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Area 51
Publisher: Midway Games
Reviewed by Geek Woman on PS2 7/20/2005
Official Website : http://www.area51-game.com
Article Discussion Forum
First Impressions:
Background
For many years the US government military installation known as 'Area 51'
(AKA Groom Lake) has been a secretive focal point for conspiracy
theorists around the world. The US Government has only recently
acknowledged the "fact of the existence" of this facility, despite ample
publicity and publicly available high-resolution satellite
imagery photos. Speculation has increased over the past decades and
includes a range from secret military weapons testing to the housing and
study of captured alien life forms. This of course made Area 51 the
perfect place for UFO-logists to obsess upon. Actual activities that may
take place in Area 51 are kept completely secret. What really opened up
the Area 51 can of worms were the revelations of Bob Lazar. In 1989 Lazar
told a Las Vegas TV anchorman that he was a physicist who'd been hired to
"reverse engineer" one of nine alien spacecraft stored at a facility that
is supposedly near the Groom Lake which Lazar called "Area S-4."
From 1947 to today television shows and movies such as Fox's epic
series The X-Files helped to enable controversy concerning Area
51. Over time the shadow government controlling that security enclave
became increasingly unaccountable to an increasingly questioning
public. Americans had seen everything from presidential arms scandals,
presidents and cabinet members who are members of mysterious secret
societies, and trumped up military strikes against former allies in the
middle east. In the past decades all manner of weird phenomena and
hoaxing such as artificially inflated fuel prices, the moon landing, and
crop circles have become ample fodder for conspiracy theorists.
State highway 375, which runs past the Air Force base, has now become a
sight-seeing stop for UFO buffs hoping for a glimpse of a flying
saucer. The state of Nevada is no stranger to controversy. It is home to
Las Vegas and legalized prostitution, it has declared the road an
"Extraterrestrial Highway" and promotes it as a tourist destination.
The widening gap between what the public knows and what the US
government wants people to know offers plenty for the entertainment
industry to fulfill. Area 51 has has become an elaborate edifice of
popular culture made even more famous in the summer blockbuster movie
Independence Day. At Area 51 while standing in front of a
spaceship Brent Spiner (Data, Star Trek the Next Generation) says
that they've been studying aliens there since the Roswell landing. Truth
is stranger than fiction and it would be difficult to imagine any other
secret awful enough to require the level of secrecy surrounding this
facility. But as it was brought out in another recent alien-themed movie
remake, War of the Worlds Americans may be more fearful of
terrorists (or Tom Cruise) than space aliens.
Area 51 - The Game
Enter Midway Games. Their recently offered edgy FPS shooter titled
simply "Area 51" delivers what many geeks have been dying to do -
which is to get inside the fabled facility. It is so much more than
merely an update to their own mid 1990's light-gun arcade shooter with
the same name. You play as a Hazmat Specialist named Ethan Cole.
You begin as a leader of a team that is sent to investigate a
mysterious mutating virus that is taking over the employees of Area
51. This aspect of the story-line is derivative of several other
franchises such as The Thing, Resident Evil , and
Parasite Eve. Mutants pour out from behind doorways, drop from
ventilation shafts and clog the elevators.
However the team only survives long enough to give you cover fire through
a series of training levels. You may not realize that the beginning of
the game is designed so that you can get a handle on the control set up,
item pick ups and data scans, weapons use and the targeting system. The
team is gradually killed off until your character Ethan and one other
teammate remains. The two of you get on an
elevator that plummets to the bottom.
Graphics:
Graphics in Area 51are good. Area 51 is similar to what's
to be expected from a shooter nowadays. The attackers are based on only a
few NPC models. Most of the screen is dedicated to displaying the hands
and weaponry of the character. Enemies in the distance tend to blend into
the dark background. Environments can be a bit muddy and hard to
distinguish visually. The backgrounds are varied and provide a welcome
change from other FPS. They can be anything from military, or
institutional to very alien. There is even a movie set that was used to
film the allegedly faked moon landings. The fast paced action and special
effects are the strengths of this game. Glass shatters,
explosions go off, antigravity fields, and plasma force fields all look
very good. It has a generally smooth frame-rate too. The mutated mode
view changes to Predator-style heat signatures. It's helpful for
spotting hidden mutants or Illuminati soldiers.
Sound/Music:
Midway scored points by getting stars for the voice acting in Area
51 Heart throb David Duchovny ( X-Files, Playing God, The Red Shoe
Diaries ) provides his famous "been there done that" style of
narration as your character Ethan Cole. Hearing his voice lends even more
realism to the immersive, conspiracy - laden counter culture of the game.
