or two ago and the installer wouldn't even download it so I said **** it, I've got other games to play. I really doubt there is that big of a community following it anyways.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Do you just copy & paste everything that looks remotely interesting from gaming websites into new threads?

What do you mean :p

I am excited about this game.

Played it on a friend' PC. Quite liked it. The Beta, of course.

Have been following it since then

[compl3x]

Do you just copy & paste everything that looks remotely interesting from gaming websites into new threads?

Why not? No one pays him to write articles for the site.

I downloaded this awhile ago but still haven't got around to playing it.

[Dreamspell]

I have been playing this since the Open Beta. It's pretty good.

[compl3x]

I opened it up and it had an update that was like 2+ GB. That isn't the worst thing in the world, but it was downloading so slow. In ten minutes it has downloaded a whopping 0.8% of the patch.

Uninstall.

[Dreamspell]

I opened it up and it had an update that was like 2+ GB. That isn't the worst thing in the world, but it was downloading so slow. In ten minutes it has downloaded a whopping 0.8% of the patch.

Uninstall.

Actually, it shows how much data needs to be patched, not how much data will be downloaded. They have released 3 patches IIRC since the launch of the Open Beta, each patch around 300 mb. I was suprised too at first, but I gave it a while and the percentage jumped.

Do you just copy & paste everything that looks remotely interesting from gaming websites into new threads?

Anyways, tried to get into this game a week or two ago and the installer wouldn't even download it so I said **** it, I've got other games to play. I really doubt there is that big of a community following it anyways.

Check your firewall?

[PGHammer]

Actually, it shows how much data needs to be patched, not how much data will be downloaded. They have released 3 patches IIRC since the launch of the Open Beta, each patch around 300 mb. I was suprised too at first, but I gave it a while and the percentage jumped.

Check your firewall?

BLR is a welcome surprise in that it's ready for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview as-is - including Punkbuster.

Also, the patches since the beginning of the open-beta aren't that large - SWTOR has bigger patches. (Heck, World of Warcraft this year alone has bigger patches.)

As old as UE3 is, some amazing content can still get done with it.

[Dreamspell]

The latest patch from yesterday for the Official Live Launch is 1.2GB.
Patch Notes: http://blacklight-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=3025241

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Was about to post it.

Looks good (Y)

[smilepop]

here is some more info about it

http://www.dotmmo.com/blacklight-retribution-2268.html

[trag3dy]

I decided to give this game a second chance. This time it actually downloaded and took around 8 hours to download and install just 4gbs. Fine, whatever. Get it installed and I load the game up and....it crashes after I enter my log in info. I think maybe it's just a fluke. Load it up again, this time I make it into the settings menus, crash again. Rinse, and repeat at least a dozen times. I never once made it into a game.

I know for a fact it's not a problem with my computer. I can play Bf3, Skyrim, or any other game for hours on end with no issues. And reading through their forum it seems I'm not the only one having issues with this.

I'm glad this is a free game otherwise I would be really unhappy right now.

[Dreamspell]

The game is currently, and has been, quite buggy and in dire need of optimization. In first place, the games takes 2-3 minutes to start up for a lot of people including myself. I also get random crashes every other day. The game is a bit more stable since the Open Beta, but still needs a lot of work. There was also a problem with hit registration during the Open Beta, but they fixed it in the last patch. It seems they have been focusing on balancing all the weapons and gear in the game instead of fixing the crashes and optimizing the game.

At least they added a Crash Reporter with the latest patch, but it doesn't always show up after a crashed game. I have been sending my crash logs to their crash report email anyway. I hope that with the influx of new players they will be able to track down the crashes if they report them.

Apart from the bugs and crashes, the gameplay is very good and I love the customization.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

I played for some time, on a friend' PC. It was fun. Though there are still improvements to be considered throughout, not to mention bugs, but could be fun

[Muhammad Farrukh]

IGN has it at 8.5

[LOC Veteran]

Sadly the game is completely Pay2Win. I mean, really over the top Pay2Win. I don't normally complain about cash shop items or cash shops in general in F2P games, because obviously the games are free. But man, Perfect World really wants to milk you dry with this one.

