Area 51

"A good FPS, lacking a good story."

Area 51, the legendary myth (or is it) of a top secret research base. Supposedly Aliens are present in this base, along with the hoax moon landing set. Midway has brought its arcade classic to the big consoles. Sadly the only thing in common about the two games is the name and main theme, everything else is completely different. The arcade version wasn't even an unlockable. But it's still a good game.

The story is simple, you play as a soldier (Cole) sent to save the base from and "infection", it should be an easy job. Until everything goes horribly wrong on arrival. The mutants go an a killing spree and you need to fight your way out of the base. This is the only bad part about the game, and only for the second half of the game. For the beginning half of the game, the story is not the best, but it introduces and holds everything together. After the halfway mark, the story is completely ignored except for one cut-scene and the end , which is pretty weak. Everything in the last half is just a bunch of shooting, it's still fun, but can get boring.

The graphics are the best parts of the game. They are simply amazing. Smooth. Everything has this technological alien look to it. The lighting effects are also very good, especially from your weapons. The environments, although they're all indoor, most are huge and are full of vibrant colors. And the CG cut-scenes are beautiful.

The gameplay is great. Everything is responsive, and there's a clever use of leaning buttons, so you can take cover, and peek out the side and shoot away. There is a jump button, although not used a lot, but it's expected for an FPS. But possibly the most noticeable gameplay element is mutation. You will be able to mutate between a human and a... mutant. In mutant form, killing the enemies mutagen up (when it runs out Cole will turn back into a human). This can be very useful because when in mutant form Cole can kill an enemy with 1 or 2 melee attacks, or one shoot of his parasites.

There aren't many weapons, but there is dual wielding. There's about 6 weapons, and 2 types of grenades. Luckily that's more than enough. There's a pistol, assault rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, and two alien guns.

The sound is also good. Every shot is sounds perfectly, the grenade explosions are the best I've seen in a game. And the Meson Cannon's unstable (imbalanced antiquark ratio) Meson particle blast just sounds awesome. The voice overs are good, but sometimes it doesn't seem like there's much motivation behind the guy that did Cole.

Replay value is probably the biggest reason for getting this game. Although there is no 2 player co-op mode, there is a 2 player split screen which is pretty fun. The real point of this game is the awesome online, everything online is fluid and fun. There's practically no lag, and the weapons are balanced, so it actually takes skill and/or luck to win in a shoot out.

There's also some secrets to be found in the game. But they're not that interesting.

Overall I would give this game a 7.75, but Gamefaqs won't accept fractions in the score. It's a good game that has lacks in the story department, everything else is good. But if there's not much motivations to keep playing the single player mode it misses the whole point. Also if you don't have online I would recommend renting this game, because it's very short, and the story isn't very interesting, so without the good single player and no online, there's nothing. Otherwise a good game for the Area 51 fans.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/06/05