BlackSite: Area 51 (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Mark Salmela on 11.30.2007

I finally get to shoot E.T. in the face…



What’s with all this Roswell stuff anyways? I saw some lights outside my house that I didn’t recognize; it must have been some aliens. Which reminds me, how come aliens always want to kill people and look like Zorak from Spaceghost? Why can’t they look like me *then again you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference*?

Any who, I have a game to review, and as you can tell from my sidetracking, there’s not much to get excited about.

If anyone happened to visit any arcades in the late 1990’s, chances are you ran across a light-gun game called Area-51. One of my favorite light-gun games, Area-51 was a truly awesome multiplayer experience for a couple of dudes looking to blast E.T. in the face *or as close as they could get without getting sued*. The game saw a sequel in Area 51: Site 4 that was more of the same goodness players came to love, and saw a final fight against the queen alien of the race. The series saw a third arcade package in Area 51: Maximum Force but after that the series went quiet until Area 51 for the PS2/Xbox/PC in 2005. Known more for being a game featuring an alien voiced by Marilyn Manson than a good game, Area 51 was an FPS that didn’t really do anything to set itself apart from a genera dominated by games like Halo and Call of Duty. Well midway seems content on pushing the franchise, as they’ve brought the game to the PS3/360 for BlackSite: Area 51.



Graphics


Guns make bad things go away…


Sporting the Unreal Engine 3, you'd think BlackSite: Area 51 would be one of the better looking games to come out this year. Well if that’s what you think, think again. Muddy environments, horrible textures, and an overall bland detail level makes this game look pretty bad in most areas. There'll be times where the graphics will look good, but most of the time you'll be staring at pixilated faces *and yes, you can literally see grids on most people's faces if you go up close to them* and washed out shades of brown that are supposed to make up a canyon, a canyon made of the shit from Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64.

I really wouldn't be criticizing these graphics so much if the game wasn't such a disappointment. Some of the screenshots for this game look really good. It's such a shame this game fell apart so badly, it's really an embarrassment when you can see polygons on people's faces. So with that said, there's no way I can give these graphics an even remotely good score. I wouldn't have accepted seeing pixilated lines on someone’s face in 2002, and it definitely won't be acceptable in 2007, not with other games like Unreal Tournament 3 using such incredible levels of detail.



Sound


Zorak, is that you?


I tried to think of something positive to say here, and then I tried to think of something negative. After thinking for a minute, I then tried to remember if there even was any music in BlackSite, I honestly had a hard time remembering if there were any sounds in the game besides people talking. There was a lot of voice-acting, which wasn't bad by any means. But I couldn't really think of any music, especially during the single player that added anything at all to the gameplay. I guess it's a good thing that I wasn't upset at the sound in the game, it didn't do anything to take away from the experience, but there was nothing here worth mentioning at all. The weapons sounded alright, but it isn't anything amazing or something that added to the experience.



Gameplay


Good thing I just switched to Geico…


Well if the graphics are an abortion, the gameplay better sure make up for it... You're wrong again buddy. The gameplay in this game is nothing short of mediocre. When you play a video game at 5:30 PM on a Wednesday night 2 hours into the game, and you start falling asleep MID-LEVEL, there's a problem. It's not that I don't like first person shooters, I love COD4 and Halo 3, but this game can't hold a candle to those two. Most of the time I just ran through beating people down with my gun, and most of the time the enemy didn't even react to it, they just disappeared to the ground. There were multiple times where I had to turn around and stare at the ground just to make sure the guy was dead, I honestly couldn't tell if I had hit him at all.

I hate to sound like a jerk, but I just can't recommend such an unresponsive game. There's nothing done in this game that's original, and there's nothing done here that isn't totally outdone by at least 3 other games on the 360. The shooting itself isn't so much broken as it is boring. In a game like Call of Duty or Rainbow Six when I shoot a guy I really feel like I just blew his brains out and that is not something I feel while playing BlackSite.

