Blacklight: Tango Down Message Board

Microsoft seems to have shunned the obvious promotional theme of the week in discounting Blacklight: Tango Down for XBLA. But then, who's to say intimate, multiplayer deathmatches aren't romantic?

Online shooter Blacklight: Tango Down is getting a sequel, and this time it's free-to-play. More »

The Games for Windows platform understands how mercurial our mood can be from day-to-day. Today, the storefront's offering the charming, friendly Viva Piñata for a dollar. According to its RSS feed, it's applying the same discount to the somewhat angrier, shootier Blacklight: Tango Down tomorrow.

Exclusive content and brand-new features deliver to PlayStation gamers the wildly popular $15 shooter at its very best.

Hey everyone, in honor of Blacklight: Tango Down’s launch on the PlayStation Network tomorrow (10/26), we’re pumped to share with you a brand-new, exclusive gameplay video and a piece of never-before seen concept art.

Blacklight is a fast-paced, action-oriented, first-person shooter that takes place in 25 years in the future. In the game, players take control of an elite covert ops team that is sent after an American Colonel and his personal Blacklight team. As players progress through the ranks, they will unlock new items and attachments to add to their fully-customizable weapons, giving them literally trillions of weapons combos to play with and endless hours of combat.

While Blacklight has done really well over the summer, we’ve worked on some serious improvements and new features for the PlayStation Network version of the game. In addition to being fully-updated, the PlayStation Network version will include the brand-new ‘Join in Progress’ feature, that allows players to instantly join the online action without waiting for an intermission. Up until now, players had to wait until the end of a round, or start a new game. ‘Join in Progress’ has been our number-one most asked for addition to the game, and it makes the experience a lot more smooth.

But there’s more! We’re also adding a new map to the PSN version of Blacklight called ‘Crossover.’ This map, available only to PS3 gamers, will take them into the financial district right as it transforms into a war zone. We hope you enjoy the game and hope to see you in the combat!

Click to enlarge
Ignition has revealed that one of the "exclusive" features of the PSN version of Blacklight: Tango Down will be a new map. Dubbed Crossover, the battleground sees the Order -- a.k.a. "the bad guys" -- hijacking a train and loading it with explosives. Conversely, Blacklight (the good guys) must sabotage the tracks in order to save the train -- and, hopefully, avoid derailing it into a massive kablooey!

The PSN version of Blacklight will also include a new, previously announced "Join in Progress" feature.

Brand new map rewards PSN players with a 13th action-packed environment for the hit title that has already reached more than a million gamers.

Blacklight: Tango Down 2 may already be in production and on schedule for next summer, but Zombie Studios isn't letting go of its promise to bring Blacklight: Tango Down to PlayStation 3 owners across the globe. Publisher UTV Ignition has announced an October 26 release date for the download-only FPS in North America, followed by a November 3 release on the European PSN.

In the announcement, UTV says the game will come with "PSN-exclusive content," including a "join-in-progress" option for multiplayer -- the publisher teases more info on the exclusive content will be revealed "shortly." Like it's Xbox 360 and PC counterparts, the PS3 version of Blacklight will be priced at $15 (£10/€13) when it arrives on PSN.

Zombie Studios has been tinkering with its online-only shooter Blacklight: Tango Down, releasing a new patch today for Xbox and PC that's rife with fixes. If you wanted more time to let players join your match, or if you wanted to switch the crouch and melee buttons, you're going to love this.

Company will also give away 25 all-new weapon tags representing national flags from across the world through Twitter.

#review Single-player story? Who needs that! Download title Blacklight: Tango Down has multiplayer. But can the game hold its own with the retail heavyweights? More »

A lot of bang for your buck.

#australia Blacklight: Tango Down, a recently-released online shooter, hasn't been released in Australia. Why? Because it's an online shooter. More »

Zombie Studios' Blacklight: Tango Down has been released for PC today (via Games For Windows - Live currently and soon to be on Steam and Impulse). It debuted on Xbox Live Arcade just last week and has yet to reach PSN -- though it's expected "in the coming weeks." Zombie is already working on the sequel, though.

Confirmed by our sister site Big Download, Zombie CEO Mark Long said his studio is aiming for a summer 2011 release for Blacklight: Tango Down 2 (working title). The sequel will feature larger maps than those included in the first game and implement mech-like vehicles into the gameplay.

Long also confirmed that there are currently no plans to offer DLC for the first Blacklight: Tango Down beyond patches to fix any persistent bugs.

So what's it gonna be this week? A strictly multiplayer first-person shooter or a strictly single-player third-person laugher? On the one hand there is Blacklight: Tango Down, an FPS that promises extensive customization player progression. On the other is Monkey Island 2: Special Edition, which comes packed with a new adventure for Guybrush Threepwood and, of course, yuks.

