It is hard not to be intrigued by a game selling itself with the pitch of being a video store clerk by day and a John Wick-like assassin by night. The concept is really cool and it somewhat works. When sorting movies in the store, it feels like a pretty good but simple video store simulator, and there are moments when doing a contract that you both look and feel like John Wick. But the game’s big ambition in telling a cinematic action game with good graphics is where it shows that the budget is tighter and that shortcuts had to be taken to get it done.
Late Fees and Lead Delivery Systems
There is a story moving along with the assassin part of his life, but it is not that interesting, and all I really wanted in the game was to sell movies and kill bad guys in style. But there is also a relationship with your coworker to work on that might go somewhere interesting. If you buy the game you also get access to the upcoming two acts, so it is more of an episodic game, even if Act 1 manages to stand on its own, but you can tell there is more coming.
The gameplay of Blackwood is split into two distinct pillars: running a video store and killing enemies.
Running a video store consists of resupplying shelves with movies and magazines, and the movies have some great names that made me laugh. You also swab the floors, buy new furniture and movies, and try to get the ranking of the store up. You can also stand at the register or help customers with some recommendations on movies. This part feels like a very light video store simulator game, but it works as a break from the action part of the game, and I somewhat enjoy the simplicity of it all, even if it gets a bit repetitive quite fast.
The action part, which is also the main part of the game, is where the story continues and where you can take contracts to get more money for new gear or for the video store. This consists of you moving through a level killing lots of enemies. The levels themselves can be everything from an open street to a warehouse and manage to be quite diverse, given the few hours of game time the game comes with. The shooting feels good and especially looks good when up close to the enemies. It really feels like a John Wick game here.
Dead-Eyed Clerks and God-Tier Gun Fu
The facial animations and the characters are where the game shows its real colors when it comes to being an indie game trying to be something way bigger and better looking. The eyes are weird, the hair is weird, and the facial animations themselves feel wrong, but these problems are mostly there because the game is so ambitious that it shows. If the environment doesn’t look as good as it does, or the combat animation isn’t as good as it is, or when just walking around the movie store, it looks like a bigger AA game; I get fooled, right up until their faces appear.
On the other hand, Blackwood has some of the best moving animation in an action game I have seen in a while. Everything seems like it is copied from a John Wick movie, from every jump, to how he handles the gun in different ways, down to the finisher moves. Down to the detail that when you are crouching and moving around a car with open doors, he naturally closes them in a way that feels natural and looks good. By the end of this first act, I still feel like all encounters felt very fluid and mostly looked really great, which is impressive work by a smaller team.
A Blockbuster Rental Worth Watching
Blackwood Act 1 manages to scratch that action itch one might get after watching a Hong Kong action movie or John Wick. It has some great action animations and a good concept of calmness running a video store combined with frenetic action in doing a contract. But it also comes with some very weird-looking facial animations and it feels very low-budget at times while trying to be something bigger. I really applaud their ambitions and hope that when all three acts are out, it might be an easy recommendation, but at this moment it is hard. Still, it feels damn good playing a John Wick-style game, even if he is called something else here.
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