Five years ago on February 24th, British developer Criterion Games brought a gritty, explosive and incredibly stylish FPS to PlayStation 2. Its name was Black. Designed with the intention to do for shooting what Burnout did for racing - tear it apart - it was one of last generation’s more impressive shooters, its emphasis being on firearm aesthetics, function, action and real-world behaviour.

Before the game’s Senior Designer Stuart Black joined Codemasters to begin work on Bodycount, Black 2 was allegedly on the cards, but because of a difference of opinion with publisher Electronic Arts plans were scrapped indefinitely. 

Fortunately I know a guy in possession of a serviceable PS2 Slim and a copy of Criterion’s gun porn spectacular, so I have someone I can call on whenever I’m in need of a quick fix. However, like all good things this arrangement won’t last forever, which is why Black needs to be added to the PlayStation Store’s catalogue of downloadable titles.

Black propelled players into a sinister world of off-the-record covert operations as hardened veteran Sergeant Jack Keller, whose attempt to bring down an arms-smuggling terrorist organisation known as Seventh Wave went drastically wrong when he disobeyed a direct order. Facing declassification, dishonourable dismissal and a lengthy prison sentence, Keller is forced to account for his actions during an interrogation instigated by his commanding officer, and it’s your job to play through his flashbacks to uncover what happened.

My reasons for liking Black are many. Each of the game’s eight missions (which, before you say “that’s not many”, took between 30-60 minutes to finish) offered a good balance of stealth, strategy and visceral combat. Main objectives were accompanied by a host of optional secondary assignments to complete, such as the retrieval of intelligence documents and the destruction of blueprints. There were silver weapons to earn, complimented by unlimited ammo, and beating the campaign on Black Ops difficulty would unlock the beastly M16A2 assault rifle with an underslung 40mm grenade launcher. The title also boasted destructible environments, a feature that today we associate with DICE’s Battlefield series.

You'd like to see some gameplay footage, you say? My pleasure:

Be honest with yourselves: how cool was that?

In all probability my dream may never come true. Black may never appear on the PlayStation Store, and instead I’ll be forced to suffer the inconvenience of sourcing a copy from some shady eBay dealer, along with my own PS2, but you know what? It’d be totally worth it.

Wouldn't you agree?