BlackSite: Area 51 – 5 Years Later |

Publisher: Midway Studios

Developer: Midway Studios-Austin

Release Date: 11/12/2007

Available On

I played this about 3 years ago, and even then, it wasn’t all impressive. This game has nothing to do with the underappreciated Area 51 that came out years ago, despite being made by the same studio. In fact, the game has nothing to really do with Area 51 at all except you fight through Rachel, NV, and there are aliens. The game is a day’s worth of mediocre entertainment at best. The story is paper-thin, with something about a government experiment where they are trying to create the perfect soldier using prisoners and homeless people. The experiment breaks out, and you are fighting off a weird paramilitary plus Xeno aliens. The characters aren’t interesting, and this is by far just a B-grade experience.

The worst part about the game is the lack of content. Only a few weapons (like less than six) and a handful of enemy types make for a typical shooter experience. There are a couple of large boss fights that were epic at the time, but now they feel too scripted and stale. The graphics are pretty bad since this uses Unreal Engine 3 from years ago, so there are badly scripted explosions, crappy AI, and a useless squad command and moral system. You can send your two buddies somewhere, but it makes no difference because they won’t shoot anything most of the time. If you get shot a lot, your morale will go down, but I actually didn’t notice this doing anything because the AI is so dumb anyway. There are a few vehicle sequences (which stink), and all the weapons feel the same except a couple of alien weapons.

The multiplayer is nonexistent because the servers have been long gone, but you can grab the game for less than $1 on Amazon. The game lacks the greatness of its predecessor, with a lack of interesting stories, characters, and scripted cinematic events. You can go around collecting dossiers, but other than that, this is bare-bones at best. The game had a lot of potential but was executed poorly with lazy design and shortcuts. Why should you bother playing it? Mainly for fans of the first game or who just want an FPS fix for a few hours.