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Blacksite: Area 51 | 
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| From: Midway
Category: Video Games
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $28.94
You Save: $11.05 (28%)
New (28) Used (14) from $19.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 2425
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB: Teen
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 12 - 20 years
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 30083
Model: 30083
UPC: 031719300839
EAN: 0031719300839
ASIN: B000O5FUQ0
Release Date: November 12, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand New!!! Ships 1st class!!
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| Features:
| • | Online Multiplayer Modes: A wide variety fo traditional online modes, such as Death Match, Team Death Match and Capture the Flag, as well as, all-new unique modes created specifically for BlackSite: Area 51. | | • | One Button Squad Commands: Command your troops to perform a variety fo actions, including planting C-4 to blow doors, sniping enemies in guard towers, or taking control of vehicles - all with one click of a button. | | • | Incredibly Realistic, Fully Interactive World: From the war-torn streets of Iraq to small town USA, you'll need to use strategic cover points as you blow away your enemies in huge levels where nearly everything you see is destructible. | | • | As squad commander Aeran Pierce, you lead soldiers who respond to your every order. Lead well and theyll rally behind you when the enemy brings the fight, but waver and morale will sink fast, affecting their will to fight. | | • | Drive the latest military HMMWVs and commandeer civilian vehicles. Take a seat in the gunners position during a daring, low-level helicopter raid against enemy positions. Fight with a range of modern-day Special Forces weapons. |
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Product Description
Following on the heels of the arcade and console shooter sensations, BlackSite: Area 51 is an action packed, first person shooter experience which pits gamers against alien enemy forces using the infamous U.S. government landmark, Area 51, and the surrounding areas as the battlefield backdrop. Set in present day, players take the role of a decorated military veteran charged by the government to lead a squadron of "secret soldiers," each with his/her own specialty skill set, into the Rachel, Nevada area to fight off the invasion of unidentified enemy races. The player`s modern-day emotions and fears are driven into a world charged with grave responsibility affecting lives hanging in the balance and eventually finding himself torn between his professional orders and his own ethical standards. In the end, only the actions of the player and his squad can shape the outcome of BlackSite: Area 51 during this potentially pivotal moment in history.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Black Eye: Area 51 February 23, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This game is bad. Bad, bad, baddity, bad. I hate it with the passion of a thousand suns. Here's why:
* It crashes. Constantly. It would crash at random moments, whenever the game tried to load the extremely detailed environments.
* There are a million load sequences that interrupt the flow of the game. And the load screens are repetitive. And the "hints" the game shares with you are useless. Reload frequently? Thanks, Blacksite, I never thought of that!
* It's linear. At one point, the resident tough guy character quotes Star Wars, cause, ya know, the area looks like one of the chasms on the Death Star. When a character points out how linear the game is, you know there's a problem.
* The enemies are boring. There's one actually freaky alien, and it's telling that the thing is showcased in all the art advertising the game. All the other creatures look like they were ripped out of Starship Troopers. There's also the stupid "exploding monsters" which are a tired staple of FPS. Did I mention that one of them is a giant tower that slowly rotates and farts out alien bugs?
* Squad-based tactics? Sure, that amounts to telling people where to go (they never listen) and telling them whom to shoot at (because it's not obvious?).
* Non-destructible environments. Sure, the fuel trucks can be shot. There are crates you can break, but there's nothing in them. The environment is largely static.
* There's also a rail game component. With monsters that shoot projectiles at you. I've never seen this before. All that's missing is the "shoot me in the head" game.
* You can't affect anything the game doesn't want you to shoot at. You can empty an entire clip into your allies heads, shoot their vehicles, and basically act like a moron without affecting the game. And when I get bored, I can really be a big moron.
* You can jump about two inches in the air. There is no purpose to jumping. You can't scale any environment, except to slowly fall down a zip-line like you're on an elevator. In the one area where you can fall to your death, the final boss battle, your dead body stutter-steps down to the ground. This is a fabulous piece of code, let me tell you.
* It's short. I mean, really short. Even for me. I tried to play the game on a much harder difficulty, but the crashing actually drove me so insane that I wanted to at least get my money worth. So I played it on easy to get it over with.
There are some redeeming traits, but none good enough to make the game worth buying. It's got some interesting environments, including a battle in a suburban neighborhood. At one point you receive air support from a chopper flying overhead while you're duking it out on the ground. And the rail gun battles, while rote, are at least scripted to be exciting. There's also the amusing, ripped from the headlines dialogue. None of that saves this stinking fetid pile of excrement.
In the era of Bioshock, Halo 3, and Gears of War, Blacksite is proof that graphics alone are not enough to make a great game. The developers should be ashamed of themselves, but I can't tell you who they are because while I was forced to watch the end credits...the game crashed.
 It's no C.O.D 4, but what the hey... February 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Camelot. Stonehenge. The Great Pyramids. The Great wall of China.
All of these names are ingrained into our culture. When we hear of them, we all think of what they are, and in some cases, what they mean. They all are indelibly burned into our collective psyche. Some are heavily inter-twined in mythology, while others are physical objects that are steeped in history.
In the United States, there is another name that brings up an air of mystery, of conspiracy. You probably know already which site I'm talking about here...
Area 51.
This secret military site, that has long been denied by the federal government, is steeped in secrecy and mystery. Some believe that this location is where the government keeps the bodies of aliens that were discovered in the 50's. Others believe that there are LIVE aliens kept there.
Of course, people believe it is the home of ultra secret black projects, or super high technology, technology that will help keep the American's at the top when it comes to global power.
Now, when you have something that is as cloaked in secrecy as Area 51 is, of course people will speculate.
And the media will take it one step further. There are dozens of novels about this secret location. There are many movies that deal with it, and it's been seen on television as well.
