User Score
7.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 359 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 57 out of 359

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  1. Oct 15, 2016
    0
    Used to be amazing, like literally one of the best games to have ever graced this world, but then the PS4 version struck and the devs literally just copy pasted the PS4 version onto the PC removing recoil and making it Pay 2 Win.

    Game used to be the best thing I ever played for kicks and then poof bye bye Blacklight hope I never see you again. This game would have been a full on 10 from
    Used to be amazing, like literally one of the best games to have ever graced this world, but then the PS4 version struck and the devs literally just copy pasted the PS4 version onto the PC removing recoil and making it Pay 2 Win.

    Game used to be the best thing I ever played for kicks and then poof bye bye Blacklight hope I never see you again. This game would have been a full on 10 from me until the Parity Patch they still haven't fixed after an entire year maybe even more. All they need to do if they seriously want to stop working on it is reverse the Parity Patch and let us just play it how it used to be with the best Free to Win model ever and when the weapon customization actually mattered because there was recoil.
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  2. Jan 30, 2016
    1
    Buggy pay to win **** with broken servers and unbalanced gameplay + balancing is terible i don't recomend it in any way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  3. May 11, 2014
    3
    This game at it's best is incredibly fun. At it's worst, which appears to be the vast majority of time, it's a game with incredibly broken mechanics. I've shot countless players and they tend to take half-damage or even no damage at all sometimes. Almost no match goes by without being shot through a wall or people randomly 2-shotting a person at 250 hp with the default weapon. All I canThis game at it's best is incredibly fun. At it's worst, which appears to be the vast majority of time, it's a game with incredibly broken mechanics. I've shot countless players and they tend to take half-damage or even no damage at all sometimes. Almost no match goes by without being shot through a wall or people randomly 2-shotting a person at 250 hp with the default weapon. All I can say is, if you do make the mistake of playing, DO NOT spend your hard earned cash on this game. The game won't even let you send a crash report. It's even gotten so bugged that players have complained about it locking up and knocking their systems OFFLINE. I don't think I've ever played a game where that has happened before BLR. I regret wasting cash on this bugged piece of **** Expand
  4. Mar 22, 2014
    0
    The game feels mediocore. It lacks the thrill i get from playing other multiplayer games. The aiming system is really really bad. The moment you launch the game you will know that it feels like cheap plastic. Basically you have thermal goggles and you can get high score because you can see all players.This game is made for camping. If you try to go a short distance(From point A to B)The game feels mediocore. It lacks the thrill i get from playing other multiplayer games. The aiming system is really really bad. The moment you launch the game you will know that it feels like cheap plastic. Basically you have thermal goggles and you can get high score because you can see all players.This game is made for camping. If you try to go a short distance(From point A to B) someone will shoot you (because they are hiding). i will never buy f2p games again Expand
  5. Jan 27, 2014
    4
    Overall this game isn't that bad for a shooter. It's fairly fun, fast paced, has pretty decent game play and has nice graphics. Unfortunately Blacklight is completely PAY 2 WIN at the moment which makes the game a lot less fun unless your willing to sink a bunch of money into the game it might be better to just pick up a pay to play game. As of right now you can either pay cash to unlockOverall this game isn't that bad for a shooter. It's fairly fun, fast paced, has pretty decent game play and has nice graphics. Unfortunately Blacklight is completely PAY 2 WIN at the moment which makes the game a lot less fun unless your willing to sink a bunch of money into the game it might be better to just pick up a pay to play game. As of right now you can either pay cash to unlock the cool classes and extra customization slots and it can't be unlocked with actual game play. The items you can unlock with game play aren't nearly as game changing. Expand
  6. Oct 1, 2013
    4
    I can't seem to pull myself together to say something incredibly positive about this game. For starters many people claim this game is not a pay-to-play model, which is an outright lie. You are given a starter weapon set that is nothing more than bare-bones and you gain points at an unbearable rate. These points are then put towards purchasing new weapons and armor and other upgrades. TheI can't seem to pull myself together to say something incredibly positive about this game. For starters many people claim this game is not a pay-to-play model, which is an outright lie. You are given a starter weapon set that is nothing more than bare-bones and you gain points at an unbearable rate. These points are then put towards purchasing new weapons and armor and other upgrades. The problem? These purchases are temporary. After a short amount of time (a single day I believe), your recently purchased items are automatically taken from you and if you want to keep using them, you need to pay real life money. This is the epitome of the failure of the pay-to-play model.

