Black Dawn(By Virgin)

1player
Memory card(1 block)
Animated Violence(Teen)
Category: Combat/Flight Sim

Blast or be blasted! That is the motto of this game. Black Dawn
continues the tradition were Agile Warrior F111x left off. To those of
you who played the original Sim/Combat game can attest to savor the 
shrapnel between your teeth. Remember flying low over the terrain while
your chain gun "RIPS" the tanks into a grinding hash of metal, while
the graphics sizzled under a hail of bullets, breaking up the machines 
to heaps of tin can, then, suddenly you hear the inevitable explosion
with the driver of the tank screaming his last painful groan. Remember
those days? I bet you do.

Black Dawn now takes the same premise of last year’s sleeper hit and
straps you onto an attack helicopter, much like U.S. Gold’s
Thunderstrike2 for pure arcade destruction mayhem. You the pilot are
the Black Operations military group funded by the U.S. Government. As
part of this force, your mission is to save innocent civilians and take
out militia terrorist targets. You’ll be required to destroy, attack
the enemy on land and air, defend important Ships, drop secret infantry
forces, etc. Your mission will unfold on a need-to-know-basis. Sounds
‘Exciting’ doesn’t it! Well, Black Dawn does deliver the blasting,
destruction, mayhem of its older sibling. However, while Agile warrior
offered 10 mission, Black Dawn only delivers a total of 7 (Operation
Urban Shield, Black Out, Ice Storm, Dessert Fury, tiger Trap, Crack
Down, and Hurricane). So, in some ways, Black Dawn is repeating the
"Warhawk" reincarnation for a thrill ride that eventually is too short.
Maybe Virgin and Black Ops Entertainment were working on a small
budget? And to further ADD to the insult, the first three mission, even
in the highest difficult setting, are practically a breeze...leaving
you with only three missions to tackle for a whole week or two,
depending on your skill. For a second generation title, perhaps I was
expecting more, but the over all package is well done.

Like its predecessor, Black Dawn still offers the pilot(you) one
vehicle to operate to deal with the rest of the game, but the variety
of weapons under your command makes up for it. For all the glory of
your Black Operations force, you have under your arsenal napalms,
rockets, missiles, cannons and a Hefty devastating bomb that will send
shock waves of destruction and cause a mayor mushroom cloud under its
havoc. Cool! But still, this sequel packs a less selection of weapons,
not a fatal blow, but continues to show the half-effort shown by Virgin
the second time around.

Like most CD-ROM titles, we come to expect your usual SGI rendered
graphics to commence the Intro.'s and in-between stages. Black Dawn
again reminds us of a second rate effort. The Intro has your Chopper 
moving into a camp, while it blasts a few targets. A couple of
civilians are running about dodging the hell fire and waits for your
landing. End of story! This sequence is the longest. While the
in-between stages run approximately about 5-8 seconds. Yes very short,
and nothing to really impress you by. This work kinda reminds me of
what I saw in Shellshock, the style looks very familiar.

First off, Agile fans will find it easy to jump right in and control
the action thanks to the game’s four Modes of control: Arcade
Mode(default), Agile Mode, Racer Mode, and Gunner Mode. I found there’s

enough variety here to choose and find the best one that suits you.
Obviously, the Agile Mode is specially tailor for gamers who purchase
Agile Warrior. 

Game Screen Features: Everything here is simple. You’ll be appointed to
enter individual letters to enter your name. From here you move
directly to the insertion point MAP. Just like its sibling, you will
only see the stages you cleared. The more you proceed further into the
game, either by using the save or password feature, the more levels
become selectable in the MAP. Note: You cannot open a new mission until
the previous is successfully completed.

