Black Market

By: Lorne Whiting

On: October 4th, 2010

Black Market, a space trading game (a la Elite or something), was recently launched in open beta form. The game is beautiful. I mean, like, all the beauty of some colorful sea-floor dwelling creature that rolls to move, with the insurmountable class of Christopher Whitman’s mother. It’s worth checking out just to look at the awesome space-ports in the background as you peddle your petty narcotics and undying pirate brains in jars.

The gameplay (as implied by the title) is pretty basic, buy here sell there kind of deal. Combat is really streamlined and most of it is automated, though you get to hit a button every 10 seconds (give or take depending on equipment). It’s all polished and as addicting as other games in the marketeering genre, but I know some people do not like games where progress comes in the form of shinier and bigger spaceships with more pow-pow to the weapons. Luckily for these people, the games also got a pretty strongly present story, but I scooted out of it to party and make lots and lots of money as soon as I got access to the whole solar system so I can’t really comment on how full of intrigue it is.