Powers Booth (Sin City) is Major Bridges, and Marilyn Manson plays
the alien Edgar. The dry, unimpressed by the horror that is going on
around him vocal style that is Duchovny's trade mark was great in the
X-Files and it was great for Area 51. The sound effects are fine
and the weapons and explosions sound almost authentic. The music is
percussive and fades well into the background. It is neither a
distraction or a significant feature in this game.
Gameplay:
Ethan wakes up next to his buddy's corpse and realizes that his gas mask
is lost and he has been infected with the virus. Now if you cruise the
web reading about the game you may notice that fanboys are
complaining that the game is too short, and even claiming that some of
them were able to play through it in five hours. Keep in mind that once
Ethan is infected the clock is ticking, and clues reveal that he only has
4 hours before going mutant himself, which explains the time factor in
the game. Only an advanced FPS player can get through the game so
quickly. An average gamer can get a dozen or so hours of single player
mode out of this game. If you don't have lots of time to play, you can
take it on one section at a time since the game has an auto save
feature that keeps track of the check points as you cross them.
Later in the game Ethan can morph back and forth between his gun-toting
human form and a mutant form. This morphing is reminiscent of the human
to demon transformations of Jen in Primal. In morphed form Ethan
has hyper-awareness and an ultra powerful one-hit melee attack. In human
form your character is heavily armed with sniper rifles, shotguns,
machine-guns, as well as alien weapons. There are guns for defending
against ranged long-distance attacks, and grenades.
Eventually using Ethan's mutant transformation ability is essential to
getting through tough situations where you are mobbed by the enemies.
Area 51's enemies come at you in a hectic pace. There isn't even a
moment's rest to scan for clues and secrets. The appearance of
enemies from all directions builds a sensation of vulnerability and
nervousness. The creeped out atmosphere of Area 51 resembles
Resident Evil but you never know what to expect and where it might
come from. You have to find another team and relieve them as they're
trapped deep inside the underground part of Area 51, which gives
you your simple 'run and gun and reach the objective' game-play.
You have a flashlight that you can use just like in Half Life 2.
There is a dark theme, and the very dark flashlight environments. When
you scan highlighted items you get bits of reports about unexplained
phenomena such as crop circles, Roswell, alien autopsies, and the Bermuda
Triangle which is good fun. As you progress deeper into the game you'll
find mutated scientists, the Illuminati, alien 'Greys' and plenty of
other urban myth characters make an appearance.
The triangle and circle toggle the weapons and a scanner. The R buttons
are for the trigger and targeting. The X button is for reloads and the
action button. One criticism is that the scanner is difficult to
operate. If you accomplish a scan in one round and get killed, the next
time you return to the exact same spot, you may find that it just scans
for an "air sample" and this can be frustrating. Buttons or levers can be
in locations where you'll see it sitting in the middle of an entire army
of green eyed mutant soldiers. You may not want to stop to reload guns
and that is where the square button which tosses the grenades comes in
handy. The jumping is another control that just seems
unfinished. It may take into account the physics of a guy who is
carrying many heavy guns and is infected with an alien virus. But in this
instance the reality of trying to jump while over burdened is annoying.
Enjoyment:
The game-play is actually quite enjoyable. You can fire away with one
gun in each hand. Two shotguns at once is a sure way to take down pretty
much anything. The control scheme follows the standard FPS dual analog
stick configuration. This seemed unwieldy. Though sensitivity adjustments
are provided to fine tune the settings. It is difficult to precisely line
up the sniper rifle consistently. All the weapons have two fire modes.
During the start of the game you may hear the NPC exclaim "you suck" if
you don't grasp the learning curve quickly enough.
Multiplayer:
Area 51 is a good FPS title for online gamers on PS2. Area
51 is just non-stop action. The multiplayer mode in Area supports up
to 16 players. There's solo and team death-match, capture the flag and
infection games. The online play is excellent. It features some of the
fastest multiplayer game-play yet seen on the PS2. There is a unique
Mutation mode which puts one infected mutant up against a dozen or so
uninfected human characters. The object is to avoid being fragged long
enough to spread the infection to the other players. As the mutants
begin to gain in number points per kill are based on the ratio of mutants
to humans.
Overall Impression:
Area 51 isn't an average game. There are few shock moments. The
'secret base-conspiracy-virus' plot line has now been done to death after
this title which is the authority on it. I'm giving it an 8.6 out of ten.
Marketing Efforts Towards Women:
There are no female characters to select from, or on the team. There is
a selection of female - looking avatars for online play. Women are not
included in this game if at all. It was certainly not designed to appeal
to women despite the casting of the XFiles star.
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