When starting the game, you’ll be send directly to a Mission Briefing
Screen. Here, this screen will introduce the first objective of each
mission. This is a simple flat map pin-pointing the locale of your
first hit, with the commander’s voice articulating what actions to take
upon your first briefing. Again this is kinda second-rate work. There’s
no FMV of real life actors briefing you on the mission status that was 
done in the like of Agile Warrior, between missions. However, in Black
Dawn, when for example the first objective is cleared, the Primary Map
Screen -- located on your lower right screen of your chopper view -- 
will inject the second primary target, followed by an audio voicing of
your commander briefing you on your next objective. This is well done
and gives the game a new feel. Also, the Primary Map Screen will 
show an arrow of your current location, while showing you, in blue
dots, your next target for execution. Onto your lower left corner of
your chopper view you’ll find the Radar Display: referred as the ASD,
or "Aircraft Survivability Display." This round display gives you a 360
degree overhead representation of your immediate vicinity. Your
position is the exact center of the circle. Small dots of two kinds can
alert you of ground or air targets. Above the screen, situated in the
middle is your Ordnance(special weapons) selector. This will let you
know what current weapon is in use and the stock number. Other gadgets 
include speed, altitude, compass, etc.

Views: You have four choices, all very nice looking, and usable.
Cockpit View(default) A nice touch in this view mode is the bullet
holes appearing on the screen when sustaining heavy damage. Chase 
View(behind the chopper), Hud View(total exterior view of area), and
Wind View(outside side view of your chopper). The animation of your
chopper when viewing from chase view is very well done and detailed. 

Power-Ups: These include, Armor, Fuel, Machine Gun, Missile, and
rockets. Just like in Agile Warrior, these are found when knocking
certain targets, buildings, enemies, etc. This time, however, the Fuel 
Power-up is a bit limited in certain levels, like the 4th Mission.
Also, while in Agile Warrior you could find Power-Ups when shooting
certain trees, you won’t find it in Black Dawn. Furthermore, Power-Ups 
are coded by color to indicate their strength/value. Unlike in Agile
Warrior, Power-Ups now disappear if you wait for them too long, so keep
an eye for them and pick them up.

Blue -- lowest.
Orange -- medium.
Gold -- strongest.

Aircraft Features: When pausing the game, you have access to several of
your aircraft features that allows you to concentrate on the mission at
hand. In other words, these features makes it easier for the beginning 
pilot to operate the AH-69 Mohawk with little frustration. Here the
game designers give you two Fly Modes just in case you don’t like the
‘chopper style flight controls and feel. If fly mode is OFF, the 
Mohawk handless like an elevator. It maintains any desired altitude,
regardless of orientation and airspeed. This allows you to aim the
weapons at will without affecting the aircraft’s altitude. If fly mode
is ON, the mohawk will fly more like a plane. This feature is useful if
you find the helicopter flight controls tricky to control. Other
features to help you navigate your craft like a puppy are: Automatic
landing toggle(if on, your craft will automatically land when near H
landing zones.), Automatic terrain-avoidance(is always active while the
helicopter is at speeds above 18 knots. Your helicopter will not land 
at these speeds). You’ll also find the Reset, CD Music, and Sound FX in
this screen. Over all, the controls are excellent and won’t get in the
way. There’s enough selection here for anyone to find the game easy to 
control and manage in a reasonable short time.

Gameplay:

Obviously, Black Dawn offers several new perspectives of the game not
present in Agile Warrior. One feature very evident from the start is
the help of friendly forces helping you on each of the levels. These 
are known throughout the game as ‘Friendlies.’ these can be men on the
ground, tanks, or aircraft who are on the same side as you. You will
notice this right away when your aimer is targeting the vehicles and 
identifies them by a blue caption FRIENDLY appearing underneath the
vehicles. Enemies are shown -- when lock on-- as PRIMARY targets. This
game almost tries everything in the book to help you out, but don’t be
mistaken by the help of the friendly forces helping you, the game
latter missions are still tough to beat. If you really want to make
things more difficult, shooting your Friendly targets off the face of
the earth can make the game more difficult, also you’ll notice,
sometimes shooting a friendly will result in handing you a power-up of
some sort. An audio clip will trigger when you go on this kind of
rampage, saying ’What side are you on?’ Cute! Other differences from
Agile Warrior is the ability to land on Zones, pick up hostages,
Hostage drop-off zones, rescue operations, picking objects littered
throughout a level to complete an objective, etc. Other than that, this
game is basically the same Agile worrier engine -- the same arcade,
mayhem shoot ‘em up destruction lunacy. The game retains the same
action pace you’ll find in Agile Warrior, only with some graphical
changes and slight differences.

