BlackSite: Area 51
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| BlackSite: Area 51 | |
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| Developer(s) | Midway Studios Austin |
| Publisher(s) | Midway |
| Designer(s) | Harvey Smith |
| Engine | Modified Unreal Engine 3 |
| Platform(s) | Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 |
| Release date | NA November 12, 2007[1] EU November 30, 2007[1] AU November 29, 2007[1] |
| Genre(s) | First-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB:Teen (T) |
| Media | 2 DVD-DL, Blu-ray disc |
BlackSite: Area 51 (BlackSite in Europe) is a first-person shooter video game, released for Xbox 360 and Windows on November 12, 2007 in North America, with a PlayStation 3 version coming a few weeks later. The game is mostly unrelated to the 2005 Multi-platform game Area 51. The game was developed by Midway Austin and published by Midway. A demo of the game for the Xbox 360 was released via Xbox Live Marketplace on May 11, 2007. A PS3 demo was released December 11, 2007, though a PC demo has yet to be announced.
The game has been noted for its cynical political commentary, which challenges the often black and white viewpoint of many first person shooters with an unusually messy and nebulous situation.[2] Characters comment on the injustice of the military's treatment of prisoners or wounded soldiers, the ethics of torture and other controversial subjects related to the War on Terror. Many level names are plays on speeches or comments made by members of the Bush Administration regarding the Iraq War, i.e. "Last Throes", "Stay the Course" and "Misunderestimate".
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[edit] Graphics
The game uses Midway's modified Unreal 3 engine that was developed for Stranglehold. This allows for more realistic graphics and effects, such as having rain bounce off of your current weapon. Many destructible objects are featured, but most of the environment is not alterable. a high level of interactivity between the landscape, you and the AI is shown, such as when a gas station sign is shot, one of the AI squad members will say "Yeah, I hate those prices too."
[edit] Gameplay
BlackSite: Area 51 features standard first-person shooter gameplay. It uses a regenerating health system; additionally the player's character can absorb relatively large amounts of gunfire before dying. The game features 6 different weapons, however only 2 weapons can be carried at the same time. The game also features the ability to use grenades and melee attacks. The game's main weapon, the M4 carbine, has a reflex scope that can be aimed through for zooming in on distant targets. The game does not feature the ability to lean around corners.[1].
One of the main features of the game is squad tactics. For almost the entire game, the player will have a team of 2 A.I. controlled squadmates accompanying them. Squadmates can be ordered to move on a location, concentrate their fire on a specific enemy, man a mounted turret, or set explosive charges on certain items. Squad commands are given with a single button; the commands are context sensative based on what the player points the cursor at. Squadmates cannot be killed, and will only be knocked out for a brief period after taking a certain amount of damage.
The game also features a morale system, where squad morale increases as the player kills enemies or scores headshots, and decreases as the player takes damage or as squadmates are injured or incapacitated. At high morale, squadmates fight much more effectively and can survive more damage, while at low morale they fight much more cautionly, contribute much less to firefights, and are incapacitated much more easily.
The game also features several vehicle sections, where the player must drive a civilian van or military Humvee cross-country to reach a location, while dealing with enemy attacks. The player can exit the vehicle at any time to collect items, investigate buildings, or man the humvee's mounted machinegun.
The game features 6 different weapons that the player can use. 4 are real-world firearms, while 2 are fictional weapons based on alien technology.
- M4 Carbine with a reflex scope attachment.
- Heckler & Koch MK23 handgun
- FGM-148 Javelin missile launcher
- XM8 sniper variant
- Energy shotgun
- Plasma rifle
[edit] Multiplayer
The multiplayer features modes such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture-the-Flag, Siege,and Human VS. Reborn. The Siege and Human VS. Reborn are different and unique from other games. It allows the teams to attempt to control each of the level's territories while trying to capture one another.
The Deathmatch mode, as well as the rest of the online portion of the game has a maximum number of 10 players and will allow for most of the available maps. There is no split screen multiplayer.
Online Cooperative was planned originally but has since been cancelled on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3: http://au.ps3.ign.com/articles/828/828904p1.html
The PC multiplayer mode can only be enabled by registering an account with Midway games.
[edit] Story
The game begins in Iraq, with protagonist Aeran Pierce and his Delta Force Echo Squad (consisting of Logan Somers, Cody Grayson, and Mitchell Ambrose) on a mission to investigate an underground bunker where W.M.D.s are supposedly stored. Upon entering the facility, Echo Squad are attacked by horribly mutated humans, which army doctor Noa Weis dismisses as a bad case of encephalitis. Deep under the facility, Echo Squad finds a strange crystal-like alien artifact (later revealed to be a segment of the main artifact from the Roswell UFO Incident, which was stolen from Area 51 and sold to the Iraqis). Somers touchs the crystal, knocking the team out and triggering an attack by alien creatures. Dr. Weis seals Somers in with the creatures, while the rest of the team escapes.
Three years later, Pierce has been called in to help with a situation in Nevada. A heavily-armed militia has taken control of the decommissioned military base at Groom Lake (Area 51). After rejoining the surviving members of Echo Squad, Pierce learns he and his men have been chosen for this assignment because the creatures he saw in Iraq have been seen around Rachel, Nevada; the town closest to the base. Fighting their way to Rachel, Echo Squad is attacked by both alien lifeforms ("Xenos"), and the "militia", who are revealed to be heavily armed, cybernetically augmented soldiers known as "Reborn" (who are found to have U.S. dogtags).
