- Title: BlackSite: Area 51
- Platform:Xbox 360
- Publisher: Midway
- Developer: Midway Studios Austin
- ESRB Rating: “M” for Mature
- Genre: First-Person-Shooter
- Pros: Decent graphics; destructible environments
- Cons: Bad AI; glitches; framerate issues; wholly unremarkable gameplay; vehicle sections suck; no local co-op
Features
The single-player campaign in BlackSite has you playing as Aeran Pierce, a Special Forces squad leader. The game starts off in Iraq where your squad stumbles upon some strange experiments and you barely escape. Fast forward two years, and you are sent to Rachel, Nevada where a mysterious military group is trying to take control of Area 51. As you can likely guess, things go from bad to worse, and the worst of the government’s secrets are spilling out of the most well known secret base in the world. The story is okay, and you get to see some fairly varied terrain, so no real complaints there. One issue is that the campaign only lasts about 5 hours, which is pretty darn short.
In addition to the campaign, there is also online multiplayer to keep you busy. Deathmatch, team deathmatch, and CTF are present and accounted for. Abduction mode has one player starting as an alien “reborn” and they try to infect the human players. The multiplayer modes are certainly appreciated and can give some extra life to a short game, but compared to the best Xbox Live games out there, it isn’t going to hold your attention for long.
Gameplay
The levels are also filled with invisible walls blocking areas the game doesn’t want you to go, and six inch high ledges that your character can’t jump on. There are also many instances of jarring, mid-mission load times, and I also had a problem a couple of times where I reached a point where the game needed to load, but it didn’t for a good thirty seconds to a minute so I was stuck behind an invisible wall until the game finally decided to load. And on top of all of this, the shooting and exploration and all of that stuff that makes FPS what they are, just isn’t that good. The level designs are completely forgettable and the action isn’t special at all. Boo urns.
Graphics
Graphically, BlackSite: Area 51 is pretty impressive. The game just has a really nice, sharp look to it and the lighting and special effects are very good. The game also features semi-destructible environments, and seeing concrete columns and walls crumbling from gunfire is pretty cool. The framerate is a huge problem, however, and the game suffers from near constant framerate stutters. Usually it is playable, but it will occasionally bog down to a slideshow levels.
Sound
The sound is mostly impressive in BlackSite. Decent music and decent sound effects for gunfire and all of the aliens are definitely pluses. A negative comes in the voice acting. Not so much that it is particularly bad, but because you hear the exact same quips and “jokes” over and over and over again.
Bottom Line