There are a few positives about this game, the multiplayer isn't bad *though it's nothing to praise or spend more than a couple hours on*, and the storyline isn't quite the abortion I thought it would be *there's not really much there, but it doesn’t need to be movie quality*. You're fighting in Iraq, aliens pop up, the government tries to hide it, and then they pop up in Nevada and hell breaks loose. That is good enough for me *I'm easy to please, but hard to impress and astonish*. It was also cool being able to break my own cover walls by beating it with my gun *don't look into that*, but that feature was quickly ruined when I tried to hit the first computer screen I saw in the game and it wouldn't budge or show even a smudge.



Fun Factor


Seriously, he just wants to shake your hand.


Well before I go any further in reviewing how "fun" the game is, let me say I ran into a problem that may not happen to everyone, but when it happened to me, it totally pissed me off. Once you get back to the U.S. and you reach your military base, you go through about 5 minutes of story before getting to run around in your base camp. While I was running around exploring the base camp, I found a jeep and decided to jump on it *I was bored*, and I got on it, and the screen shook for a few seconds, and gave me the death screen meaning jumping on a parked car can kill a military soldier. I understand that this may be a rare occurrence, but for me this is totally unacceptable. I had to go all the way back to the beginning of the level and re-listen to the 5 some minutes of storytelling before getting back to the base camp, and I almost wanted to quit playing the game right there. In fact, if I had rented the game, I honestly would have probably quit and never played the single player again because of it.

Now putting that aside, and making sure people know I'm not docking the game for it since it was the only *though it pissed me off* glitch I ran into, the game is still mediocre to play. I also brought up that while playing the game, I never really got into the experience. I never really felt like I was playing as a soldier like I did in Call of Duty 4. There's nothing totally wrong with how you shoot *though the scope is too big on the default gun*, but it's definitely something that looks weak in comparison to games like Halo and the Orange Box. The multiplayer will provide a little fun for a couple hours, especially in abduction mode, but the single player is a largely forgettable experience.



Lasting Appeal


Get off my lawn, Jeff Gordon’s about to come on the TV!


There are a few hours of multiplayer fun to be had, but there's nothing in the single player that will bring you back for more. In fact unless you have nothing else to play I can imagine most people won't even finish the single player *despite it being rather short*, it's really a mediocre and forgettable single player. I can see why some people would like to play abduction for a few hours, but after that if you have COD4, Team Fortress 2, or Halo 3 sitting around there's no reason to ever play BlackSite. I already mentioned how I was falling asleep playing the single player before, so unless I run out of NyQuil, don't expect to see my gamertag playing BlackSite: Area 51.



The 411

Well I wanted to like BlackSite: Area 51, I really did. But this is an example of a game that needed 6 more months of development time, as almost everything needed fine tuning. I read in an interview that once the game reached a playable alpha stage they basically took the game to final development. After reading this information I really can't argue, while nothing is broken, almost everything could have used fine-tuning and improvement. If this is the year of the shooter, then BlackSite is the red-headed child no one really cares about or likes. If you have the choice between games like the Orange Box, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, and BlackSite, the choice should be obvious as to which one would be the first game to get cut out of your list. I really hate to say this is a bad game, but compared to the incredible year 2007 has been for video games, BlackSite is not a game anyone will remember 4 years from now.

Graphics	5.0	Do not be fooled by pictures, sometimes the game looks good, but most of the time the level of detail on this game is abysmal; at times you can count the pixels, literally.
Gameplay	5.5	While nothing is totally broken, the single player is a borring experience not worth playing, multiplayer is decent.
Sound	6.0	There is nothing wrong with it, but there is nothing right with it either.
Lasting Appeal	5.0	If you have no other choice you can play some multiplayer for a while, but the single player is not even worth finishing.
Fun Factor	6.0	No fun to be found in the single player, and the multiplayer is alright but it does not hold a candle to other first person shooters.
Overall	5.9   [ Not So Good ]