Upon reaching Rachel, Echo Squad meets up with surviving U.S. Army soldiers sent to attack the town, as well as their old teammate Logan Somers, who to their great surprise is still alive. Somers explains that he survived the incident in Iraq only to be "disappeared" by the U.S. military and forcefully recruited into the "Reborn" program. He explains that the U.S. government has been secretly kidnapping and testing on "undesirables" in order to create a biological soldier program to help create soldiers without forcing people into service with a draft and avoiding the stigma that only lower-class families are targeted for service. First homeless people, illegal immigrants, and captured enemy combatants were experimented on; it then progressed to regular soldiers and even Delta Force members who had no close family, and thus "would not be missed". Grayson, believing Somer's story, is outraged. Ambrose, on the other hand, is a family man who cannot afford to doubt the U.S. government, and thus doesn't believe Somers "any more than I believe that Abu Ghraib shit". Regardless, Somers rejoins Echo Squad and helps them fight their way to an extraction point.
Upon returning to the base, Somers turns on Echo Squad, shooting Grayson and revealing himself to the be the leader of the Reborn insurrection. He also accuses Dr. Weis of being one of the scientists responsible for working on the Reborn program, torturing and experimenting on him. It is revealed that the Reborn program was canceled when the subjects proved too difficult to control, and the government sealed Area 51 with a concrete dome and left the subjects there to die. Seeking revenge, Somers wants to activate the alien artifact at the heart of Area 51 and use it to overthrow the U.S. government. He captures several former Area 51 scientists and makes his escape, while Reborn troops attack the base.
Echo Squad and the U.S. 4th Infantry launch a massive assault on Area 51 to stop Somers before he destroys the world. However, Echo Squad's helicopter is shot down, and Ambrose suffers fatal injuries from the crash. Pierce, Grayson, and Dr. Weis descend down into Area 51 to stop Somers. In the process, Grayson is dragged into a pit by a Xeno, and Pierce is captured by the Reborn and brought to Somers. Somers reveals that he has already activated the alien artifact, and used it to release Xeno spores into the atmosphere, spreading the Xenos across the country. Weis arrives and frees Pierce, who defeats Somers in a shootout inside the alien artifact. Pierce and Weis escape in a helicopter as Area 51 collapses, and fly off to see how far the Xeno spores have spread.
[edit] The Reborn
The Reborn are augmented supersoldiers developed by the US Government in order to avoid a Military Draft which already has cost the Government for its controversy.
The Reborn are comprised of US Soldiers considered MIA by the Army. The soldiers come from many branches of the US Military, ranging from regular Army to Special Forces. There are also "enemy combatants" in the Reborn ranks who have been taken prisoner, together with a small number of convicted criminals, illegal immigrants and homeless. The homeless subjects were the first to be tested with the new augmentations which were developed from alien technology; if the homeless subjects survived testing it was then moved to further stages.
The Reborn also sport the latest in experimental weaponry, including plasma rifles and a shotgun-like weapon with greatly increased stopping power. Dossiers recovered in the game show that some Reborn were trained in the use of experimental weaponry. Somers voices his dislike of the plasma rifle for its high level of complexity.
Many Reborn soldiers have received a varying range of cybernetic implants to the face and body. These may serve a number of purposes from increased speed, strength and durability to sensory acuity or possible a built-in intercom system.
The Reborn scouts in particular have the most heavy concentration of cybernetics. In fact, half of their body is a machine with large guns located on the shoulders; only the head, arms and torso remain. Their facial features(can be seen after their goggles are shot off) indicate that Reborn scouts were made from female subjects. Sometimes, if a scout's legs are damaged to the point of being inoperable, the scout will detach itself from its legs and go an a vengeful dash-crawl after whoever shot its legs off. If it reaches its target, or if the body takes any more damage, the disembodied scout will detonate in a white-hot EMP blast.
[edit] Demo
On May 11, 2007 a demo for the Xbox 360 was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The demo is set early in the game in the town of Rachel, Nevada, the closest civilian settlement to Area 51. Armed with an M4 Carbine with a reflex scope attachment and the Mark 23 handgun, Pierce and his two-man squad search what remains of the alien-infested town for another squad, later found dead. The demo ends after a red flare is seen in the distance, signifying that some members of the squad survived, and Pierce witnesses a massive alien organism fall from the sky only to land in front of the squad sending a shockwave and cars flying. The demo mentions a "Human Vs. Reborn" multiplayer mode, suggesting that the alien lifeforms are a reborn form of something else, hence the suggestion that they are modified humans. A second demo was released onto Xbox Live Marketplace, a week after the game's release[2].
[edit] Reception
The game received mixed reviews, receiving a meta critic rating of (As of November 29, 2007), 68 for PC, and 65 for Xbox 360. [3]
On November 29, 2007, Harvey Smith the game's designer, came out publicly to announce how ruined the game's development schedule was. He claimed the schedule caused the low reviews due to the fact they were not able to test the game properly. He left Midway after voicing out his comment.[3]
Some gamers have claimed that BlackSite is an old game in a new world, losing favor in the quality of the graphics, the disappointing array of weapons, and overall gameplay.[citation needed]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Publisher website
- Game Interview
- Game information
- Press release
- GameVideos gameplay video
- RewiredMind.com review of Blacksite: Area 51
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