Area 51

THE BAD:
Lack of enemies, graphics not quite up to scratch and weapons a little under powered.

SUMMARY:
All in all Area 51 is a good game but not quite great. The story begins with you, Ethan Cole and hazmat team bravo being called in to rescue hazmat team delta and figure out what's going on, but soon your team gets picked off one by one and you're all alone. It's a straight forward FPS that's linear in design with a shoot to kill mentality and doesen't try to be anything else.
The weapons are a bit disapointing and under powered. You start with the m-11 "scorpion" pistol and soon grab the xm-32 "viper" assault rifle. Then as you progress through the game you will pick up the usual FPS arsenal - m-170 "hammer" combat shotgun, sr-125 "wraith" special purpose rifle (sniper), m-25 frag grenade and the an/peq-61 "quickfix" scanner which is used to scan various objects/documents throughout the game which unlock "databank" items and secrets, but what makes the game a bit more interesting is the alien weaponry - BBG (kind of alien assault rifle), meson cannon and the JB grenade. But even so, the alien weapons and some of the usual weapons feel abit under powered, resulting in using the assault rifle for most of the game.
The game's levels are fantastic and well thought out and the archetecture changes the deeper you go, you'll even have to fight aliens while on the set of the fake moon landings. The story kept me interested from begining to end with some great voice overs from David Duchovny, Powers Booth and Marilyn Manson, it is 18 chapters in all, taking myself about 15-20 hours to complete but I didn't manage to get all the databank items or secrets, so in that sense it does have replay value as I will play it again to complete it 100%. The creatures are designed by Stan Winston and Stan Winston Studios and they do a great job but I wished there could of been more of them with only about 6/7 different types but they do add atmosphere to the game
The graphics are average but with some real flair as you enter the Gray's base but over all are nothing to write home about, there was no noticeable frame rate drop so the game ran smoothly. One of the best ideas in the game is the scanner which is used to scan certain objects/documents which then open databank items and secrets in the main menu, the databank items are extracts of letters/documents etc which really do make you think, as these are direct from the rumour mill of Area 51 and I'm sure if you looked on the internet you could find something about them somewhere. The secrets are unlocked for finding all 5 databank items in a level and are Dr Cray's diary and Mr White's Illuminati videos, which add a little depth to both these characters.
Overall Area 51 is a solid game and most important of all is enjoyable, it's linear and can be basic at times but there is nothing wrong with that, if you like your FPS it's a must for anybodies collection. It didn't quite make 4 and above but a score of 3.9 is very respectable and is very nearly worth killing for!!!