Blacklight Retribution Tips & Hints

24. September, 2012Tags: Blacklight Retribution, MMO Blog, Tips

Blacklight Retribution is one of the very best free-to-play games on the market today and, thanks to it being accessible through Steam, one of the easiest to get a hold of as well. It really is a great game, and the more you play, the more you’ll come to learn just how well polished it is. Playing isn’t always enough though, sometimes you want to win and that isn’t always easy. When you’re against people with more time, less variety of games to choose from and the latest in gaming mouse technology, it can feel like you have no chance in hell at coming out as the victor. If you can’t get a kill streak going and your K/D ratio is looking as down as the global economy (lots of negative numbers, best not to look), take a few seconds to read this Blacklight Retribution guide – it just might improve your game.

Setting Up

There are a few basic tips that may or may not apply to you but need to be said anyway. Everybody loves to think their computer is capable of a little more than it actually is, and it’s true that most games are fine to play at 30 or even 20 frames per second. It’s not always ideal, but it’s doable and the pretty visuals almost always make up for a less than smooth experience. Blacklight Retribution is not one of those games, and if you’re not achieving a steady 60FPS, it’s well worth dropping the resolution a little bit. It won’t look as good, but it may just improve your game a little bit

Sometimes, on some levels, FPS can jump up and down quite randomly for no real reason. Other times it can be perfect in the same spot on the same level. It might be down to connection, so be sure to experiment a lot and find the best settings for you, and I probably wouldn’t rely on the auto-select either.

Click the image to register for free and play Blacklight: Retribution

While we’re on the topic of graphical settings, be sure not to turn off things like shadows, which can make or break certain situations on the battlefield.

Load outs

Weapon selections are always highly subjective, and there are always certain groups willing to tell you exactly which selections you should be making when creating your first load outs. There will always be weapons that seem more effective, but remember that playing an FPS, any FPS, and winning at it is all about your play-style and how you approach certain situations. If you’re always close and personal with the enemy, perfect your knifing skills and keep a shotgun close at hand. If you like shooting from a distance but don’t enjoy sniping, find a gun with decent range and modify it to suit your needs. Don’t let anybody tell you what you should be doing, experimentation is the key to success, and you’re as likely to top the leader board with a shotgun as you are with a sniper rifle. It all depends on your own skill.

Blacklight Retribution Load Outs

Also worth noting is that you’ll be rewarded with weapon usage and modifications for levelling up, so it’s probably worth holding off on buying new weaponry until you get a feel for what sort of thing you’re after.

Allies

Shooters like this can be played in two ways. You can either play as part of a team that plays together or you can play as part of a team that all thinks they’re the best and can win the match singlehandedly. This latter mode works if you’re an absolute first person star, and if everybody else on the team can at least stand on their own two feet, but what happens when the other team are just as talented as you are? That’s when things become a little less certain.

I’m not suggesting you go into every game with your microphone turned on, or even that you communicate with other players via keyboard/PM to discuss tactics (although both are suggested for the full social game experience). Sticking with other players is a key tactic though and, even if they don’t know you’re doing it, playing together will undoubtedly improve both of your games and increase your win streak. A team of people playing together will trump even the best lone wolves nine times out of ten.

Blacklight Retribution Allies

Improving Yourself

Blacklight, like Call of Duty, isn’t always about your personal skill level. It’s about putting yourself in the right situation at the right time. If you can’t see the enemy before they see you, there’s a good chance you won’t survive long enough for a counterattack, so learning the maps and the general way in which enemies move is important. If you can cook a grenade and throw it down a passageway that’s always filled with enemies, you’re going to be able to get two or three kills regularly. If you can put yourself behind an area in which enemies often band together, you can take them out with little risk to yourself. This will come with time, and even if you can only put in an hour or so a week, learning the maps will be a key part of your learning experience.

If you don’t like the idea of sharing kills and want to roam on your own, be sure to stick to the outside of the map. Try not to go around and around the edge, the risk of somebody spawning behind you increases, but stick to an area you’re familiar with and that gives you a decent range of sight and a decent escape route if you need it. Camping is frowned upon, but so is stupidly negative K/D as a result of running too many times into the enemy “base,” so find a nice midpoint that means you can move constantly (not moving is instant death against good players) but that doesn’t leave you exposed.

Learn the Game

You can come into Blacklight Retribution and you can kick ass from the get go if you have a decent level of shooter skill and you probably won't need this Blacklight Retributions tips article. On many levels it’s quite generic, and if you can rock at Call of Duty, you can rock at Blacklight. To be one of the top players, however, you need to know how to take advantage of features that aren’t generic to the genre. Learn to use hard suits, learn how to destroy them (more on that in a moment). Learn to get the most from depots and, if you’d rather use your standard weaponry over the stuff available from the depot, at least learn when and how to replenish health and ammo.

Learn the specifics of the HRV system; it’ll save your life. Remember that it’s important to use, but also that it’s important to hide yourself from other players taking advantage of it if possible.

Hard suits

These can be a devil, especially in experienced hands, and dealing with them can be the difference between your team winning the match and being humiliated. Remember to use your HRV to spot for the weak spot. This is randomized, so be sure to check before going on a full out assault. Try to be somewhat stealthy, even hitting the weak spot isn’t a guaranteed way of speeding up destruction and you don’t want to rely on and single golden shot that probably isn’t going to happen. Not when faced with a machine as destructive as the hard suit anyway.

Explosions in Blacklight Retribution

On the flip side, driving the hard suit isn’t exactly a guaranteed way of upping your kill streak. I think even on my weakest run, I’ve still managed to get three or four kills, but that isn’t as many as you COULD get and you’re looking to maximize your potential. Don’t see yourself as some unstoppable force – two swift rockets and you’ll be gone. Be sure to keep your back to the wall, in case the weak spot is on your back, and quickly destroy anything you see from the front. It isn’t as difficult to destroy one of these things as it seems, and that won’t ever be as obvious as when you’re in one and you’re faced with an entire enemy team.

Blacklight Retributions Tips & Hints - Conclusion

This isn’t what you want to hear – if you’re reading these tips you want quick tips and you want your next game to be the first in a long run of ass-kickery. It isn’t going to be that easy, and although by paying attention to the way you play and fixing small imperfections you will instantly improve your game, learning to constantly atop the leader board is more of a chore. Finding your perfect weapon, learning the maps, getting your muscle memory to the point at which you can react to every situation quickly and effectively is going to take time. And there aren’t really any shortcuts.