Best of all, it has been used in numerous video games.
Years ago, there was an arcade video game called Area 51. It was a first person shooter, one where you had to invade the military base and defeat not only aliens, but zombies that were brought back to fight with them.
Blacksite: Area 51 is pretty much the sequel to this video game, with updated graphics and I'd have to say far better game play.
When you begin the game, it starts instead of in Area 51, you find yourself in Iraq. The whole purpose of this, in my opinion, was to introduce the player to the games controls, and to give the player a little background information on several of your team-mates that would help you out later in the game.
I have to admit that I was pretty impressed with the scale of the game. Sure, you start out in Iraq, but the story quickly builds from there. After losing one of your team-mates, the game fast forwards several years.
I'll do my best to not give away too many spoilers from here on in.
This is where the scale of the game really comes into play. You have to travel cross country (although you don't get much of a choice in your route) in order to reach Rachel, Nevada.
Along the way you'll end up facing a literal army of the Reborn, the main foe in the game.
The fight for Rachel is pretty intense and quite enjoyable in this reviewer's opinion, and of course it'll lead you onto the next mission, where you'll have to fight and defend the military base you're based out of.
Finally, you will end up in Area 51, and confront the enemy in one final showdown.
All in all, the game is divided up into a total of six missions, and depending on what difficulty setting you play it at, the time to complete will vary. Expect to reload numerous times if you're not careful.
Even though I've only played a handful of Xbox 360 games, I found that this game played like the other first person shooters. You don't have a health meter, like in many other first person shooter games. Instead you can sustain a certain amount of damage and your screen turns red to indicate that you're about to die.
When this happens, find a safe place to hunker down and give yourself a short period of time to regenerate your health. If you don't, well you'll have to wait for a reload.
Fortunately, even though you can't choose where you save, there are numerous save points so you won't be forced to re-do large portions of a particular mission just to feel the frustration of having to do it all over again.
You're also limited to only two different weapons at any one time, so choose what you carry wisely! And, if you do need a specific type of weapon, try to remember where you saw it, or where you dropped it last. That'll save you a great deal of frustration as well.
Use your team-mates wisely. Try to go for head-shots as often as you can, as it improves the moral of your fellow warriors. The higher the moral, the better they fight. If you find that moral is slipping, get fancy and ventilate as many craniums as possible. It cheers up your friends.
The nice thing is that even if your team-mates get taken out in a battle, if you successfully eliminate all enemies, they'll get back up after a short period of time to continue to fight along side you.
As with several other games on the market, you are given a chance to drive in the game. Sometimes you are the driver, and your team-mates act as the gunners. Now this in itself can be frustrating, as they'll fire the main weapon until it over-heats and then you're forced to wait, usually taking heavy return fire, for it to cool down.
Other times you are the gunner and you can control this factor, and when you get the chance I would suggest taking it. It'll save you having to reload from the last save point several times.
The graphics, as I mentioned earlier, are very nice and clear. I had no problem differentiating the various enemies and I like how the game looked. Everything from fighting in the ruined bunker in Iraq to the tranquility of the trailer park, to a drive in theatre and of course Area 51 itself.
The use of lighting and music really set the mood as well.
There are a total of 44 different achievements that can be unlocked throughout the game, and many can only be unlocked during the multi-player mode. I have to admit that I didn't unlock any of those, but then again I've never been one that was big on multi-player games.
If I had any complaints about the game, it would be that I found there were too few aliens to fight! Your main opposition is the army of the Reborn, the aliens seem to be there more for flavour than anything... but be warned, some of the aliens you encounter can be very difficult to take out.
My other complaint is that the game is too damned short! I pine for the old days when it took me weeks of playing to beat Half-life. This game took me only about 6 hours to beat from start to finish.
Overall, I enjoyed the game, and when I have time, I'll try beating it on the hardest setting. Who knows, I might even give the multi player function a shot, and earn a few more achievements.
It's not the greatest game, and believe me, it doesn't come close to something like Call of Duty 4, but you know, it was enjoyable none the less.
3.5 out of 5
BSA51 - Too Short January 28, 2008
Black Site - Area51: I loved this game; from the demo. I looked forward to getting it for a long time. It was certainly worth the wait. The story line, although totally ficticious, is a very well written story. The game play was excellent, a little cartoonee, but nevertheless, excellent. The only flaw I found worth mentioning, is that it is too short. Other than that I would buy it and play it again and again. Online play is also great.
 Great Concepts and Cool Visuals can't Quite Save this Shallow Shooter January 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ok, like I said in my title, this game has amazing graphics, and a very decent story. I really enjoyed the whole scope of the game (like driving across miles and miles of alien infested highway while you're making you're way from town to town. Another aspect I loved was the whole switch from the military look to the shootout at the abandoned gas station (truly classic material!) I do however have some serious reservations in reccomending this game.
1. Poor Dialogue. This game has pretty cheesy conversations and not the best voice acting either. : (
2. No Real Sense of Apocolypse or Terror. This game manages to out "shiny" itself (losing the grit of a true sci-fi terror game.
3. Feels Generic. I'm afraid this game has fallen into the rut so many have nowdays, and forgot to establish it's trademarks. tsk tsk. The game has no memorable main theme, no lovable main character-hero and no interesting twist of plot or theme.
Overall:
Area 51 is a highly entertaining shooter, that relies far too heavily on shiny graphics and generic action to solidify itself against other recent FPS ventures. Worth a rental!
PS
If you're looking for a great shooter for the 360 I reccomend the far superior Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3.
 Blacksite Area 51 January 7, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The product was delivered on time, it was in excellent condition and my son was happy to receive it. Kudos to you and your employee's.
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