Breach / Blacklight: Tango Down

[Stoney Mason]

Apparently a number of games are using the 1943 model this summer. Here are two of them.




[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

March 25, 2010 - Remember last year when Konami announced it was publishing Atomic Games' Six Days in Fallujah, and then promptly announced it was dropping the game after some controversy? The game was to recreate the conflict that unfolded in the real Fallujah and hit a little too close to home for some. Shortly after Konami backed out of the deal we heard rumors that developer Atomic Games would close its doors. The reports of its death were apparently exaggerated, though, as Atomic just announced an all-new downloadable shooter called Breach. We got to play a few rounds the other day and came away impressed.

Breach is a multiplayer-only shooter for up to 16 people. The focus here is on destructible environments -- think Battlefield 1943, but with even more devastating opportunities. This is a very fast-paced game and it'll only take one or two bullets to put you down. There are five classes total with four available right away: Rifleman, Gunner, Sniper, and Support. After you've mastered a couple of these classes you'll unlock Recon, which is meant for advanced players. You'll earn experience points as you play that can be used to purchase weapon upgrades and fancy gadgets. One such gadget is the Bionic Ear, which amplifies and isolates the sound of your enemy with an audio and visual effect to help you locate the jerk.



That fresh hole will immediately respond to the active cover system.Players can take cover on many objects in the environment; a mechanic Atomic calls the "active cover system." Click the right stick when standing next to a wall or turned over truck and your soldier will stick to the surface. From there you can lean and blind fire towards the enemy. Don't get too comfortable, though, because Breach is all about destructible terrain. The enemy can shoot you through a wall; it can take the supports out from under your building and send it crashing down on top of you; it can whittle away the sandbags you're cowering behind. You can shoot an individual brick out of a wall and snipe through it. Use an explosive charge to detonate a large hole in the wall and you'll find the new orifice immediately responds to the active cover system.

Breach is about using and destroying cover.

Most everything on a map can be leveled -- most everything, because certain structures have intentionally been made indestructible. While testing Six Days in Fallujah, Atomic learned that when every last thing on a map can be destroyed, players will destroy every last thing on a map. That leaves you playing on a giant, wide-open pancake – which apparently isn't very exciting. In Breach, important objects like stairs that lead to another area of the map will be impervious.

Three maps will be included with the game along with a nighttime version of one of them. After players have collectively caused a certain amount of destruction, Atomic will unlock a fourth map for the community.

Breach will include four game modes: Infiltration requires your team to claim certain areas of the map; Operations has you searching for randomly placed bioweapons canisters; Convoy finds one team escorting a truck to an exit point while the other team tries to stop them; and then there is the ever popular Team Deathmatch.

Atomic wants to give gamers the feature set of a retail title at the price of an XBLA game. It does look great for a downloadable title with highly detailed environments and an advanced physics engine. You can probably expect Breach to be priced at $15, which is what Microsoft usually charges for its "premium" XBLA games.

Breach is still a little rough around the edges and isn't running as smoothly as we'd like, yet, but it does offer many tantalizing destructive opportunities. It's set for release this summer and could repeat the success Battlefield 1943 had last year. Check out our developer walkthrough videos for an explanation of the cover and destruction mechanics right from the developer's mouth.

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/107/1079855p1.html



[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

Blacklight: Tango Down Revealed
The next big downloadable game?
by Erik Brudvig

March 1, 2010 - The low-priced digital download had modest beginnings. Casual games and classics ported to new systems were the norm, but this has changed in recent months. Games like Shadow Complex and Battlefield 1943 proved there is a huge market for projects of a larger scope. The trend towards bigger and more complex games is not about to change if Blacklight: Tango Down is any indication of what to expect. This fully-featured multiplayer shooter is on the way to the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC this summer and it is targeting a price of just 15 American Dollars.