I personally found myself hooked with the mindless frantic action of
Agile Warrior. I played the game so much it came to the point where I
was just using the chain gun to fight it out WWII style against the 
stampede of enemy hordes. And using this technique in Agile’s best two
levels(Trident Strike & Area 51) the game quickly grew on me. This same
intensity can also be found in Black dawn’s best level, the 4th 
mission! (Dessert Fury) The fourth Mission is impressive by its sheer
frantic pace, action and graphics. The action takes place in the
dessert, and the power of the PSX is best noted in this level.
Sometimes the screen will be full of friendly Choppers shooting down
enemy tanks as you dodge between them and strafe to avoid enemy tank
fire. In this Mission you will encounter the DREADED cruise --
ground-to-air -- missile launchers that will be position all over the
field. When they detect you, and they always do, they’ll launch a
serious of large missiles that will follow your trail and seek to
destroy you. You have to be quick to destroy them, then get the hell
out. In other words, use the number one military strategy, hit and run,
cause just before destroying them they’ll launch a few cruise missiles.
When you reach a certain safe distance, the missiles will deactivate
and self-destruct. The missiles can also be picked up on radar, so you 
will see them coming just in case you’re busy fighting it out against
other ground targets, tanks. You’ll also dog fight choppers in this
level when, if you succeed, in destroying the number of objectives in
this Mission. I found this level the toughest, and the best Mission of
the game to keep you coming back for more mayhem. What’s stunning here,
and thanks to the FOG effect, there’s no sign of slow down, graphical
break ups, or pop-ups. To those of you who own Agile Warrior know the
atrocious slow down and pop-up in some of the games levels. It really
turned some game players off and dismiss the game as mediocre which was
not. Will, the sequel has mended these problems, but to some sacrifice.
Missions 3 & 4 are the best looking found in Black Dawn. And I say this
by the fact that the ground vehicles are large and well noticeable.
Mission 4 is the most balance with big ground and air targets found all
throughout the level, while packing one of the most intensive
arcade-SIM levels I ever seen with no slow down. The rest of the levels
just don’t compare, and is too bad. While in all the levels the air
vehicles are large and graphically beautiful, some levels incorporate
small size ground targets and vehicles that is no match to the size of
Agile Warrior’s graphic engine. In the 5th mission (Tiger Trap) for
example, the moving ground vehicles are small enough to first appear
within sight as small, tiny targets, and getting closer doesn’t get
bigger by much, kinda reminds me of Gunship and Bogey Dead 6. In Agile
Warrior, the characters of the game were large and well noticeable, not
to mention strongly detailed. The water effect, found in Trident
Strike, was excellent, it looked real, offering life like waves and
movement. It really made you feel you were flying over sea. The ships,
water crafts and oil rigs were large enough to see every nuance and
detail when hovering over them up close, big enough to see their
motors, parts, etc. The level Trident Strike still remains TOPS. Black
Dawn’s 7th mission(Hurricane’s water level) is no match graphically to
Trident Strike. On the other hand, Agile Warrior lacks the intensity
power found in Black Dawn’s 4th Mission. Another serious note to be
considered, Agile Warrior offered tons of different vehicles on air and
ground, while Black Dawn offers less than half in comparison. 

Perhaps the smaller ground vehicles found in Black Dawn are a way to
combat the problem of slow down, but I must find this somewhat
inexcusable. This is second-generation work, and the use of heavy FOG 
effects found in all the levels should have been enough to tackle the
problem of pop-up and slow down. One should consider the work of
Warhawk (first-generation with no slow down, no fog effect, and faster 
speeds) and see what I mean. Though, Black Dawn, as a second-generation
software programming, the leaps here are small when compared to other
works. It is a matter of considering long and attentively what you want
in a game to succeed, Virgin made no bones about making a sequel with
little improvement in using the hardware. If only the game had pack
more levels like Mission 4 (Dessert Fury), this game would have been
worth the retail price, or for that matter become a must buy purchase.
Being myself a BIG Agile Warrior fan, I’m slightly disappointed with
Black Dawn. But don’t get me wrong, the game still packs enough action
with missions 4, 5, 6 and 7. And you’re going to spend some time before
you beat these action/pack levels. Note: Being a season gamer myself it
only took me less than a week’s time to complete the game, due to its
short length.

