BlackSite: Area 51

BlackSite: Area 51 is another grain in the sand of the sub genre that is known as the alien first-person shooters. In this title you play as Captain Pierce, a solider who was sent with a his squad to investigate a bunker in Iraq that was said to house W.M.D.’s. Instead of weapons of mass destructions the squad finds alien mutations and alien artifacts said to have been found in Area 52 and sold to the Iraqis.

While investigating a strange alien relic squad member Somers causes a reaction to the crystal-like relic that draws various aliens to their position. Pierce is also effected by this reaction but is pulled to safety by Doctor Noa Weis. As she’s dragging Pierce away from the aliens Somers is yelling for her to hold the door. Instead of listening to Somers, Noa closes the door to contain them as she escapes with Pierce.

Three years later the aliens, known as Xenos, appear again, this time in Nevada. Pierce is then called back to duty to help with this new threat. Along the way he’s aided by Delta Force Echo Squad members Grayson and Ambrose as they try to find out what’s going on and try to save the planet from the aliens.


BlackSite: Area 51 is basically the spiritual sequel to Area 51, which was released on the Xbox, Playstation 2, and the PC in 2005. Released November 12, 2007 just 6 days after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was released. Many see that as the reason BlackSite: Area 51 was received poorly and didn’t catch much attention.

True, it would be tough to get much attention after that being a first-person shooter, when you have a gorgeous, well made, fun to play, rewarding game like Call of Duty 4 fresh on the shelves still.

But, there’s more reasons than that to ignore this game. There’s way more bad things over shadowing the few good things about the game. Being a FPS there’s a few essential things you’ll need in your game to make it a worthy FPS in this generation of games. A lengthy, but not too lengthy campaign, a nice array of weaponry at your arsenal, a variety of different foes to unleash your hatred towards, and extra multiplayer modes so you can have some fun with your buddies online, or off.

BlackSite uses some of the things mentioned, but not too greatly. There is a campaign but it doesn’t last more than 4 hours. There’s more than the default M4 assault rifle, but there’s only 5 other weapons. The pistol that doesn’t do much in the fight against the aliens. The Sniper Rifle that’s only seen 2-3 times throughout the campaign. The Anti-tank Rocket Launcher that’s only good, and happens to only be seen during the boss fights. The Scatter Gun which is the game’s version of the shotgun. Then finally the Plasma Rifle, which is the gun that shoots a big orange ball of energy out. Every game has to have it’s Plasma Rifle type weapon.

It’s not a FPS without things to shoot at, right? BlackSite has a handful of enemies which you’ll get tired of seeing by the 3rd level. There’s small exploding creatures, alien brutes, worm things that shoot fireballs, humanoid baddies, octopus-looking dogs, aliens on stilts, and the huge “boss” aliens you see several times. For the majority of the game you’re only killing the humanoid baddies and the exploding creatures, with occasional alien brutes and octo-dogs.

The “boss” creatures are what they consider, well, the game’s bosses. They’re not really spectacular fights against huge foes, just you hiding  around somewhere with a rocket launcher waiting for the scope to lock on to the alien’s glowing weak spot. There’s only 2 different types of boss aliens throughout the whole game. The tower spores, which are tower shaped aliens that do nothing more than pop out the octopus dogs until you kill it. Then there’s the Fire Brutes, which are giant turtle looking aliens that attack with an orange beam and also send out the exploding aliens.

Besides the two boss aliens you kill throughout the campaign there’s 2 more bosses you’ll fight. In the 4th level you’ll encounter a giant worm on a bridge while in a helicopter which you have to gun down with a turret. Then there’s the final boss of the game. This is probably the biggest disappointment of the game. The final boss has the brain of a peon grunt solider in a last generation shooter. It’s the final showdown, you’re on a circular platform, just you and him, he has the Plasma Rifle, you have whatever you have, you start to fire at the guy.. And he just stands there. He just stands then he’ll shoot every so often. He doesn’t mind you unloading clips in his face while he goofs off. I found the simplest strategy to beating him to just stand on the ramp with the boss being up ramp so when he shoots the plasma ball it hit’s the floor and you’re unfazed by the blast, but still have a clear view of his head so you just unload bullets until you run out of your 400+ bullets. On casual difficulty it look my whole supply of M4 bullets to his head to kill him. The final boss is basically a grunt with loads of more health at his disposal.

BlackSite also suffers from numerous technical issues. Glitchy achievements and other in-game issues. At times I had to reload the checkpoint because my AI teammates, which I always need to open doors for me and hold me hand and feed me too, were stuck at some part of the level and I had no way back to them. There’s invisible walls in the weirdest spots. At a few times I was lost in translation, when I had to find a building, but they never really told me how to get there.

Multiplayer wise, I can’t really say much. I doubt I could find anyone online to play with, so I didn’t really bother with it. The back of the game’s case states “Fight for Freedom Online: Play for either side in traditional or all-new online modes.” In other words, the basic FPS online stuff: deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, and whatever else aliens can do with organized teams.

To sum it up BlackSite: Area 51 is a pretty abysmal attempt at mediocrity. The game suffers from it’s technical issues and shallow and short campaign. BlackSite is way behind it’s time, the team at Midway who worked on this should be ashamed at themselves for making this game this generation and thinking it’ll pass.