[Detection]

wow the download is slooooow, even torrent is slow

[Dreamspell]

Sadly the game is completely Pay2Win. I mean, really over the top Pay2Win. I don't normally complain about cash shop items or cash shops in general in F2P games, because obviously the games are free. But man, Perfect World really wants to milk you dry with this one.

I have been playing since the Open Beta, and I can say that it is not pay2win. Since the start, the only thing exclusive to paying users are some camo's and some taunts. Paying users can also buy armor and weapons before they have reached the level necessary to unlock it otherwise. That being said, the weapon parts and armor have no "best" build. Each part gives and takes. I see lots of high level players using level 1 armor and doing just fine. The game is more about personilzation; sidegrades, not upgrades.

On the other hand, at the moment the newest gun (Heavy Assault Rifle receiver) is only available if you buy chance packs with real money (ZEN), but you can rent a premade HAR with in-game money (GP). I have no doubt that they will make the receiver buyable with GP soon enough. Everything is buyable (except some camo's) with GP for 1 day, 7 days or permanently. A permanent receiver is like 5500 GP. You can obtain that amount of GP in 35 matches. Other weapon parts cost 3800 GP, which can be obtained in 25 matches.

IGN has it at 8.5

That is a great review, I am actually shocked that IGN gave it such a good review. Gamespot gave this game a 6.5 (http://www.gamespot....review-6370993/) which is disappointing to me.

PS: They have provided a temporary fix for long startup times. Now it takes 5 seconds to reach the login screen, when it used to take 5 minutes before. In the next patch they will include a permanent fix. Also the game hasn't crashed at all for me since the last patch from the 12th, and running the game as Administrator helped me.

[Singh400]

Installed this and I am loving it. Between this and Tribes: Ascend I am loving the F2P model. Both are seemingly well balanced and IMO it's not pay-to-win. Just need to a find an in-depth guide for all things BL:R.

[Dreamspell]

I recommend renting, for a day, different parts of the gun that you might like, and when you find one that suits you, just save up GP to buy it permanently. Personally, I permanently bought a scope first.

Nodes: these are skill points. They give you bonuses to your characters stats, such as +5 movement speed, +1% normal ammo damage resistance, etc. You can have up to 5 nodes enabled. You get 1 or 2 nodes almost every match. Fusing nodes will make them last longer. Fusing identical nodes of the same type, rank and quality is advised for the best chance of fusion success (55%).

Everytime you fuse, the rank of the node goes up one. A rank 1 node lasts 1 day, rank 2: 3 days, rank 3: 7 days, rank 4: 30 days, rank 5: 90 days. Once you fuse two rank 5 nodes of the same type and quality, the node will be upgraded to a higher quality. The qualities are as followed: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary. Each time you upgrade the quality of the node, the better bonuses the node will provide, such as +10 movement speed, +3% normal ammo damage resistance, etc. Once upgrade in quality, it will go back to rank 1, and you can continue to raise the rank, and eventually raise to an even higher quality if you wish.

I recommend using the HRV (wallhack) for just 1 second, just for a quick peek at your enemies and allies. This will allow the HRV to fully recharge much faster, allowing you to use it almost every 5 seconds.

You can check out some more guides in the forum here: http://blacklight-fo...splay.php?f=441

Good luck!

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Thanks on the info Dreamspell.

I will surely check it out later tonight

[Dreamspell]

By the way, every time you level up you get 2 awards in your mail that you must open and activate. You access the mail in the top right where it has your name and rank. One of the awards is a free 3 day rental of all the items that are unlocked at the level you just leveled up to. The other award is a random weapon tag which give bonuses to your character/weapon. You also get a beginners pack when you first start playing.

[Detection]

I can't get past the loading screens without it freezing and crashing

Tried to load it 4 times now and it dies every time before even starting a game