    While I do agree that the graphics are impressive and the game feel is superb, it does not make up for the controls which is to no degree comfortable. Regardless of changing up my controls, my attempts to make the game control well went to no avail. I could not get used to it at all. Stuttering and slow-downs are so numerous, it is a wonder I can even feel good about getting a kill. It feels like I'm playing the system more than playing the game.

    Overall, the game has an interesting model, but it collapses in on itself with it's pay-to-play model, it's horrid controls and all and all bad delivery.
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  7. Aug 24, 2013
    1
    Congratulations, You earned 1 point for this review. for 1000 Zen you can buy another point to Up-grade your score. You could also buy a +0.1 Score Data Node for only 300 Zen and will be active for 3 days.
  8. Aug 23, 2013
    0
    This game uses an anti-cheat system known as PunkBuster. Unfortunately, it doesn't bother to tell you that and so installs two services onto your computer and goes so far as to accept PunkBuster's EULA on your behalf without so much as a prompt. I don't even think that last part is legal, but both parts are certainly unacceptable.
  9. May 18, 2013
    0
    13 hours to download the patch from there launcher, then when it was finally DL and installed i get an error, I looked up for salutations and all i see is "uninstall and DL it again".
    a waste of time and bandwidth, this is 2013 not f@cking 1996.
  10. Apr 14, 2013
    3
    the only good thing of this game is that is free to play.
    U can see in every game 2-4 players dominating the others with 20-30 kills (about 10-12 above the rest of the players) campers r just annoing and r the most rewarded by high kill rate. the sistem of random spawning in the battlefield after Death is irritating. The weapons just last few days and after that u have to buy them again.
    the only good thing of this game is that is free to play.
    U can see in every game 2-4 players dominating the others with 20-30 kills (about 10-12 above the rest of the players) campers r just annoing and r the most rewarded by high kill rate. the sistem of random spawning in the battlefield after Death is irritating. The weapons just last few days and after that u have to buy them again. i unistalled the game after few days of playing
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  11. Feb 13, 2013
    0
    WARNING TO CONSUMERS***
    Chinese MMO company (PERFECT WORLD ENTERTAINMENT) engages in consumer fraud. They also use "sponsored"
    players within their products to defraud children. Check out Facebook created page "Neverwinter Alert" for more details. ALSO: Please keep in mind Perfect World Entertainment currently has an (F) Grade for its BBB rating. If thats any indication of how it
    WARNING TO CONSUMERS***
    Chinese MMO company (PERFECT WORLD ENTERTAINMENT) engages in consumer fraud. They also use "sponsored"
    players within their products to defraud children. Check out Facebook created page
    "Neverwinter Alert" for more details.

    ALSO: Please keep in mind Perfect World Entertainment currently has an (F) Grade for its BBB rating. If thats any indication of how it treats its customers. Please LIKE SHARE the Facebook page (Neverwinter Alert), so other consumers (mostly US consumers) will
    not be targeted by this Chinese MMO company (Perfect World Entertainment).
    Expand
  12. Feb 11, 2013
    0
    The score is to counter the false 10-point reviews, reality is this game rates around 5 out of 10 after a few of the recent patches. First rule of this game: NEVER PUT MONEY INTO THIS GAME. The devs do not deserve the money and it doesn't get you much, the F2P game model needs to die off because it's bad business. Now to the game. The game used to be fun and almost balanced, then theThe score is to counter the false 10-point reviews, reality is this game rates around 5 out of 10 after a few of the recent patches. First rule of this game: NEVER PUT MONEY INTO THIS GAME. The devs do not deserve the money and it doesn't get you much, the F2P game model needs to die off because it's bad business. Now to the game. The game used to be fun and almost balanced, then the update that 'fixed' the HRV issue ruined the game and made it much slower. I quit more than a few months ago but kept tabs on the game, and the devs are just ham-handed with their patches. Every patch adds more bugs than it fixes, and game balance is totally ruined now. This is the first time I saw a good game get ruined by patching. Expand
  13. Feb 10, 2013
    1
    The game always crashing before game joins and in the start of a practice. Only the tutorial was running. Graphics are average. Looks like it's a Battlefield 2142 clone, an unfinished beta. A perfect junk. 1/10
  14. Jan 31, 2013
    2
    Blacklight: Retribution is a steaming pile of feces lying in a trash bin. it's broken, unbalanced, choppy and disgusting. Here are the reasons to this massive failure:

    Broken: The bots shoot at walls and have aimbots, it is riddled with bugs and when the devs add a patch they add a new 15+ bugs. Unbalanced: People that have "unlocked" guns are far better than you, Why? well all the
    Blacklight: Retribution is a steaming pile of feces lying in a trash bin. it's broken, unbalanced, choppy and disgusting. Here are the reasons to this massive failure:

    Broken: The bots shoot at walls and have aimbots, it is riddled with bugs and when the devs add a patch they add a new 15+ bugs.

    Unbalanced: People that have "unlocked" guns are far better than you, Why? well all the guns aside from the garbage starting SMG are about 35.9x more effective than your SMG (you will be getting one-shotted constantly). Choppy: The game has a FPS of a SNES running BF3 (My computer is fast and it still runs like garbage)
    The animations are bad they lag quite a bit.
    The grenades are...... I can't even describe them

    Disgusting: This game is a pay to win, ok in PTW games you can unlock things but in THIS game guess what...... YOU F***ING CANT UNLOCK THINGS!!!!!!! you have to pay for everything and those things only last for 1 day so you HAVE to pay to play in a marked as "free" game

    My work here is done.
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  15. Dec 25, 2012
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. La verdad es que este juego vale lo mismo que tuve que invertir para comprarlo, NADA. La interfaz tiene un exceso de cosas que dificultan el entendimiento del juego, el juego va bastante rápido lo que no atrae mucho y no genera ganas de jugarlo, los mapas son simples y no tiene nada de original con respecto a otros shooters. En realidad, un juego que no cumple las expectativas que genera. Expand
  16. Dec 13, 2012
    1
    Pay2Win CoD clone painted with a "dystopian cyberpunk near-future warfare" brush. Gunplay is your typical camping and shooting around corners with everyone dying in 1-4 hits. Although the gun customization is deep, there are many direct upgrades and they will take you a LONG time to unlock if you don't pay cash. You have the option to "rent" parts, but if you want to permanently unlockPay2Win CoD clone painted with a "dystopian cyberpunk near-future warfare" brush. Gunplay is your typical camping and shooting around corners with everyone dying in 1-4 hits. Although the gun customization is deep, there are many direct upgrades and they will take you a LONG time to unlock if you don't pay cash. You have the option to "rent" parts, but if you want to permanently unlock that cool gun you just rented for 1 match's worth of GP you'll be looking at korean-strength grinding. For example, to permanently unlock a Lv1 LMG costs 5500 GP and you average 200-300 GP a match... do you really want to play 20-25 matches just to unlock a base gun? Add a muzzle, barrel, magazine, and stock @ 2750/each, a scope @ 3275 and you're looking at grinding at least 100 matches to unlock a Lv1 gun of your choice (not even including cosmetics). Armor (which adds real game changing stats, like HP & sprint speed) is even more expensive, starting at 7500 for Lv1s. No thanks. Expand
  17. Sep 20, 2012
    3
    I have reached up to level 21 in this game, and for all I've been through, I had to give this game a 3. BLR is not a horrendous game; its graphical shine makes up for everything else, but it does lack many mechanics that players want. Hit detection is a very common issue, that I don't even know Zombie Studios is on the case to fix or what, but that's one main reason this game is partiallyI have reached up to level 21 in this game, and for all I've been through, I had to give this game a 3. BLR is not a horrendous game; its graphical shine makes up for everything else, but it does lack many mechanics that players want. Hit detection is a very common issue, that I don't even know Zombie Studios is on the case to fix or what, but that's one main reason this game is partially playable. Many of the premade weapons in this game lack A LOT of advantages. What I mean is many of them have very very sh*t advantages over say, a lot of the other OP guns other high ranking players have, which they BUY with real cash. The standard tactical knight alone (main gun) is even better than a lot of attachments and gun add-ons. You are only limited to level 1 pre-made weapons, which I'd expect, you would unlock new weapons each time you advance a level. But, I was wrong. You can only purchase the "good" weapons, as well as godly nodes that make you near invincible and give you a HUGE advantage over "GP only" players. Servers are another problem. Many of them are over capacity, and quick joining usually puts you in an unwanted game. Ping, lag, bugs, all the works, even with smooth running internet. HRV has a delay when switching on and off. Gameplay is repetitive in most cases. Maps, game modes are getting worn out. Same old fps mechanics like other shooters. No new updates. Nothing really UNIQUE. Futuristic has been seen too much and overdone in fps based. Overall, if this game does not have a turnaround soon, I'll probably leave my rank in the 20 range. Expand
  18. Aug 30, 2012
    0
    More than half of the reviews scoring this game a 10 are blatant advertising by the developers. This is an unpolished mediocre game that will never be out of the beta stage. Designed from the ground up to encourage you to spend money to purchase "Zen" so you can rent equipment upgrades for less than a week at a time. Attempts to actually "earn" your equipment is a boring chore and grind.
