Genre: Action (Shooter) / 3D / 1st Person / Online-only
date of release: 2012
developer: Zombie Studios
Publisher: Perfect World Entertainment
The world of online battles is huge and diverse. There are really many differences in games of this genre: some turn to historical facts and events, others delight with high-quality battles from the Second World War. But there is a game called “Blacklight: Retribution” that lifts the curtain on the future and shows us what battles will be like in the 22nd century. This is a game developed by branded companies. The previous product Blacklight Tango Down was a bit crude and didn’t show its potential. Now everything is different: the creators have in their hands the magnificent game engine Unreal Engine 3, a lot of wishes from players and an incredible desire to create a truly high-quality product.
The graphics have grown by an order of magnitude, and this is noticeable from the first frames: the lighting of game scenes has changed, the shadows have become much deeper, and support for Direct X 11 allows you to see really clear textures and realistic water. As for the gameplay, everything is fine here too: two opposing teams fight on different maps to prove their advantage over the enemy. The team component is at its best, and new types of weapons are exciting with each new model chosen. Welcome to the battles of the future with Blacklight: Retribution.
Review: Playability
Zombie Studios has finally presented open beta testing of its new project called Blacklight: Retribution. This game will be distributed free of charge, well, as you can guess, it will fuel itself through micro transactions. Blacklight: Retribution is essentially a sequel to the never-widely acclaimed Blacklight Tango Down.
So, we have a new online shooter that everyone can play for free. The project has its own atmosphere, but the plot is unlikely to be useful here. To a greater extent, the game is reminiscent of the first Unreal – turn off your thoughts and focus on your opponents, this is a plus.
But the fact that the game lacks scale is a minus. Quite cramped game locations and a very small number of players on the map, up to a maximum of 16 people, are simply depressing. After the epicness of Battlefield 3 multiplayer, within 5-10 minutes of gameplay, all interest in the game completely disappears.
We invite you to evaluate part of the game walkthrough of Blacklight: Retribution in HD resolution, where you can see for yourself the quality of this product:
Blacklight: Retribution is a good alternative to online shooters, even on a free alternative. The developers wish for more players for simultaneous play and more spacious maps for battles.
Review: Graphics
The game is based on a fairly popular game engine today, namely Unreal Engine 3. The graphical submenu is very extensive and allows us to manipulate the visual settings at our discretion. To change graphic settings, we recommend restarting the game client after applying them.
In addition to the huge number of graphic settings, it is worth noting the improved adaptation to the capabilities of DirectX 11. At the moment, the game includes all modern effects of this API. Among the most striking, tessellation with various quality level settings and DOF, which more clearly depicts the depth of field, should be mentioned.
Based on the quality of the graphics, it is clear that Blacklight: Retribution requires many improvements. Textures are currently rendered a little slowly, and their quality could be improved. Physics at the moment in the game is practically absent and appears only when acting on game characters.
Well, then we will move directly to the game testing itself and identify the most optimal solutions for this game
Review: Resource-intensive game
All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The minimum and average frame size is taken as the performance indicator. Below is the configuration of our test systems.
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Test configuration |
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test stands |
Test bench No. 1 based on the Intel Socket 1155 platform Test bench No. 2 based on the Intel Socket 1366 platform Test bench No. 3 based on the AMD Soket AM2 platform Test bench No. 4 based on the AMD Soket AM3 platform Test bench No. 5 based on the AMD Soket AM3 platform Test bench No. 6 based on the AMD Soket AM3 platform Test bench No. 7 based on the Intel Socket 1155 platform |
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Multimedia equipment |
3D monitor LG W2363D Monitor LG E2750 Dell U3010 monitor product provided by the company AMD 3D Vision Kit product provided by the company Nvidia |
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Software configuration |
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Operating system |
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 SP1 |
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Graphics driver |
Nvidia GeForce/ION Driver Release 295.73 AMD Catalyst 12.1 CAP3 |
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Monitoring program |
MSI Afterburner v2.2.0 beta 14 |
Our video cards were tested at different screen sizes of 1680×1050, 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 at the maximum graphics quality settings allowed by the game. NVIDIA 3D Vision and AMD Eyefinity technology were not tested in the beta version. The minimum FPS was not taken into account, since this is still an online project and it is simply impossible to test normally when you can be killed from any corner.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1680×1050
At a resolution of 1680×1050 at maximum quality settings, video cards showed an acceptable level of performance Radeon HD6790 or GeForce GTX 550Ti.
Testing at maximum quality settings 1920×1080
At a resolution of 1920×1080 at maximum settings, an acceptable level of performance has already been shown Radeon HD 5830 or GeForce GTX 460SE.
Testing at maximum quality settings 2560×1600
At a resolution of 2560×1600 at maximum settings, the minimum level of performance was shown by video cards of the level of Radeon HD 5870 or GeForce GTX 480. Dual-chip solutions should be considered the most optimal for these game settings.
CPU dependency testing
We tested processor dependence on 12 models of basic configurations that are relevant today. The test was carried out in those places where the value of video cards for the game is minimal and its load was less than 99%, this time at a resolution of 800×600 with maximum graphics quality settings.
Testing at minimum quality settings 1024×768
All of our tested processors showed quite sufficient levels of performance. Scalability when moving from two to four cores is not bad, but could be better. Particular attention should be paid to the FX-8150, which showed very good performance in this game, approaching the level of performance of modern solutions from Intel.
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Blacklight: Retribution is a good alternative to online shooters, even on a free alternative. The developers wish for more players for simultaneous play and more spacious maps for battles. |
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The graphics in the game are not bad, with many graphical bells and whistles that not all modern game projects can boast of at the moment. |
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Optimization in Blacklight: Retribution is far from the worst and any modern mid-level gaming computer can handle this game without significant problems. |
You can download all pictures from this review in original resolution .
We express our gratitude to all the manufacturing companies that were able to provide test equipment for our GPU tests and we hope that in the future their number will increase significantly!
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