BlackSite: Area 51 reviews

Good stuff:

• Quality graphics and sound (with some you'd recognise from other games and movies here and there)
• Intuitive game-play and ‘squad commanding’ (Unlike Ghost Recon on PC that I just couldn't figure out -blond head tilt-)
• Great fun driving the vehicles.

Best feature – The conversational scripting was incredibly amusing, especially the inter-textual references.

Bad Stuff:

• You have to exit game-play to change settings – very irritating.
• No save points… auto save, by profile, at each checkpoint (not that, that was SUCH a big deal)
• Not a WHOLE lot of environmental diversity (Iraq looked suspiciously like Nevada.) You don't travel through a whole lot of different environments, and you’re only facing perhaps six or seven types of enemy (including ‘bosses’) and diversity is key to keeping me interested… Monotony? Zzzzzzzzzz.
• Predictability; the SL was obvious, and stereotypical… like AVP 2 (only we expected it there).

Worst feature – The game is short and lacks repeat playability because of the above points (It took me five hours total to complete on the most difficult setting.)

Summary:
BlackSite: Area 51 was like receiving a cupcake, when you were expecting a three-tiered black cherry gateau with liqueur icing. I was seriously disappointed at the end of the day, not because sound and graphics were poor, but because it began with so much promise and then turned into a stereotype.
Perhaps I am expecting too much from games that are all about blowing stuff up, but I found myself saying ‘if only they’d done this’ or ‘they could have inserted this scene or level here’ rather than ‘WOW that was cool’ or ‘I want to play that section again.’

A truly disappointing game with an unchallenging storyline lacking realism and creativity, Black site Area 51 is not what you would expect from an epic cover, graphics arnt terrible but they arnt fantastic either not what you would expect from a game of this era, the online play isn't much better and the game itself makes you not want to play it which is quite an achievement. On the whole i wasn't happy with this game but everyone has their own opinion and you won't know until you try.

Enjoyable. Not very long but fun to play if your in need of a quick shooting fix.

Played the demo ages ago and this game looked fantastic, but the full game is pretty patchy, a few good parts but a bit weak in storyline, graphics and gameplay. That said it is still worth a playthrough.