  19. Aug 28, 2012
    0
    Blacklight Retribution is a patheticly poorly made pay-to-win shooter game. Controls are frustrating and broken, player builds are poorly balanced, players are casual noobs, maps are similiar and bland. Customization is complex and very frustrating. Gaining experience points in matches to level up and unlock more gear is also a major grind. This is an poor game. Don't waste your time.
  20. Aug 28, 2012
    0
    The developers are incompetent amateurs. Cumbersome gameplay mechanics, broken options, shoddy implementation of ideas. This junk is not worth its price tag.
  21. Aug 21, 2012
    0
    Zombie (developer) is incompetent. PWE (publisher, server hosting, etc) is even more incompetent. Zombie codes in a bug that generates extra experience points for any player that joins a buggy Seige-mode server. Publisher bans any account that joins said buggy server without warning or notice. Trying to play the game and have fun is like playing russian roulette with butt-hurt staffersZombie (developer) is incompetent. PWE (publisher, server hosting, etc) is even more incompetent. Zombie codes in a bug that generates extra experience points for any player that joins a buggy Seige-mode server. Publisher bans any account that joins said buggy server without warning or notice. Trying to play the game and have fun is like playing russian roulette with butt-hurt staffers wielding ban-hammers. Game is broken and staff is a bunch of immature children. Find a better game. Expand
  22. Aug 18, 2012
    0
    i thought this game was fun at first but as i played it more i realized that it was very glitchy and full of bugs. the equipment is unbalanced and the guns dont even shoot half of the time and the other half of the time the guns shoot in random directions because they want you to spend money to buy upgrades to make the guns better. you can spend 3 days trying to earn points to rent ai thought this game was fun at first but as i played it more i realized that it was very glitchy and full of bugs. the equipment is unbalanced and the guns dont even shoot half of the time and the other half of the time the guns shoot in random directions because they want you to spend money to buy upgrades to make the guns better. you can spend 3 days trying to earn points to rent a upgrade for 1 day or spend money to get it. do they think i'm a sucker? Expand
  23. Aug 18, 2012
    0
    Terrible game. Playerbase is a noobfest of casual players who suck at situational awareness or strategical movement. Tons of bugs and broken mechanics that will frustrate you.
  24. Aug 18, 2012
    0
    Riddled with bugs and glitches. Every time they update the game, they add more bugs. Not worth anyone's time to play this waste of space. Uninstalled.
  25. Aug 16, 2012
    1
    Game only gets a 1 for at least for PC only. Low ranking mostly due to the constant bugs and a community that is less than friendly. After 13 yrs in the FPS PC arena thats saying a lot
    What could have been a great PC FPS they took all depth from the game and created a system that only allows for over powered players to prevent any offensive plays leading to one boring slow paced game.
    Game only gets a 1 for at least for PC only. Low ranking mostly due to the constant bugs and a community that is less than friendly. After 13 yrs in the FPS PC arena thats saying a lot
    What could have been a great PC FPS they took all depth from the game and created a system that only allows for over powered players to prevent any offensive plays leading to one boring slow paced game.
    While the gfx were not that bad the so called "free to play" is imo a gimmick.
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  26. Aug 15, 2012
    0
    This game is a joke riddled with glitches and bugs. Every time they patch the game, they introduce a plethora of new glitches while dubiously fixing old bugs. Avoid this junk.
  27. Aug 6, 2012
    2
    I've tried a lot of F2P games, most fall flat and don't offer any excitement to speak of past their initial premise. F2P FPS games even more so than other genre's seem to fail horribly for whatever reason. I've yet to play a single one that was even half as fun as a AAA FPS title (And lets admit those are pretty generic anymore). I spent a good while downloading this game as it's 8 GB, andI've tried a lot of F2P games, most fall flat and don't offer any excitement to speak of past their initial premise. F2P FPS games even more so than other genre's seem to fail horribly for whatever reason. I've yet to play a single one that was even half as fun as a AAA FPS title (And lets admit those are pretty generic anymore). I spent a good while downloading this game as it's 8 GB, and after all that - the game failed to start. I'm a computer technician, so I know how to fix issues the arise generally. Whatever problem Blacklight Retribution has is something in its awful coding. The launcher prompts windows to install something through steam every time I launched the game, the launcher takes a long time to just tell you you're at the newest patch version, and after all that every time I launched the game it just went to a black screen and locked my computer up so horribly that all my USB devices die (Keyboard and mouse just totally dead, can't even CTRL+ALT+DEL out). I disabled my antivirus and firewall (Both of which work fine with all my other games) and still this game just locked up so badly I had to reboot my computer.

