Blacklight: Retribution

By Muhammad Farrukh
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Grand Master

Muhammad Farrukh

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blacklight-retribution.png

Official Site

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.
img1.jpg


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.

img1.jpg

  • 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.
img1.jpg


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.

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Screenshots:


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Videos:


Beta Gameplay:

 

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Grand Master

Muhammad Farrukh

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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.

Grand Master

trag3dy

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

Muhammad Farrukh

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  • Author
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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

Grand Master

compl3x

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

compl3x

Posted
Posted

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.

Community Regular

Dreamspell

Posted
Posted

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?

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

trag3dy

Posted
Posted

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.

Community Regular

Dreamspell

Posted
Posted

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.

Grand Master

LOC Veteran

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  • Veteran
Posted

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.

Community Regular

Dreamspell

Posted
Posted

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.

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.

Community Regular

Dreamspell

Posted
Posted

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
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Community Regular

Dreamspell

Posted
Posted

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.

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You can only chat in the app and use it in the reader app as a makeshift vocabulary. However, the implementation is kinda awkward. You can only send a selected portion of text to AI without giving it any requests or instructions. I highlighted the word "dumb," and it apologized to me for not being useful. You also cannot ask follow-up questions or send the generated response to a separate chat. The chatbot is also slow, even with fast Wi-Fi, making the overall experience quite frustrating, which makes me again wish for the ability to remap the double press to something else. Spark, the standard voice recording app, also uses AI for note summarization and transcribing. Neither feature works offline, unfortunately. Spark records notes up to 30 minutes using Krono's dual microphones, and you can rename or export notes. Transcription quality is decent, and the speed is alright, but you can find much better solutions in the Google Play Store. What I like about Spark is that transcribed notes are not locked, and you can always type more to elaborate on your ideas, which is handy. Overall, I like that the Krono is not shoving AI down my throat, but to be honest, there is really not that much to shove. AI features here feel raw and need improvements to be more useful. Battery Life Like most E-Ink readers, the Krono has fantastic battery life. Even with a clock as a screensaver, its standby power consumption is incredibly low. And when in use, you can get weeks of reading on a single charge. Without the front light, my unit never sipped more than one or two percent of battery during a one-hour reading session. It was nice to see plenty of battery-related settings. You can limit charging at 80% to protect battery health long-term, check the number of charging cycles, manufacturing/first-time use date, battery health, and the maximum capacity. Additionally, the Krono lets you select what hardware remains enabled when sleeping. This lets you keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on (say, if you want to receive notifications, for some reason) and keep audio playing when locked. Turning these features off effectively eliminates any standby battery drain. I left my Krono sitting for 24 hours with a clock screensaver on, and it did not drop a single percent. The pretty big 3,950 mAh battery justifies the device's thickness and ensures you do not have to charge it for long periods. Speaking of charging, it is capped at only 10W, which is a bit disappointing, as getting such a big battery to 100% takes a notably long time in the era of super-fast charging smartphones. DuRoBo Moodi The Moodi is a standalone, optional accessory for your Krono. It is a wireless remote with two customizable buttons that you can use to flip pages, control media, or scroll webpages. The accessory connects via Bluetooth. Despite having a built-in rechargeable battery, it is extremely light. While the Moodi's shape and form factor is not what I would call particularly ergonomic, it is not uncomfortable to hold and use. The Moodi comes with six removable magnetic buttons with various smiley faces. Buttons sit securely, and they have nice-feeling, albeit a little loud, clicks. It is a cute touch that adds a little more fun and character to the device. There is also an accented power button and a single status LED. The latter displays charging status and connection mode. The Moodi supports three modes: Reading: Buttons work as volume buttons, allowing you to flip pages in the built-in reader or other apps that support page turning with volume buttons. Media: Buttons work as skip forward/backward, which is useful when listening to audiobooks, podcasts, or music. Scroll: The third mode lets you scroll pages in the web browser or any other application The Krono properly detects the Moodi and presents you with an on-screen guide when you connect it for the first time (it also displays the battery level). However, you can only change modes by holding both buttons for a few seconds. It is also worth noting that the Moodi works with other devices. I connected it to my iPhone and it let me adjust volume or control media playback. Sadly, the scroll did not work, so you cannot use it to waste time scrolling TikToks. Overall, the Moodi is a cute little accessory, which I can recommend for those who read a lot. It is very useful for remote page flipping when you do not want to burden your hands by holding the Krono all the time. I only wish DuRoBo included a lanyard for the built-in loop. As for the battery life, after using the Moodi for a few days, I only managed to drop several percent of its 90 mAh battery. Despite the small size, it is rated for weeks of use, which is pretty impressive. At $35.99, I cannot say the Moodi is a must-have accessory, but I see the appeal. I prefer using the Krono with its Smart Dial, as I rarely read for more than 40-60 minutes in one sitting. However, if you have a stand and like reading for long periods, the Moodi is the right thing to have. It is a bit more expensive than regular page flippers on Amazon, but it is on par with similar products from Kobo or BOOX. Plus, it has a little more fun to it with removable buttons and better integration into the Krono. Conclusion At the end of the day, DuRoBo Krono is a nice pocket-sized e-reader. Its software focuses on the main things without trying to be everything at once. The smart dial idea is unique and great, and I wish more manufacturers had something similar in their devices. The display is also good, with an even frontlight and "always-on" support. I did not notice any deal-breaking issues with the Krono. However, you can feel that the idea needs some improvements, such as a slightly stiffer dial in a more ergonomic location, perhaps a little more premium materials, and better software customization. I hope the company won't give up on the idea and improve the dial and ergonomics in the second generation. Buy DuRoBo Krono Black - $279.99 on Amazon Buy DuRoBo Krono White - $279.99 on Amazon Buy DuRoBo Moodi - $35.99 on Amazon As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

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