AMN's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
It was just another routine missing in Iraq for the military, or so your squad thought. As you explore the chemical weapons labs, you come across a horrible discovery. Some strange technology that has devastating effects, you can guess what happens next. The government covers it up and it never happened, or so THEY thought.

What's Hot
BlackSite Area 51 is the same franchise that brought you the classic light-gun arcade game and the surprise break-out Xbox original title. You can tell that touches from each of those games made a comeback for this title. BlackSite features the Unreal 3 engine and some of the graphics look amazing. Characters are nicely detailed and the reborn look creepy and dangerous.

The way BlackSite attempts to offer a mixture of "classic" Area 51 style gameplay and "modern" gameplay was a good way to bridge the two. There are many instances where you'll find the developers specifically added sports for you, the player, to stop and blast all the monsters that pop-up on screen, like in the arcade. Guns people drop also flash like they did on the arcade and some of the enemies feel like a throw back to the grey zombies with the bright colored jumpsuit (sadly, no neon jumpsuits in BlackSite). The modern gameplay comes in the form of squad based play.

BlackSite tries to do something rarely seen in a video game- send a not subtle political message. Blasting your way thorough levels will reveal more of the plot but they offer it in a modern context. Sure, the vehicle for sending political message is different (monstrous forces) but the message is not hard to decipher. Agree with their politics or not, it is interesting to see gaming, as an art form, take on more mature ideas even when you are basically blasting away at zombies.

What's Not
BlackSite looks good but there are some really bad instances of slowdown when the action heats up beyond a skirmish. Get into a firefight with too much ambition, the game will slowdown to a chugging pace. See that behemoth of a alien? Don't attract too many lesser aliens because it will slow down. It is disappointing really.

There are some instances were it is intentional but during a standard gun battle kills the flow of the game. The squad-based play is also rather weak. You can issue some orders, like move to a specific spot, but their AI is dodgy. Some times they will comply, other times, they just plain won't, some times they fire, and some times they won't. The squad-base gameplay is to blame for that. While you are the leader of the team, you'll be the only one pulling your weight around the battlefield. Even the morale system, while a nice idea, is poorly implemented because of the AI and how spotty it is.

There should have been more smoothing done between the different styles of gameplay. The "classic" Area 51 gameplay segments and "modern" gameplay elements didn't flow seamlessly and the end result was a little jarring when it came to the game's overall pacing. The limited gun selection is another area that led to some disappointment, especially with a alien enemy where imagination is your only limitation.


Final Word
BlackSite has its ups and downs from the start. The story is interesting and the graphics are very nicely detailed. The throwbacks to the Area 51's of the past were also a welcome sight for an almost subliminally nostalgic experience. The technical hitches of the slowdown were rather sad. The huge boss battles could have been intense if the framerate would have held constant. BlackSite does score higher because of they attempted, and succeeded, to incorporate higher concept ideas within the framework of what could have been a paint-by-numbers FPS game.