For whatever reason, the developers have almost tried to distance themselves from the original Area 51. It was slated a little bit by some factions of the press but surely it wasn’t that bad. Still, the story behind Blacksite is still shrouded in mystery. You start off in a shooter that’s about fighting off Iraqis. Soon enough though, the poo hits the fan and you’re up against giant alien beings.
That's not a terrorist.
For the uninitiated, Blacksite: Area 51 is a squad-based first-person shooter. Your squad movements will be controlled by the left bumper (on the Xbox 360), and your squad will react to a number of contextual situations. They also have their own personalities and will act based on the squad morale. In terms of commanding them, you can go up to a door and a green icon may appear over your reticule. You can either tackle the door yourself or send in the squad first. Then you can suggest for your squad to attack certain enemies or even man a turret to attack the enemies, while you flank them.
These are somewhat stock standard shooter options but the game handled them reasonably well. For a build that was meant to be pre-alpha, the control scheme was very tight and the general play was quite well balanced. Players started off by fighting Iraqis, and these fellows were quite aggressive and accurate. As you progressed onto the nasties and aliens, they got bigger and took more damage. One alien walked on stilt-type legs and when its metal body was destroyed, the remains would crawl quickly towards you in a kamikaze attempt.
Not to mention, the game’s damage model was quite impressive as well. A rocket that hit an alien behind a barrier managed to substantially damage the barrier as well. The game promises to be full of massive explosions, as we were treated to a rail-shooter sequence from a helicopter that was littered with cars and other flammable/destructible objects along the way. The final part was culminated by a battle with a giant octopus-like alien that tossed oncoming cars and fireballs at you. You had to aim for its head and hopefully diffuse some of the fireballs along the way.
Despite the earliness of the build, what stood out was how tight the game was so far. It seems that the control scheme is well tuned so far and as we mentioned, the balance is reasonable. Sure, this was an early build and there are some curly issues here and there. We walked into an enemy spawn point from where a dozen or so enemies had been hiding and surely all of them couldn't have fit into that tiny crevasse. Jokes aside, we expect to see this sort of issue sorted before too long.
That's just freaky.
Graphically, the game showcases some quite impressive (though familiar) technology. At the beginning, when we were fighting the Iraqis, you really couldn't have distinguished the game. It wasn't until we started playing against the real enemies that things look get a boost, especially with the big nasties. As mentioned above, the damage model was very impressive, as even solid structures were being destroyed, whereas in previous games they would have remained untouched.
We really haven't seen much of Blacksite: Area 51, so it's probably a bit too early for us to comment on how the game is shaping up. However, for an early build, the game was very solid and we look forward to exploring aspects such as the personalities of our squad members and why we're fighting this extraterrestrial menace. Still, there are a number of top shelf shooters that are on the way, so Blacksite: Area 51 definitely has its work cut out for it.
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