InsomniaReview: Blacksite: Area 51

Oh, man. Where to start?
I suppose it should be mentioned that Area 51 is the FPS sequel (of a sort) to the Area 51 on rails shooters you've seen in the arcade. Yeah, those games. While Sega was making the House of the Dead games, and Virtua Cop 3 (which is splendid), these guys said "Fuck that!" and stuck with the el-cheap-o gun, and trashtastic graphics. And they were shameless quarter eaters, on top of that. Not my favorite way to spend 50 cents.

Now, apparently, a number of years ago Midway released another Area 51 FPS , but this game is wholely unrelated. And from what I've heard the only interesting thing about that game was voice acting 'talents' of David Duchoveny. Take that for what you will. But enough series background, no one really cares, anyway. Blacksite, then.

In Blacksite you play a (shock) silent protagonist... whose name they certainly did tell you, but which I'm at a loss to remember. So we'll call him Lt. Wholly Unremarkable.

You play Lt. Wholly Unremarkable, US Army. The opening level has you and the rest of your three man team (god, no wonder we're still over there.) kicking Iraqi ass and taking names. You've been tasked with investigating a bunker said to house chemical weapons, but it turns out Saddam actually had him a chunk of an alien mothership he was screwing around with. You fight off some mutants, then leave your squadmate Somers for dead, fighting off hordes of aliens, as you make good your escape.

The story is actually pretty engaging for an FPS. It deals with some pretty heavy issues, like morality in war time, government corruption, the unethical treatment of soldiers, etc. It all basically revolves around the Reborn Project, a top secret government experiment to fuse dead, mostly dead, or useless soldiers with alien tech, thereby making an expendable army of super soldiers. The "Reborn" revolt, and start waging a guerilla war against the US from their former prison, a US military Blacksite. It's all fairly interesting in theory, but occasionally the narrative falls to pieces.

Typically in today's video games, the voice acting is rather shit. But in Blacksite the voice part of the equation is well done (kudos, lads) but the acting and script suffer. And some elements of the story just should have been handled differently. For example, Cpl. Somer's predictable return to the story. After having been left for dead half a world away, he turns up in bumfuck Nevada, worse for wear but alive among a horde of weird alien mutants. But rather than having some big reveal where he shows back up, it's handled in a very nonchalant manner. You complete some objective or anther, killing some badguys, and then your squadmate radios you and says "come over here". You enter a room, and, bang, there he is with your squad. "Look who we found wandering around! It's Somers!" like he was out taking in a fucking ballgame. A bit of shock is expressed, but they get over it pretty damn quick. I know, it happens all the time, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

But far worse than that are the reactions (or lack thereof) to the alien wildlife running rampant across Nevada. There was a real opportunity here to freak the player out with dialog, but it was passed up. I mean, your team is told they're be fighting a militia that's gotten out of hand, but when man sized bugs that explode like proximity mines start crawling up out of the ground, no one is particularly concerned. Once, just once, I'd like to see a game like this include a character the one Bill Paxton played in Aliens. I'm sorry, but if tentacled alien monstrosities the size of a fucking car start bounding out from over barricades to try to eat you, you're going to be a little freaked out.

It's about 3/4 of the way through the game before the more macho member of your squad FINALLY demands answers from the mysterious chick who seems to know what's going on. And frankly, by then, I'd stopped giving a shit. It just seems like at every turn, Blacksite is stopping short of having a really great story. Having a character tell you that "We should get moving" is just not an effective way to move the story forward.

As for gameplay, it's not atrocious, but it's certainly not good. Blacksite seemed to want to follow Halo's example a little too closely, by mixing up shooting and driving segments. Unlike Halo, however, it doesn't give you the option to man a turret or drive. And either way, those segments are pretty bland. As for the FPS elements, it's pretty standard fare. The inclusion of a squad moral bonus was interesting, I'll give them that.
The weapons you're given, however, suck a lot of the fun out of the game. You get an assault rifle, a pistol, a rocket launcher, a weird alien shotgun, and a weird alien plasma launcher. And pretty much every one of those weapons is useless except the AR. You'll be using it and grenades almost the entire game. Oh, there's also a sniper rifle (which looks like the sniper variation of the XM8), but don't bother trying to hit the exposed top of somebodies head while they're behind cover. It doesn't work. So, good look tracking them while they're running.
The assault rifle is almost absurdly accurate, but it's also difficult to aim precisely. But don't worry, every single enemy is a dead aim with the damn thing. So, basically, every time you pop out from behind cover, even for a second, you're getting shot. It's not as game breaking as it sounds, you can take a lot of damage and you regenerate if you fall back behind cover, but it is contrary to every instinct you have if you've ever played an FPS before.

Lastly, let's talk presentation. Here, Blacksite both shines, and fails utterly. Like the rest of the game, the level design is of two worlds. Most levels are full of detail work, have destructible elements, and lend themselves well to a firefight. But some levels are repetitive and lazy (some of the Bunker/Blacksite levels are just room after room full of enemies.), and others are unnecessarily difficult to navigate. The tone of the game, a dark, disturbing romp through a small Nevada town overrun with aliens, is carried out best in the rainy level (the one from the demo). Small touches add to the sense of impending doom, such as hearing a dog barking in the distance, only to have it's barking silenced in a yelp. It's a subtle background element, but if you notice it, it's really creepy.
Lastly, by far the most damning criticism of Blacksite is continual graphical glitches. They're EVERYWHERE. Usually it's just the kind of stuff you catch out of the corner of your eye, a texture flash here, a bad seam there, a brush that's transparent when viewed from one side.

A few months after the game's release, Harvey Smith, (the lead designer on the title) came out and said that the development cycle on this title was totally fucked. "This project was so ****ed up," he said. Really. That's a quote. Midway apparently rushed this bastard out to get holiday dollars. And that's a real shame. I can see a lot of lost potential here, and Mr. Smith has an impressive resume. But, like most titles I can think of in 2007, Blacksite was rushed out the door. So, rather than being a timely, insightful game with a solid story and game mechanics to rival Halo, it's just a lackluster shoot-em up.
Publishers. Let your development team do their fucking jobs. Stop rushing shit out. It's dragging the whole industry down.

VERDICT: Rent it. Blacksite is fairly enjoyable (especially if you enjoy a good "bad government" yarn punctuated with aliens), but it offers zero replayability, and it isn't worth the $50. And it's generic to the point of being unremarkable. If you see it for $20 in a bargain bin... maybe.