2006 wasn't a good year for me, but one good memory I have of that time is playing the game Black. I found it entertaining and a welcome distraction from life. At the time this was also one of few games I actually completed.
Back in the day I owned a PlayStation 2 and an original Xbox, but I have no recollection of seeing the Xbox version and never considered it an option. To be honest, I only bought an Xbox to play Halo and my default for 3rd party titles was always the PlayStation 2. Thus I completed the 6 hours of game play entirely on the PlayStation 2 and enjoyed it. I lent the game to a work colleague and then traded it in against something else.
15 years later I still own both consoles and have acquired the game for each platform. As Black is so short I thought it would be fun to play each mission, swapping between platforms for comparison. I also thought this would be a good test for the new HDMI adapters I recently bought for each system. I was rather fed up of the poor picture quality from the generic composite video to HDMI converters I was using and the Kaico adapters I saw online seem to get good reviews.
First thing I noticed was how sharp the image on the PlayStation 2 was compared to the Xbox. I have always found the original Xbox's graphics blurry, they have always looked like some kind of smoothing filter has been applied. As a consequence, Xbox graphics have never been to my taste. Adding the new adapter only widened the image fidelity gap in the PlayStation's favour. Whilst the Xbox adapter does a good job of relaying the image, it remains blurry and isn't an improvement over the cheap composite to HDMI box I was using previously.
Whilst I have always found the original Xbox to be inferior in terms of graphics, the Microsoft machine clearly wins when it comes to processing power. Black is one of those games that loves to generate enemies that loiter next to a group of red barrels or buildings that that can be raised to the ground by an AK-47. All of the explosions, spent cartridges and debris being thrown the screen put quite a load on the console and the frame rate on the PlayStation slows quite markedly in the middle of some of the bigger battles. Whilst the PlayStation chugs its way through missions such as the
Tivliz Asylum, the Xbox never misses a beat. The graphics aren't as sharp on the Xbox, but the frame rate never drops.I don't know if it is my imagination, but in the Xbox version of the game the enemies seem to drop first aid kits more frequently than they do on the PlayStation version. I have tried both consoles on various difficulty settings and always seem to find things more tricky on the PlayStation - but maybe it's just my imagination. Or maybe I find things harder because the Xbox controller is much more suited to FPS games than the PlayStation Dual Shock 2.So the situation is a bit ying and yang. On the Xbox the game is fast and the controller is well suited to the gameplay. On the PlayStation 2, Black looks sharp but doesn't play as well. "You pays yer money, you takes your choice". Luckily these games consoles are much, much cheaper than they were in 2006 and you may not have to make a choice.
Playing the same game on two platforms is a great way of turning a 6 hour game into 12 hours of entertainment. I don't have many other games across both platforms but I will look to acquire titles such as XIII, Medal of Honor, Prince of Persia and other 3rd party titles for both systems for future comparisons.
