Black Ice Demo

There are many games out there that continuously inspire other developers to copy their concepts, since they work so well and the public enjoys them. However, originality is also demanded by the players, otherwise there would be no point in variety. The game at hand tries to combine two non-original ideas and come out with something unique on the other side, which is not a bad plan, considering.

Black Ice is a first-person shooter that’s largely based on letting players create their own narratives and rewarding them with excessive loot for grinding. As you can see from its visual style, the artwork is heavily inspired from the classic science-fiction movie Tron, while the gameplay mechanics based on loot and mindless killing are a trademark of the Borderlines franchise, among others.

The game has some unique elements as well, such as the fact that your main quests involve hacking the buildings you stumble into. By doing so, enemies spawn near them and you must kill them while the building goes down. After everything is in rubble, you are rewarded with money and, obviously, some artifacts and items to equip and improve your skills.

Speaking of which, you character gains experience after every successful quest and you can level-up after you receive enough of it. Thus, you can spend some points into a large variety of skills and attributes, all of which make it easier for you to kill enemies and advance further. The large number of skills also means that you can always start anew and change the stats in order to experience a different approach to the game.

As previously mentioned, Black Ice uses a Tron-like graphic style to render the world, which translates into a lot of black and plenty of glowing neons. It looks nice, on the other hand, even if the glowing might tire your eyes quicker than usual. A sublime soundtrack is also included, which can significantly improve your mode and the general atmosphere inside the game at the same time.

All things considered, Black Ice achieves its goal and it certainly can become addictive after you get acquainted with the mechanics. However, the lack of a storyline, or at least more types of missions can seriously hurt the lasting appeal, although the epic loot might keep you coming back in spite of it.