Free Weekend First Impressions - Blacklight Retribution

Free Weekend


Free weekend is a new section I am going to be doing every weekend. Every week I will be finding a new release, or a game still in beta, that is free to play and be playing it over the weekend. I will be posting on the Friday my first impressions, and then on Sunday writing up a larger review. Throughout the following week, hopefully starting on Monday, I will be uploading videos onto Youtube of the game I have been playing. I will also be hoping to stream some games and play with the community as well. For the first weekend I will be playing Blacklight Retribution.

Blacklight Retribution

The game is published by Perfect World, who aren't well known for shooter games. However don't let this put you off. Blacklight Retribution is actually a followup to Blacklight Tango Down which was originally an Xbox Live Arcade game. The game itself is built upon Unreal Engine 3 and because of this has a solid foundation for it to be built upon.

While the game is still currently in Beta, it has now moved on to Open Beta. Most free to play games enter open beta before release, but during this open beta everything is usually usable including the cash shops. The cash shop in BLR is actually quite a surprise. Perfect World have been well known for having quite a few "Pay to win" games, where while they are free to play you can't actually unlock most of the more powerful items without spending money. Usually quite a large sum of money. BLR however doesn't follow this model, and everything can be purchased for either the real money or in game currency.

When you purchase an item in game you are given the choice of purchasing the item for 1 day, 7 days or permanently. The prices themselves are actually fairly reasonable for the majority of things. Unlocking a weapon permanently will cost you either 5500 GP (In game currency), which I have earned before level 8 in a night of playing, or 500 Zen which is worth €4.50. These guns can actually be hugely customized, ranging from damage to range and also recoil to weapon spread. There are also your typical unlocks such as scopes and increased magazine sizes. There are a few items that are only purchased by real money, but from all the ones I have seen these are only cosmetic items. The only problem I have had so far is that you can unlock an additional load out at level 5, but the game doesn't mention this anywhere and the load out is available to purchase for 1000 Zen (€9.00).

In terms of game play, the game is quite solid. I haven't seen many bugs other than an occasional problem with hit registration which I have read is currently being fixed. The connection seems to be fairly solid, and the maps well constructed. Blacklight Retribution currently 6 maps in the game and 4 game types, 5 if you count Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch as separate game types. The game features CTF and Domination pretty much how you would expect them to be but it also features King of the Hill with a bit of a twist. Teams will fight over the hill as you would expect, but each hill has a small capture time. Upon reaching the capture time your team will gain a point and the hill will move. It's more dynamic than normal king and leads to some great comebacks, where games might usually feel lost. Blacklights only downside is that servers only play one game type at the minute and don't rotate.

I will be playing the game during the course of the weekend, and will be uploading a more in depth review on Sunday. If you want to join me in game add me, my username is Nood1e. The L is a number one.

Official Blacklight Retribution website