    I found someone who said that it's best to download direct from the Blacklight Retribution website, so I started to do that download (Now mind you I have 30 MBPS broadband, normal download rates are 2.5-3.5 MB/sec - steam only took about 10 mins to download the whole game). So I'm downloading through their website, first off they install this awful Pando Media Booster program notorious for excessive seeding and sucking your bandwidth - and then the download rates are horrible! They look like they've been capped to me, the most I was getting was about 700 KB/sec so a nice 2 and a half hour download time. I just cancelled it, deleted the Pando leech program and completely decided against any more effort on this games part.

    Don't waste your time even downloading this game. I thought I'd try it, but more I see people who have real taste are noting the game is a Pay 2 Win kind of F2P and as I was beginning to suspect that the guns don't really feel right (Yes this is hard to describe, but it's difficult for a game with fake guns to get the same feeling of satisfaction that real modelled guns can). This is another generic throwaway FPS that just has lots of customization - which ultimately while cool in concept doesn't mean anything for the lousy gameplay based on all the content I've looked at while trying to get the game running. The developers are clearly too unskilled to code any better than they have, so some users like myself just can't even get the game running. Some might excuse the poor coding because it's F2P, but I don't - other F2P games offer far higher quality than this in that department.
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  28. Jul 25, 2012
    4
    What Blacklight Retribution does right is the amount of customization on your load-out and the ability to customize your character, however that's where it all falls down a cliff. It probably takes around a full day of play to get the exp needed to unlock a single accessory for a gun (of which there are douzens). I get they want to make money with this game, and I'm also a type of personWhat Blacklight Retribution does right is the amount of customization on your load-out and the ability to customize your character, however that's where it all falls down a cliff. It probably takes around a full day of play to get the exp needed to unlock a single accessory for a gun (of which there are douzens). I get they want to make money with this game, and I'm also a type of person that's willing to pay, but in order for me to get a decent build I could 2 to 4 full A- rated games on Steam. So you're being faced with two equally unattractive propositions. Though I'm an experienced MMO player and I can deal with grind just fine, however, I cannot deal with clunky mechanics that feel wooden if not rusted. Being able to see through walls isn't as big of a deal as people make it out to be, it just makes you think twice if you're trying a stealth move. Just that once you try to shoot that person you saw, it gives zero satisfaction, they don't feel like guns and don't sound like guns. The aforementioned attachments you can unlock do offer noticeable differences and you can adjust them to your style, it doesn't make up for the lack of feel. Though the very worst that with an i7 3770k and a GTX690 I was getting pretty bad frame drops (down to 20's), which is probably just a compatibility issue, but that doesn't make it excusable or less preposterous. It being free and so customizable are its only redeeming factors, despite all the negative reviews I decided to still give it a try, and I encourage you to do the same. I however was deeply dissapointed. Expand
  29. Jul 19, 2012
    1