Black Dawn has a couple missing ingredients that made playing Agile
Warrior fun, or expressed politically correct, more BLOODIER. First,
pilots no longer eject and parachute. So you can forget shooting down
pilots in Black Dawn for all the glory and maniacal revenge mainly
expressed by sick puppies who enjoy playing this game(you) Second, the
terrible groaning scream of pain suffered by tanks crews when their
vehicles exploded are no longer expressed in the game. Bummer! Third
and lastly, no infantry on ground to terrorize with your mean, lean,
hungry death machine. In a nut shell, Black Dawn has remove the Blood
shed that has made war so frightful and fearing. By this, the game has
now become...well, a video game. Is just less personal now, and you no
longer are reminded of men equipping these machines you so long wrought
upon destruction, and end their lives.

Black Dawn explosions is perhaps one of the major selling points of its
existence. The explosions by far are the best I seen and are much
improve over Agile Warrior. A blazing target, like choppers, and 
propeller by-planes goes up in smoke, literally. They explode partly
and then go down with a bang. The fire works are incredible! This much
havoc you’ll experience throughout the game, while tanks and ground
targets break up to pieces and are reduced to blazing fires. But that’s
not all, the audio Fx packs a BANG too. The rapture of metal and
equipment shrapnel will bust your stereo system to high friction. 
With all this chaos of destruction, you’re neighbor will think you’re
watching a war movie, well so much for your peace loving image. And if
you happen to up-grade your regular chain gun, the noise of this 
blaster will cause the speaker to rumble, and if followed by the
disrupting explosion of a vehicle literally shaking the ground, you’ll
might just break down from total adrenaline rush. Yeeehawww! The
buildings in Mission 5 blow up into small black mushroom clouds, giving
you a feeling you’re experiencing apocalypse right before your eyes.
War is Hell! Plus, to continue the mockery against the insulting enemy,
short audio lines grind the action with: ‘Payback Time!’(when
destroying a key primary target), ‘Eat that!,’ ‘Piece of Cake!,’ ‘Way
to Go!,’ ‘Nice going!,’ etc.

The music of Black Dawn is over all good. The theme has a military
style with many of the tracks featuring heavy drumming and classical
solo voices supporting the tracks. The theme is very patriotic and 
with the background choir it really lifts up your soul. The themes on
one hand sound distinctively the same. The same instruments are used in
all the tracks and keeps reminding you of the same pulse-pumping theme,
musing your sub-conscious with the Soprano singers hailing their great
voice. This is fine, it retains that filming music flair that is also
found in Warhawk.

Bottom line: The game is not a giant leap over its sibling brother
(Agile Warrior), but the game will appeal to combat-SIM lovers, that is
if you’re willing to live with only 7 missions. The game has fix the 
aggravating slow-down and pop-up encountered in Agile Warrior, but with
some sacrifice to the size of the vehicles and the use of heavy fog
effect. With three difficulty settings the game will appeal to 
everyone, the only problem however, the fun is short lived. 89%

Graphics          8
Gameplay          9
Funfactor         9
Music/Fx          8
Best Feature: Great Explosions and Arcade Shooting!
Worst Feature: Too short, a lot of Fog!

Codes for the less patient:

Urban Shield  1018
Black Out     1006
Ice Storm     1213
Dessert Fury  0203
Tiger Trap    0917
Crack Down    0354
Hurricane     none

Enter the following codes while the game is paused.

Maximum fuel and armor: Press select, L2, select, R2, Triangle,
Triangle, Triangle, O.

Maximum weapons: Press select, L2, select, R2, L1, L2, R1, R2

Summon Wingman: Press select, L2, select, R2, Square three times, O.

Upgrade current weapon: Press select, L2, select, R2, L1, L1, R1, R1.

Reviewed by leogamer....