Blacklight will set you back 1200 MS Points ($15), while Monkey Island 2 costs 800 MS Points ($10, conveniently only half as much as you should ever pay for a computer game).

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There are new Xbox Live Arcade games released every week. We realize that our readers are busy, attractive people, and may not have time to download and examine each and every new XBLA game. You've got busy, attractive person stuff to do, after all. Not to worry though, because we've done the work for you, downloading every single trial game and giving you a taste of what to expect. Watch XBLA in Brief every week to see which games deserve a closer look. When you have the time, of course.

Newly remasted, LucasArts' Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge has charted a course for Xbox Live Arcade, where it will arrive alongside Blacklight: Tango Down tomorrow, July 7. LeChuck's Revenge plan hasn't deviated since it was finalized a week ago, but the scheduled Blacklight drop zone was called into question last week when the game's publisher, Ignition Entertainment, could not confirm the date.

Today, Ignition formally announced the multiplayer shooter's deployment on XBLA for tomorrow, adding that the PSN and PC versions will arrive in "the coming weeks." BlackLight: Tango Down will be available for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15).

Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge can be had for 800 MSP ($10).

A developer diary video covering weapon customization.

If Guybrush's hunt for the Big Whoop leaves you wanting something more visceral, you'll be glad to hear he won't be alone on Wednesday, July 7: The punny pirate will arrive alongside Zombie Studios' Blacklight: Tango Down (1200 MSP / $15) on XBLA, says Microsoft.

We wouldn't be surprised to see Zombie's multiplayer shooter on PC and PSN that week, as well.

#clips This dev diary for Zombie Studios' downloadable shooter BlackLight: Tango Down sheds some light on how six core weapon systems can be modified into "literally trillions of different weapon combinations." More »

Braaap! Braaap! Tango down. Tango neutralized. Hey, this guy's carrying some screenshots.

Over the last several years, Zombie Studios has devoted a lot of its resources to the so-called "serious" games business, including training products for the US Army. With its latest project, Blacklight: Tango Down, Zombie is breaking out of this serious mindset without straying too far from the military theme.

Blacklight sounds great on paper: a hefty downloadable multiplayer shooter, with 12 maps and 7 game types, set in near-future Eastern Europe and inspired by Blade Runner with a focus on customization. "Over two trillion weapon and armor combinations," quipped a representative during a recent preview of the game's co-op mode, which was held at publisher Ignition Entertainment's Calif. offices.

In practice, however, I found that Blacklight -- at least, in its currently unfinished state -- didn't come together to be a very entertaining experience. What did impress me, though, was the deep weapon and armor combination system.

#interview Summer shooter BlackLight: Tango Down features the Hyper Reality Visor - an advanced imaging system that uses augmented reality to deliver battlefield intelligence. Lead game designer Jared Gerritzen tells Kotaku about the real-life inspirations behind the game's tech. More »

We're down with this futuristic shooter.

Check out this download-only, multiplayer-only shooter.

The feature war between this year's upcoming downloadable shooters is growing intense, with more and more bullets finding their way onto the list in every fact sheet. Blacklight: Tango Down, developed by Zombie Studios, now touts four-player co-op missions, in addition to its player customization, experience-driven progression system and competitive multiplayer modes.

The "Black Ops" co-op missions will challenge you and three other e-soldiers to best an enemy faction that has overrun the streets of Balik. As a reminder, we'll note that the streets of Balik are "both futuristically alien as well as hauntingly familiar." They're the urban equivalent of an Ed Wood flying saucer, and that has to count for something.

Blacklight: Tango Down will land on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and PC this summer for an expected price of $15.

Zombie Studios' downloadable Unreal-powered FPS will include co-operative play for up-to-four players in addition to traditional competitive multiplayer modes.

Ignition Entertainment has revealed The Order – the second faction to be unveiled from the upcoming multiplayer-focused first-person-shooter Blacklight: Tango Down, currently in development at Zombie Studios. The first faction revealed was Blacklight, which was detailed last week.

New screens of the downloadable multiplayer shooter.

Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network haven't traditionally been the most familiar territories for new first-person shooters, but titles like Serious Sam HD and Battlefield 1943 have started carving out a respectable niche. Ignition has decided to join the fray, announcing that Blacklight: Tango Down is set to arrive on XBLA, PSN and PC this summer.

Details are hard to come by on the Zombie Studios title (first revealed nearly a year ago), but we know it's a "military action" franchise that prides itself on its weapon and character customization. Zombie describes the near-future world of Blacklight as "disturbingly detailed," with "old-world architecture dripping with modern sci-fi lighting and brightly lit advertisements." And just a crazy number of Grateful Dead posters.

The next big downloadable game?