The way Blacklight was described to me roughly fits the same set of features you would expect out of a videogame you'd find at your local game shop. There will be 10 maps, ranging from small to big open arenas. Each can be played on four or five different modes with teams of up to eight on a side. At its heart is the Unreal Engine 3 pumping out hi-res and slick looking visuals, even at this early pre-alpha phase.



Catch the first trailer here.I got a look at this early build of Blacklight in action and it certainly does visually impress. The arena combat takes place in a dystopian future version of Eastern Europe. The visual style of the map I got to see fit this time and location -- it looks a bit like an old European town had some futuristic glowing signs and buildings slapped on top of it. It's almost as if the future came too quickly to this part of the world and the city planners couldn't keep up. At war are two factions, the Blacklight and the Order, a convenient excuse for some team-based combat.

Most of the action I saw looked like pretty standard first-person shooter fare, though Blacklight does have a couple of features that make it unique. The biggest is that each player is equipped with an HRV visor. When activated, the player can see through walls to see foes and objectives to gain some intel. The catch is that while using the HRV, the player can't shoot. That means to use it effectively, you'll have to work as a team. Countering the HRV is a digi-grenade, which can shut down an opponent's vision entirely.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of Blacklight is that, despite the fact that it is a low-priced digital download, it will still have a complete leveling system similar to what you can find in Call of Duty. Playing well will level you up through 70 ranks, unlocking modifications for your weapons and armor. This will allow you to customize your look and load out, shaping everything from the barrel and grip to the scope and accessories on eight different weapon classes.

The download will be a hefty one at roughly 1 GB, which shouldn't come as any surprise given its look and scope. IGN will have an update just as soon as we get our hands on Blacklight to see if the mechanics can match the look. Keep an eye out for Blacklight this summer on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and PC, coming courtesy of development studio Zombie and publisher Ignition.

http://xboxlive.ign.com/articles/107/1072883p1.html

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Third]

more shooters 

[Stoney Mason]

April 21, 2010 - Add Blacklight: Tango Down to the growing list of promising multiplayer shooters coming to downloadable game portals. The IGN editors spent some time killing each other on the battlefield today (and being totally murdered by the developers) and a great time was had by all. Blacklight: Tango Down is a futuristic FPS set in a rundown Eastern European city 25 years in the future. Up to 16 players will be able to join a game on 12 maps. The focus is on a customizable weapon system that doles out upgrades one at a time as players level up. This isn't a class-based shooter. Rather, Blacklight aims to show off the personal preferences of each player. Basically:

Thirteen scopes + nine stocks + twenty barrels + thirty magazines + over one hundred weapon tags = millions of weapon combinations.

You'll be able to make some pretty absurd guns, like shotguns with a super scope and two pistol grips. Those weapon tags we mentioned are like the charms you might hang from your cell phone and are apparently used by some real-world special forces members (Although they probably aren't Hello Kitty charms -- but that would be pretty cool!). There are 108 weapon tags in all and each one provides subtle upgrades to your weapon. Every time you level up, a new tag will be randomly selected and given to you. Note that all of this equipment, from scopes to magazines, upgrades your weaponry in some way.


Before you jump into a game, you'll select your load out. You've got your usual array of primary and secondary weapons (assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles, pistols, etc.), but you also have primary and secondary equipment. Primary equipment refers to your frag grenades and flash bangs -- pretty basic stuff. But you and your enemies are future soldiers, and these primitive tools might not affect you and your fancy pants face masks. The secondary equipment (like EMT Grenades and DigiGrenades) is more interesting and effective. We particularly liked the DigiGrenades, which create a digital bubble on the battlefield that will scramble the view from a player's mask, rendering anyone blind in its vicinity. Throwing a DigiGrenade at an enemy's feet and blasting them while they can't see is great fun.

Each player has a Hyper Reality Visor, or HRV, at their disposal. Turn it on and you can see through walls in order to pinpoint your enemy's and teammates' locations. However, you can only use it for a short time and it takes a bit to recharge. Also, you can't fire while your HRV is turned on. So it's a very useful tool, but its restrictions keep the game balanced. It's also a necessity because of the lack of a map.

