ORIGINAL: Eddie_the_Hated
Ah, bummer. It got a bad rap for being shallow and repetitive, but it was easily one of the best games of last generation in my opinion. I can only imagine how far Criterion is going to push it with next-gen hardware.
Criterion is one of the best codeshops there is. Black was one of the most technically brilliant games of the last generation and it had serious style. The gameplay wasn' t innovative but it was fun.
They applied the same concepts to Black as they did Burnout. Burnout was all about the huge crashes and Black was all about the huge exlosions, ...they used the same technology and Black benefited from the pre-existing particle engine. They' ll apply the same methodology to Black 2. It' ll be based on the technology used in Burnout Paradise and it' ll likely have the best and biggest explosions and particle effects in any game.
The only problem i can see is that the competition is far stronger this time around and a simple run and gun shooter like Black may not be able to tread water with the best of them. Black was in a class of it' s own on PS2 and only had Butcher Bay for company on Xbox... everything else was sub-standard in comparison.
Then again, they' ve changed how Burnout works so i don' t see why they wouldn' t bring Black in line. If they flesh out the storyline, come up with some great AI, add things like weapon customization, a decent physics engine and a fully fledged multiplayer mode then i can' t see it failing.
It' s definitely coming, but probably in 2009. I' d kinda hoped for a Killzone 2/Black 2 showdown but it' s more likely that it' ll go up against Mirrors Edge and Resistance 2.