    The problem I find with pay-to-win games is the model. Now, I get the fact that these guys have to pay for servers, staff, and licensing of the Unreal engine, and for this reason I can see myself paying approximately $20 to 40$ for a game, even if p-2-w. But if I pay between 20$ and 40$ I expect to get premium value. But with Blacklight, this is not the case. 20$ dollars gets you theThe problem I find with pay-to-win games is the model. Now, I get the fact that these guys have to pay for servers, staff, and licensing of the Unreal engine, and for this reason I can see myself paying approximately $20 to 40$ for a game, even if p-2-w. But if I pay between 20$ and 40$ I expect to get premium value. But with Blacklight, this is not the case. 20$ dollars gets you the few items that you think are top-class, but as you find out very quickly, turns out to be spectacularly bad and overpriced investments. Now, it is true that you can accumulate ingame cash for playing, but the problem here is that you can only rent the items for a day or seven days at an affordable price. The prices to actually have the item forever, unlike other online shooters like Tribes: Ascend, is ridiculous. Meaning that it will take approximately 100 games to own the cheapest clip for your pistol - and as you get several guns, several mods for guns (clips, stock and barrels) and several pieces of armor for about every part of your body, your 'blood-and-sweat' new pistol clip just makes you end up looking like a right tool.

    However, the setting, atmosphere and sound is quite good and has a decent cyberpunk feel. The game also uses the Unreal engine, meaning that the gameplay and mechanics are quite solid. The matchmaking is however pretty much the same of most online shooters. You cant spectate in the middle of a match so as to wait for an open spot. No, you must either have perfect timing, look for an open spot on a server without having the time to check the server's details (server map or type of mode (the details of which arent apparent on first glance), or waste your time by clicking on the broken 'auto-join' button. Basically, in the end, you are stuck having to sift through servers finding an open spot. When you do eventually get an open spot in a server, odds are you are stuck on a server which is the same map, all the day, every day.

    If you dont want to shell out atleast 100$ for playing a game properly, dont bother.
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  30. Jul 14, 2012
    0
    A rubbish game. The tutorial was annoying and I had to turn subtitles on to understand what the voice was saying.
    Servers are constantly jam packed. I can barely even join a game.
    Graphics are ok, its the Unreal Engine.
    By the time I reached level 2 I had enough and removed it.

    Lousy game, try it if you want but don't bother wasting money on it
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 20
  2. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. PC PowerPlay
    Sep 16, 2012
    70
    A more-than-capable shooter that is a blast to play. Shame about the pings. [Sept 2012, p.59]
  2. Aug 6, 2012
    75
    Retribution is worth your time under one condition –you like online shooters, you don't get carried away with emotions and will treat this game as entertainment and not a fierce match to the death. Game mechanics is perfect, you can easily feel differences between weapons, even after a slight modification. The game uses Unreal Engine 3, is well optimized and looks nice, although the industrial style and sterile locations prevent you from being astonished. I'm not a hardcore shooter fan, so after a while – even with all the weapons and customization – I became bored. Retribution offers nothing new.
  3. Jul 30, 2012
    78
    Quotation forthcoming.