If Steam is your gaming hub then you would no doubt have seen this game on the front page of the past week.
Blacklight Retribution is the sequel to Blacklight Tango Down, a game that I missed with all the military shooter clones going about. So why would you be interested in this shooter? For starters, its free-to-play. The game is a sizable 4.2gb to download. You will need a Perfect World account on top of your steam account to play the game.
The game uses the unreal engine. The visuals are pretty impressive. The servers for the game is either in America or Europe so expect a small degree of lag in either way where you choose to play. The game is more than playable though proving again the power and stability a dedicated server provides over a peer-2-peer connection platform.
The game has the basics expected from most modern shooters. You gain levels, gain GP to unlock weapons and gear upgrades, ect. The approach in BLR is different in its degree. The game lets you rent gear for a certain amount of time, a day, a week, or purchase perminently. Here is where things gets ugly and unbalanced though.
The game lets you buy items using Zen, perfect worlds real money currency, or GP which you earn after each match. To give real world meaning to this: 100 Zen = $1 (R8.50). A weapon unlock costs either 22000GP or 1000 Zen ($10/ R85). You get on average around 100GP a match according to most online reviews. I am fortunate enough to get around 150GP average.
The game has an insane amount of customization. You have 5 armor slots that you can change items for. Each change has an effect on your health, run speed, stamina, reload time ect. Guns has the same amount of customization with muzzels, clips, sights, stocks ect changing how your weapon does damage, reloads ect. One thing to note is your health does not regenerate past a certain point. You will need to access the health stations in the stage to heal yourself up.
My first try of the game was filled with grief as I had to wait for 3 hours until the login server decided to let me in. Just another reminder of Diablo 3 and why this type of cloud gaming or any type of cloud gaming should not be supported.
If your looking for a first person shooter to fill the gap till shooter season 2012 give this one a swing.