Blackwood, Anton Blackwood – Licensed to cosplay John Wick. It is not generally favorable when you open a review with a comparison, or often looked upon with great glee, when you make such a clear and obvious comment out of the gate. That said, I think AttritoM7 Productions and IZilla Games invite such comments when almost every action taken pulls from said comparison. Literally inviting it with the one-handed press check to a genetic TTI Glock 34 (17-round mag) in the opening cutscene, but this isn’t where the reference/comparison ends, and that’s where I think there is a 9x19mm hole in someone’s foot.

In essence, Blackwood is a 2009 cover-action shooter trying to be the movie tie-in game for something without the license. Which, I’ll admit, isn’t a great thing to say in a review, but hear me out here. As you might guess, you play as Anton Blackwood, a generic male protagonist and the guy I swear I arrested in Aesir Interactive’s Police Simulator for littering. By day, Anton runs a DVD rental store in New York; by night, he’s a mass murdering psychopath wildly shooting into the middle distance at whatever is shooting at him for action reasons as generic as his face.

Like all classic plots that should do heavy lifting to make you care, Blackwood starts in mediās rēs. Anton, chased by as-yet-nameless (to that point) goons, does that Arc de Triomphe scene with a faux Washington Square Arch before throwing you into the game and plot proper. You are effectively a contract killer with a desire to make money; be it through your day job running a DVD store in 2012, underground fighting, stunt work for film productions, and generally just killing someone for money. Anyone want to offer me the latter? For legal purposes, I am joking.

As much as what I’ve said so far about Blackwood, I don’t hate it. I do, however, think Blackwood is very rough and will be promptly given a mixed review score when Steam reviews even out, possibly disheartening the Bangladeshi developer, AttritoM7 Productions. Like the studio’s previous game, Zero Hour, Blackwood is an ambitious game to make in the face of large-scale production games that are similar to it. Personally, I love ambition, but it has to come with some level of experience and quality.

My comparison of “a 2009 cover, action shooter” is in how Anton moves, how the camera is so close I can smell the BO off of him, and how gunplay and direction aren’t skipping merrily, hand-in-hand. Yet when you get past this early point, when you see what the game is beyond the linear Jonathan Wickerman, as I am sure the DVD would be called in store, when you get what Blackwood is trying to do, it could be hit or miss.

The hand-to-hand combat is certainly a choice, especially when the camera is very close by, and you’ll encounter several goons at once for Batman-like single-button mashing. It is the Dark Souls and such problem: there are too many enemies for the tools you have available. Anton’s movements when using a keyboard and mouse are tanky; they are slow. The overall idea, as far as I’m understanding it, is to provide that weight behind combat. The trouble is that it makes combat, the bread-and-butter pieces of gameplay, a bit of a slog.

Gunplay isn’t much better either. Over-the-shoulder with a vague crosshair pointed across the room, again with a keyboard and mouse, this feels somewhat floaty, somewhat “put as many shots downrange as possible,” and, as I’ve said, a 2009 cover action shooter. You can dress Anton in a nice suit, do a one-handed press check, and have him do as many action scenes you’ve seen in films as you like; it is dressing a pig in makeup when the guns don’t feel imposing. Though that could be another issue.

The quality of sound design is a rather mixed bag. Some sounds are heavily compressed to sound bigger – some aren’t. I think even the least AV-tech-savvy person could spot where this or that sound effect came from. More or less, it feels rather cobbled together. Something you’ll notice throughout and not only with the audio side of Blackwood, but also the visual side too.

Cutscenes can look alright, and sometimes scenes like the second stunt job can have interesting camera angles for its film production segments. However, like a student film with too many Dutch angles, I wonder if the shot is supposed to mean something or if it is just something the director thought looked cool. Yet, the worst bit of it all is having to watch it over and over, again and again.

My 2009 comparison is not just about gameplay, but also the design choices. Such as checkpoints before cutscenes, some of which are unskippable. A crime that I thought we had long since eradicated, alongside low-rise jeans and a thong, or David Cage’s career. If you’re in a hand-to-hand combat scene and it feels like you’re Piper Perri (you dirty bugger!) in that meme, you’ll encounter load screens and a bit of animation you’ll see several more times. The second mission has a chase scene, and if you don’t know about the train and where you have to be, you have to do the whole chase again.

The problem that I, and I believe a few others, might have is that Blackwood feels like a game you’ll be interested in, but right now it is not ready. Blackwood is rough, raw, and needs at least another six months before I think it is really “ready” to be put in hands. The mechanics are there; they are functional, and the game runs. Sadly, that does not make a good, entertaining game or experience.

You may have also noticed I haven’t really spoken about the story, and that’s because it is generic clichés and gruff mutterings from page 1 of How to Write a Generic Male Protagonist. As I say, the first thing we see is Anton being chased, and for plot reasons, you have to kill Killer Croc in the sewers, and the second mission sees him yelling at a nameless goon, “Tell your boss, do not come after me!” As a player, as an observer to that point, I have no context for any of it. It is just a thing that is happening. There is no action and reaction, effectively.

Put on top of this that, as of the time of release, you get Act 1 now, Act 2 in March of 2027, and Act 3 next September. I could do with that if the mechanics were fun. That would be fine if I was excited to shoot the guns, run the store, and engage with the missions. However, right now I am not. Given how excited I was to see how AttritoM7 Productions could pull off this ambitious idea, I’m disappointed.

I’d have rather waited another year to see the mechanics polished up to be engaging, alongside the plot being finalized, than know what could be an interesting game by September 2027 “rightfully,” for lack of a better word, see mixed reviews. Hell, I am torn between liking the idea, liking what AttritoM7 Productions is aiming for, and knowing that I’d rather have waited and seen a more refined version. I’m not necessarily moaning about the visuals as certain people will, but I’m more focused on the feel. The feeling that Blackwood is rough, raw, and not quite ready.

Ultimately, Blackwood is a game that on paper I’d enjoy immensely; you have a half-job sim in the DVD store, but you have contract killing at night. However, the studio’s odd design decisions and rough state of the central gameplay make me wish there was another six months to a year before we were even playing it. It is tearing me apart trying desperately to find the positives in something I was so excited to see do well; launching with such undercooked potential just sat there.

A PC review copy of Blackwood was provided by AttritoM7 Productions for this review.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!

Blackwood

$24.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• A fun idea that could grow into something exciting.
• A nice blend of mundanity and action.

Cons

• Rough and raw mechanics that need a bit more work.
• Regressing into old game design problems.
• I'd have preferred there was another six months of development done.