Blacksite: Area 51
Review
Plenty of run 'n' gun action to find here
by Zkylon
reviewed on PC
Other features
First off, you've got a team to command. Your team members cannot die but can be knocked out for a moment. They have their purpose, although they're not lifesaving. The guys die when you need them the most and giving them orders is pretty much pointless. Even so, they help taking care of the little critters and that's useful during the epic battles against giant Xenos.
Other element that comes to play is morale, which depends on how well you fare in battle. Score more headshots and the morale will rise. Get into a near death situation and the morale will go down. You current morale isn't shown anywhere and you just get messages telling you that it got higher or lower. Morale is an element that seems thrown down at the last minute because you can't tell the difference and you pretty much don't care either.
Sometimes you get to drive a military truck that proves a healthy getaway from the mindless shooting but that doesn’t require too much brain usage either. In other occasions you’ll be riding shotgun, firing with the MG on top of the truck or with another MG while on a chopper. Don’t hold your breath though, even if it helps blowing off some steam, the real fun happens while holding the trusty M4 in your arms.
Diversity of enemies
What’s really interesting about Blacksite is the creativity the Midway team had creating the enemies. There are some nice types of aliens out there and they are all deadly in their own way. For instance, the Bug Ridden is a fast Xeno infected humanoid that runs and attacks with great speed. Some of them even play dead after they're supposedly killed and stand up to surprise you from behind. The Scrabs are smaller critters that come in packs and try to jump on you, exploding on impact. More interesting creatures are the Fire brutes, huge rhino-likes Xeno capable of firing a red beam from what appears to be its head and dispensing Scrabs like soda cans. There's more jaw dropping beasts out there, particularly the where-the-hell-did-that-worm-come-from types, but it’ll leave you to figure them out. The game does a wonderful job mixing these bugs and throwing them at you wave after wave. But Xenos aren't the only monsters you'll come across.
Remember the Reborn? Well, these guys are mutated in their own way; victims of countless experiments that rather see the world infested by Xenos that let the ones who experimented with them continue to breathe. They look like a regular soldier but can take a lot more beating before dropping to the ground. They come with guns blazing and they have flashier firearms than the average US marine. Flashier doesn't mean much besides a nice, yellow glow because the only worthwhile weapon you can pick off a Reborn's corpse doesn't come close to the M4A1's all around usefulness. On the other hand, a weapon you can't carry and that's attached to a Reborn scout's shoulder proves deadly against you and your teammates more than once. The scouts are the toughest Reborn unit and they'll be sure to constantly let you know it. Even after they're beaten, their severed upper halves crawl towards you as a desperate last resort.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
