Game Review - Blacklight Retribution

Any Steam Free to Play fanatic who has no idea what Blacklight Retribution is has been sleeping under a rock. I call it a free to play but it's more of a free to play micro transaction central game.

I'd played this game before and I have to say, I was impressed by the gameplay. I picked up some sweet weapon modifications, even turning the default Assault Rifle into a Sniper! But that was on the US server (which I have to say I had little lag on even being from the EU) so when I played again on the EU I was reset to defaults. This isn't a bad thing however, apart from having no camo any more the base weapons aren't bad, the game is ridiculously well balanced, with me coming second in my first game with team mates running round with what appeared to be lightsabers! (Yes they are in this game and yes I want one) I assume they cost a bomb so I stayed away from them, remaining strong in my stingy free to play roots. You get GP (credits) for playing games which is the main form of acquiring/upgrading armour and weapons. However there is a "Zenn" option which fuels boosts, upgrade packs etc. You also get packs for levelling up which is awesome

This shows the customization section. Looks familiar right? To me it looks like Blink's older brother. Now don't get me wrong that's a good thing as I loved Blink but I think it lacks originality in the style of screens. It's all easy to handle menus that help to optimize smooth transitions and on the fly customisability in the short duration between lobbies.

This is some in game screenshots. It looks superb and doesn't even run that hard on my GPU, with everything very smooth and pretty like all good shooters should be. It plays better than CoD BO2 in my opinion, with an easy HUD and no un-balanced weapons or lag spikes or any sort of the usual CoD problems (start flame war here). As shooters go this was great for the price, with everything being how you want it to be, no killstreaks (CP is earned and can be used on Ammo/Health refills, flamethrower, rocket launcher or juggernaut style Hard Suit) so everything is balanced, noone is running round insta headshotting, noone is spawn trapping it is a very good experience. However the bad side is that it takes a long time to get all the weapons you want to try out, but if you play it enough it is excellent.

 As Free to Play's go this is up there with the best, but I'm afraid until you play 100 hours straight, it's not living up to the hype behind it and it's lack of originality in menus forces me to give it a 6/10