Blacksite: Area 51 - Xbox 360 (Special) Reviews

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I beat the game in just under 6 hours. Yikes! That figures to about $10 an hour for game play!

You're a soldier for the US Army, initially sent to Iran to gather some highly needed, top secret information. From there the story gets fleshed out rather hurridly along with some well over used cliches. The gameplay is fun, the sound an graphics are great. Grenade explosions are really cool and the machine gun is very satisfying to shoot.

However...

This one is a perfect weekend rental. There's a good mix of run and gunning, driving and shooting from a helicopter. I have to repeat that this game was allot of fun to play. There were 5-6 levels (I forget exactly) each broken up into smaller "episodes" similar to the Halo games. Each level was pretty unique and at first glance the game could easily be mistaken for a Call of Duty title. Only a handful of weapons to choose from that sadly, didn't follow you between episodes and I found that I stuck with the machine gun almost entirely through the game except for some of the mandatory sniper episodes. There was also a very limited amount of aliens as well, which was surprising because I was expecting more. However, the ones that were there were very fulfilling, especially the larger "boss" type characters.

I would have scored Blacksite allot higher had it been longer game. You can't imagine my dissappointment after spending $60 and then beating it the same day.

Save your money for the likes of Assassin's Creed and rent this one.

Dan.

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The graphics are sub par, and no far beyond what you might see on the original XBOX. The game is very, very short. It's unpolished and buggy.

I did play online one match and that was a little better. But this pales in comparison compared to some of the better shooters like Gears, Halo 3, and Bioshock. I picked this and Timeshift up at the same time, and Timeshift is a much better game.

It's probably worth a rental but not much more.

Best Deals for Blacksite: Area 51 - Xbox 360 (Special)

A couple years back, Midway updated their light gun shooter Area 51 for the last-gen consoles in the form of an action, scare, and conspiracy theory-filled FPS that was surprisingly good. Blacksite: Area 51 is more or less a follow up to the aforementioned game, in which you play a soldier and find yourself searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, only to uncover an alien conspiracy. The first thing you'll notice about Blacksite: Area 51 is that the game is boasting some spectacular graphics. The characters, aliens, areas, and environments are beautifully rendered; making the game a joy to look at, but that's about it. The use of squad tactics doesn't work very well, and you'll mostly find yourself engaged in battles with your squad not doing much to lend a hand. It should also be noted that there are a fair amount of glitches and bugs that occur now and then, ranging from graphical glitches to bugs in the gameplay elements. The single-player campaign is decent enough, albeit much of the shock value and scares that were featured in the last Area 51 game are absent. The multiplayer mode is uninspired and boring to say the least as well, which is even more disappointing. For all its flaws though, Blacksite does offer some solid moments of intense action, and the political commentary does conjure a smirk. All in all though, Blacksite: Area 51 is a disappointing FPS that could have been so much better than what we get here. It is worth a rental at least for FPS addicts or fans of Midway's Area 51 license, but other than that, Blacksite can be avoided.

Honest reviews on Blacksite: Area 51 - Xbox 360 (Special)

This game realy let me down! I played the demo on X-Box and it seems prety good. However, when I got to play the whole thing I believe the creators could have done a better job on the graphics. The movement is not as life like as the most recent games out like Call of Duty 4 or Helo 3. The operation of the vehicle in the game is mechanical. I would recommend you rent it first.

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This game is bad. Bad, bad, baddity, bad. I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. Here's why:

* It crashes. Constantly. It would crash at random moments, whenever the game tried to load the extremely detailed environments.

* There are a million load sequences that interrupt the flow of the game. And the load screens are repetitive. And the "hints" the game shares with you are useless. Reload frequently? Thanks, Blacksite, I never thought of that!

* It's linear. At one point, the resident tough guy character quotes Star Wars, cause, ya know, the area looks like one of the chasms on the Death Star. When a character points out how linear the game is, you know there's a problem.

* The enemies are boring. There's one actually freaky alien, and it's telling that the thing is showcased in all the art advertising the game. All the other creatures look like they were ripped out of Starship Troopers. There's also the stupid "exploding monsters" which are a tired staple of FPS. Did I mention that one of them is a giant tower that slowly rotates and farts out alien bugs?

* Squad-based tactics? Sure, that amounts to telling people where to go (they never listen) and telling them whom to shoot at (because it's not obvious?).

* Non-destructible environments. Sure, the fuel trucks can be shot. There are crates you can break, but there's nothing in them. The environment is largely static.

* There's also a rail game component. With monsters that shoot projectiles at you. I've never seen this before. All that's missing is the "shoot me in the head" game.

* You can't affect anything the game doesn't want you to shoot at. You can empty an entire clip into your allies heads, shoot their vehicles, and basically act like a moron without affecting the game. And when I get bored, I can really be a big moron.

* You can jump about two inches in the air. There is no purpose to jumping. You can't scale any environment, except to slowly fall down a zip-line like you're on an elevator. In the one area where you can fall to your death, the final boss battle, your dead body stutter-steps down to the ground. This is a fabulous piece of code, let me tell you.

* It's short. I mean, really short. Even for me. I tried to play the game on a much harder difficulty, but the crashing actually drove me so insane that I wanted to at least get my money worth. So I played it on easy to get it over with.

There are some redeeming traits, but none good enough to make the game worth buying. It's got some interesting environments, including a battle in a suburban neighborhood. At one point you receive air support from a chopper flying overhead while you're duking it out on the ground. And the rail gun battles, while rote, are at least scripted to be exciting. There's also the amusing, ripped from the headlines dialogue. None of that saves this stinking fetid pile of excrement.

In the era of Bioshock, Halo 3, and Gears of War, Blacksite is proof that graphics alone are not enough to make a great game. The developers should be ashamed of themselves, but I can't tell you who they are because while I was forced to watch the end credits...the game crashed.