Black Stone: Magic & Steel

"Black Stone? More like Fool's Gold!"

I have no idea where this trash came from or how those felons that call themselves Xicat came from. All I know or can recall is that my neighbors bought this game a long time ago. They wanted me to play it at their house and see if it was fun. Oh, how wrong they were! This has to be the worst XBox game created. This game doesn't deserve the overwhelmingly, tremendous honor of being made into a Frisbee for a cat, let alone a chew toy for a dog. The punishment most worthy of this poor use of programming and waste of plastic is to be left on the street on a hot, sunny day to melt until some guy runs it over with a steamroller.

Why this game deserved such a bad introduction is because I really hate it. This game is horrible and should never contaminate your XBox with it's stupidity and utter inferiority. What's so bad about this game?

Graphics NEGATIVE INFINITY/10

Why did this game deserve such a bad score? It's graphics are horrible! The graphics HURT MY BRAIN AND EYES! Thanks to this so-called "game," I need to wear glasses now! If I ever meet the developers of this trash, I'll make each of them take one single copy of this game as a suppository. The characters are also poorly rendered and it's hard to tell what's what in the game due to horrible blurs and textures. This game has a blur filter that makes the game look like a short-sighted person's eyesight.
Graphics NEGATIVE GOOGLE PLEX/10
If you want to see the graphics for yourself without actually bothering to find this so-called "game," find some printer ink, a syringe needle, and modern art (yeah, modern art's ugly). Take the syringe needle, fill it with the printer ink, inject it into your arm, and look at the modern art. It looks far more artistic and beautiful than the graphics. It makes modern art look like the Mona Lisa, a piece of REAL art.

Gamplay CRAP/10

I know crap's not a number, but that's the best compliment I could think of for this game. This game tries hard to be a Gauntlet, but fails horribly like Tak and the Power of JuJu tries to be a far better game like Banjo-Kazooie. You simply run off as a fighter that moves slower than an 950 pound man on drugs and fights enemies with sluggish horrible controls. No, it's not the controller design; I played Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee with the same controller and it worked better. The enemies are all the same zombies and guards from all over the place. It's too hard to defeat enemies until you pick up a weapon, then it's too easy. Your character fights like a toddler in a coma. Oh, I can't say that. I might hurt the toddler's feelings! When you aren't out getting ugly stones and fighting like a brain damaged wimp, you are buying useless items from a shop, well, if you count a floating, weirdo merchant as a shop.
Gamplay CRAP/10
How bad can one game get? If it was somehow worse, it might be able to compete as worst game ever with the kings of crappy games, such as Superman 64, the GBA version of Jet Grind Radio, Carmageddon 64, Chameleon Twist 2, and E.T.

Story NONSENSE/10

Nonsense isn't a real number, but it's a good adjective to describe the horrid story. You and a random group of nobodies are journeying through unoriginal worlds and places to collect some black stones. BORING! This is a Gauntlet that also tries to get a trace of platform gaming. The story doesn't make sense to me. Why would they travel for stones that have the value of pyrite (a.k.a Fool's Gold) and go through such trouble of fighting enemies like zombies and guards? I have a feeling even Xicat doesn't know why themselves.
Story NONSENSE/10
This story is so bad, I guarantee nobody would like it as a bedtime story in the slightest bit at all. Why would anyone get the idea of telling it as a bedtime story anyway?

Replay Value: Low
In my reviews, when I say low replay value, I mean you will stop playing this game before you finish it, due to brain-burning graphics, a cheap story, and a control system that's as efficient as crap. The only replay value is to watch it blow up with some firecrackers on your camcorder over and over again. I would rather have acupuncture performed on my eyeballs than play this game again.

Buy, rent, or tape it to a bottle rocket, launch it and watch it joyfully explode in the sky?
If fireworks like bottle rockets are legal where you live, I would go with the last choice. I would drive across the country to a place where fireworks are legal just to see this bad game blow up in the sky. This is the worst game I have ever touched without gloves and a gas mask.

Fool's Gold!
- If you want revenge on someone, give them this game for Christmas or their birthday.
- It's not a cartridge (that would really be a waste of plastic).

Black Stone...
- The reason that torturing yourself would be far more pleasing than this game.
- The developers are still roaming freely! They should be locked up and throw away the key!

My Grand Total: WHO CARES? IT SUCKS!/10
The Grand Total for GameFAQs.com: 1/10

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/03, Updated 06/08/04