Swamp gas, & reflections from Venus (BlackSite: Area 51)

BlackSite: Area 51 is a first-person shooter made by the Austin Studios division of Midway Games in November 2007. While it has a similar title, don't be fooled, it has technically nothing to do with the infamous arcade game Area 51. But if you played them both and WEREN'T told that, would it really make that much of a difference? To be honest, no, because there are so many damned similarities, that it wouldn't be unfathomable to mistake it for a remake.



You play the role of Delta Force Echo Squad Captain Pierce, who works with two white guys, an angry one and a quiet one, and a black guy named Ambrose. For those of you who get the stupid in-joke the writers put into the game, give yourself a pat on the back. Anyway, you're tossed into Iraq to stop the Iraqi Republican Guard from using a chlorine bomb or something. Along the way, you meet the only female in the game who is also pretty hot, despite an atrocious haircut and some of the worst voice acting ever to be heard in a game. The actress responsible for recording the character's voice attempts to fake an English accent which overlaps with her own difficult to place accent resulting in an overall uneven and grating sound package. You come across the bunker where the bomb is supposed to be, only to find some crystal thing that looks straight out of a Final Fantasy game. One thing leads to another, one of your white guys gets jumped by stupid alien spiders, and you end up back in the U.S. where more alien happenings are beginning to occur.


No, don't shoot! We only wanted to use the chlorine bomb to clean our pools!

The story is so bad and so short and so cliché that I had to actually force myself to continue playing. To sum up what happens, it turns out to be some kind of stupid government super soldier project using alien sper- I mean, spores, but it was buried and the test subjects wanted freedom and vengeance, but not in that order. You are likely to miss most of the tidbits concerning this story: the lack of subtitles proves problematic, as the aforementioned story tidbits are revealed to the player character by his poorly voiced female compatriot while flying in a helicopter. It all ends on this pseudo-cliffhanger where the hot chick keeps talking and talking about how the world might've been doomed and the faults of humanity and a bunch of other crap I could care less about when aliens are involved. Not that I'm pro-humanity, but I'm getting sick and tired of my games making humanity look more cruel or dangerous than alien threats. They pulled that idiotic crap in Gears Of War and all I wanted to do was punch Cliffy B in his stupid face.


IGNORE US.

Speaking of faces, did I mention that the hot chick was hot? Well, at least her face was; her clothes didn't really compliment her figure. But her face was the prettiest thing you'll see in the game. The rest of the graphics look about four years old now, and none of it is impressive. A lot of the scenery repeats itself and the textures on the aliens leave a lot to be desired. It's a very aged-looking game for something that is only a little more than year old.


Hitchhikers are getting bolder these days.

It's an FPS as I stated earlier, but it's a very basic FPS. There is no sprint button and Pierce moves like he doesn't have anything important to do, and the only other action you can do besides moving is ducking by pushing down the left stick. And there is absolutely no point to ducking; it doesn't increase your accuracy, and there is only one part of the game that requires it. The game's meager arsenal consists of but five weapons. You'll be allowed to carry two of them, but it's not like it matters, since the only reason you'd pick up any other weapons was to kill some alien that would require it's use five feet away. However, if you are a few meters away from an alien, don't bother shooting it, just walk up to it and melee it because most weapons in the game are notoriously inaccurate. The only exception being the sniper rifle, but don't get too attached to it, as you'll find no secure areas to snipe; except for just one part which is considered a boss battle.


NO! BULLETS! OUR ONE WEAKNESS!

Oh, and did I mention that there is driving in this game? Yes, there is driving in BlackSite. In fact, there is a level dedicated solely to driving across the game's unappealing landscapes. And you're doing all of this with some of the worst driving controls I've seen in a game. The left analog stick is used to move the car forward and backward, while the right stick, which controls the camera, now controls what direction your car is moving. So, don't bother looking at any scenery around you while driving, or else you'll crash or something.


Our amazing alien accuracy allows us to hit everything BUT you! Ha ha!

But one of the most annoying parts of this game is the "teamwork". If the game wanted me to dislike humanity, it would start with the stupid team you're forced to work with. The game boasts the use of tactics, but that's a blatant lie. You can command your comrades to go wherever you are aiming or to shoot whatever you're aiming at. And they also must've drained Pierce of his ability to open doors, because they're the only ones that can do so. That's about it. Oh, and they operate on this "morale" bullshit where they turn giddy with delight whenever you kill a whole pack of aliens, but the second you take a bullet, they end up in near total despair. The teamwork could've been a success if there was co-op in this title, but the only thing you can do with other people is play stupid multiplayer shoot-fests, and you'd have more fun doing that in other games.

The sound is another disappointing aspect of this game, as, aside from the horrific voice work, there is almost no music. Every so often, we have this creepy music playing, but you won't really notice it. When there wasn't that, there really wasn't any other music playing. And the music that plays during the credits makes me want to kill kittens. But words alone really cannot express my loathing of the hot chick's voice. It's so terrible, it makes the sound of nails on a chalkboard sound like a beautiful symphony.


Introduce another alien, and we would've had a mexican standoff.

In the way of achievements, you'll get the basic ones for beating the game, and that will add up to about a gamerscore of 100, and a bit more on the harder and easier difficulties. But you'll have to play through the final level again in order to get the achievements for those. After all of that, the only achievements you can obtain is through multiplayer, and good luck finding anyone online. Even though the game is about fourteen months old now, I could find NO ONE online. Then again, I don't think playing this with other people could make up for the terrible story I had to force myself through.


You'll be waiting there for a while, chief.

The game is short. Very short. It took me longer to write this review than it took to play through BlackSite and you'll spend more time reading this than you will playing it. And there is no need to play through it again unless you want the achievement for getting dossiers you might've missed. Because of it's length, this is where I would tell you to only rent it, but it's not even worth that. BlackSite: Area 51 isn't worth the experience. It's probably the worst first-person shooter I've ever played and will probably ever play. The only good thing about it's existence was that it sunk the studio that made it so we'll never see a sequel...unless Midway, you know, is more batshit insane than I think they are...