Review: Blacklight: Retribution (PC)

[News Portal]

A free-to-play shooter that's actually surprisingly slick, well-balanced and impressively playable? James Pinnell was amazed as well - read on for all of his thoughts.

Read full article by James Pinnell

[Syncourt]

No Australian servers

Well that sort of crushes all interest I had in the game.

[Drakand]

This sounds like a yes to me, will grab that d/l once i get home

thanks for the review james!

[James Pinnell]

No Australian servers

Well that sort of crushes all interest I had in the game.

You'd be surprised how well it plays! The devs have made an enormous effort to balance high latency by being very clever with prioritising client side input. If anything, it's worth a try due to the fact it's completely free.

This sounds like a yes to me, will grab that d/l once i get home

thanks for the review james!

Thanks mate, enjoy!

[Bronze_D]

All good until you get smashed by a hard suit...

prioritizing client input is all fine and dandy though unfortunately that also means that if a hard suit pilot sees you and put a railgun slug into your head then you'd be dead before your client gets a chance to accurately describe to you that you are in a situation where a slug is about to pulverize your head.

[InAUGral]

I like the way the review sums up at the end its much like the system that gaming magazines have been using for years. I skim read the review and it actually doesn't sound too bad. I really don't enjoy any of the F2P FPSs out there especially korean ones.

[James Pinnell]

All good until you get smashed by a hard suit...

prioritizing client input is all fine and dandy though unfortunately that also means that if a hard suit pilot sees you and put a railgun slug into your head then you'd be dead before your client gets a chance to accurately describe to you that you are in a situation where a slug is about to pulverize your head.

I have to admit, hard suits are unbelievably powerful. I usually run my nuts off once I see it to locate a kiosk and grab a launcher, or just run to the other side of the map and pick off the guys flanking it.

I like the way the review sums up at the end its much like the system that gaming magazines have been using for years. I skim read the review and it actually doesn't sound too bad. I really don't enjoy any of the F2P FPSs out there especially korean ones.

Out of every single one I've played, and believe me, I've played a lot researching games for TT - this one is easily the best by a huge margin. Nothing comes close.

[elliotENGi]

I played the beta a few weeks ago, and my sli gtx 570's couldn't run it on medium specs. Not sure what the problem was, but I'm hoping theyv'e fixed it since launch.

And yes I agree - this seems like the best f2p ever made. It's not nessecarily pay for fun.

[Bronze_D]

That's probably because the game was actually already decent before it was F2P.

The original Blacklight was actually decent, however it suffered the same fate as Shattered Horizon ie: no one played it.

Then they moved to F2P with the next iteration on top of all the improvement they made to the original Blacklight.

[Tera]

Got the client from node, but it need to patch 4gb worth of data... Pass.

[Marcus Dunn]

It feels slightly sluggish due to the latency, but it's actually quite good considering it's an FPS shooter on international latency.

The thing i find the most clunky about it is the customization. Maybe i'm going through a dumb phase, but the whole menu system based around progression and unlockables is about the most unintuitive pos I've come across.

[Marcus Dunn]

Got the client from node, but it need to patch 4gb worth of data... Pass.

Yeah it's a 2 gig client download, then surprise, 4 gigs await thee.

[James Pinnell]

Got the client from node, but it need to patch 4gb worth of data... Pass.

Yeah it's a 2 gig client download, then surprise, 4 gigs await thee.

I think the client is quite out of date, it's from the Open Beta - maybe we could rally Cas to get the latest client? (http://blacklight.perfectworld.com/download/client - 4gb direct download)

It feels slightly sluggish due to the latency, but it's actually quite good considering it's an FPS shooter on international latency.

The thing i find the most clunky about it is the customization. Maybe i'm going through a dumb phase, but the whole menu system based around progression and unlockables is about the most unintuitive pos I've come across.

I didn't think it was too bad - the stuff you can use is available at the front of the list, the rest is unlock/pay/out of your level range. It *does* get easier after you play for a while.

[Marcus Dunn]

I didn't think it was too bad - the stuff you can use is available at the front of the list, the rest is unlock/pay/out of your level range. It *does* get easier after you play for a while.

That's probably it to be honest.

[gore12321]

I hope they bring in Australian servers. It looks like a fantastic game but I can't for the life of me play with high latency.

They stated they were going to bring them in, but the question is when that'll be I guess.

Fingers crossed for sooner rather then later.