Although we were playing the PC version we opted to use Xbox 360 controllers, which are more familiar to us, and Blacklight felt great this way. The controls are tight and responsive, and taking an enemy down only requires a few pops from your machine gun. We found the gunplay very satisfying.

The premise here is that the covert military group Blacklight is battling against its evil counterpart, The Order, which is actually made up of former Blacklight members. Both sides have the same abilities so they should be perfectly balanced. Again, the differences in teams will come from how individual players have chosen to customize their load out. There will be a loose storyline tying everything together, but Tango Down is really about jumping right into online multiplayer battles.

We took special note of the music. The glitchy drill and bass reminded us of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, and one of the audio engineers is indeed a drum and bass producer. It definitely helps give the game a futuristic, distorted feel.

Fans of adversarial shooters should definitely keep an eye out for Blacklight: Tango Down this summer. If we had to guess, we'd say it should set you back $15.

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/143/14336939/vids_1.html

[Raban]

Dunno about y'all but this game looks generic as fuck.

[Great Rumbler]

I like the destructibility in Breach, but other than it looks like just another shooter.

[Stoney Mason]

I'm not especially pro or con on either game yet although I'm generally much more lenient when it comes to something costing $15 versus $60.


So much of what a shooter is comes down to feel so until I play a demo of either, I don't really have an opinion.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Stoney Mason]

The problem with both of these titles is that neither company behind them has an especially good pedigree when it comes to making games in general. So we'll see how that goes.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[dicklaurent]

blacklight looks ok, a bit too close to the standard cod thing. always loved zombie though. them being stuck doing cancelled projects, ports and shitty 9 month style bullshit to stay alive recent years have sucked. hopefully it'll be successful enough they can continue other original things after it.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Eel O'Brian]

players online: 15

[Stoney Mason]

Blacklight comes out tomorrow.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/b/blacklighttangodownxbla/

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[bork]

Going to wait for impressions/reviews on Blacklight first. 

[Stoney Mason]

Here is the demo if you want to try it. You get 60 minutes to try it out.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410a5b/?of=1


Tried it out earlier. It's okay.... I guess...

Being 30 fps (or lower) kind of hurts it (and my eyes). It's not the greatest looking game. And something about the movement and aiming feels slippery. You do get a decent amount for $15 bucks though.

The location visor thing is actually kinda of a neat gimmick/addition to the game. It's hard to imagine myself playing this when I could be playing MW 2 but to each his own.

[bork]

Here is the demo if you want to try it. You get 60 minutes to try it out.

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410a5b/?of=1


Tried it out earlier. It's okay.... I guess...

Being 30 fps (or lower) kind of hurts it (and my eyes). It's not the greatest looking game. And something about the movement and aiming feels slippery. You do get a decent amount for $15 bucks though.

The location visor thing is actually kinda of a neat gimmick/addition to the game. It's hard to imagine myself playing this when I could be playing MW 2 but to each his own.

Doesn't sound good.  Will likely end up just stick with MW2 unless more people start giving it glowing impressions, but I'll definitely give the trial a run.

[Stoney Mason]

Doesn't sound good.  Will just stick with MW2 unless more people start giving it glowing impressions.

There is a thread over on GAF where you can read some impressions from other people.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=399816


Got home a bit early today and finished off my 60 minute timer on it. The more I played it the more I realized there was just no reason for me to buy it. It's sort of like when Street Fighter was popular back in the day and everybody made all those SF knock-offs and you would try one and then wonder why you just don't actually just play SF since its better than all the knock-offs.

If it was a full priced game I would never play it. But for some reason $15 makes my brain function differently and I think why not. But then when you play it, it just sort of feels like you are playing a $15 shooter quality wise which is kind of a weird way to spend your time if you have better options. It's not offensively bad or anything. If someone gave me a code for free I would play it. It's just not better than its full priced competition. And its not different enough like Monday Night Combat so that there is reason to play it along with MW 2 or something.

[bork]

Tried it and deleted it after about five minutes' worth of play time.  It took a while just to get INTO a match, and then it just sucked.  Something just felt off about the controls and movement.  It's like a shitty budget CoD rip-off.

[Sho Nuff]

Wow @ the UI for this game, it's uhh...really special

[Stoney Mason]

Breach delayed until next year.

We've been following the development of Atomic Games' Breach for a long time. First off, it was developed by the team behind Six Days in Fallujah, a bunch of hoo-rah, military types who also design real training software for the armed forces, secondly, it  promised to use the technology developed for Six Days in a tactic-heavy, downloadable shooter. Sadly, Breach has been delayed for a bit. Look for it in January for the 360 and PC.
According to Atomic, Breach was delayed due to "later availability of an Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 ship date from Microsoft than anticipated." But here's the silver lining: The extra time is giving the developers a a chance to add new features, including a Hardcore mode that will allow you to get closer to real tactical training.
"Unlike with Six Days in Fallujah, which was delayed indefinitely when Konami pulled out, we are publishing Breach ourselves, and it will be out in January," said Peter Tamte, President of Atomic Games."I've always said, we don't make simulations for the public and we don't make games for the government. However, we have come to realize there is a growing segment of the gaming population that wants to test these simulation systems out for themselves, which is why we're adding features, like a Hardcore mode, to Breach."

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/706288/Atomic-Games-Breach-Delayed.html

[maxy]

Some interesting sales data

UTV Ignition has also revealed that the Xbox Live Arcade version recently topped one million sales.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-10-19-blacklight-tango-down-gets-psn-date

hmm,lol

[Stoney Mason]

Sad. It was a very poor product as far as shooters go imo.

[Stoney Mason]

They've probably missed the window where anybody would care about this if they ever did but its being released in the next 2 weeks.

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Stoney Mason]

Breach is absolute shit.

Maybe the worst game I've played on my 360. 

It's so bad you should try it just to have a laugh.

It literally doesn't look as good as I remember Halo looking on the original 360. The lag is the worst I've ever experienced since 56k.

[Eel O'Brian]

I used to think these kinds of bite-sized MP games would do well on XBL (this was based purely on my experience with BF1943), but I think I've changed my mind.  With exceptions for established franchise games like Quake or the BF series, I no longer believe many people are going to invest money or time in a MP only game (no matter how good) when they can just play the MP which comes free on their $60 game disc.

[Stoney Mason]

I've come to realize that these type of games are scam games when they come from small publishers. I mean EA and activision or some other big publisher could probably launch a quality title like 1943 and do it justice. In fact EA left money on the table by not doing map packs for that game.

But games like this or Blacklight are simply schemes. Some shitty small dev sees the success of a big shooter and then says lets have our shitty D level team crank out something like that but of D level quality to try to get the crumbs. It worked for Blacklight. That game actually sold pretty well even though its not good.   

[Eel O'Brian]

Yeah, I was kind of irked that EA never released any European Theater maps for BF1943 (although I would almost bet money they'll return to that as the BFBC2 Vietnam-styled expansion pack for BF3).  That game was some great, quick shootery fun for a long while.

MP-only games are in a weird place on XBL.  There's (at least for me) a hesitancy to buy even the games which look fun because there's no real longevity.  There's so much coming out that most folks just move on to the next thing within a month, leaving only the griefers and experts still playing, and there's your $15 pissed away.  Who could blame them, though?  There is such a volume of quality games coming out that you could miss peak playing times by sticking with an older game and passing over a newer, decent shooter for even a month.  Renting and trading drop the player count pretty quickly, as well.  On PC there remains a certain player base for almost any game, no matter how old.  You can still jump into full servers for BF1942.  You'll get your ass handed to you, but they're still out there if you feel like playing.  I would have thought that games on console would reach a similar player spread over the years considering the amount of used MP-focused games still selling through places like Gamestop, but for the most part that hasn't been the case.