Having just played through
Quake 4, which was released six months after
Area 51 in 2005, it'll be easy to draw comparisons
in that both themes are modern base.
Quake 4 received it's share
of undue criticism, with an aggregate score
of 81% on gamerankings.com. Area 51, meanwhile,
scored an aggregate of 78% so only marginally
behind, but both IGN and Gamespot both rated
Area 51 as better than Quake 4.
Nevertheless, it seems to be
a fairly obscure title on the PC despite many
positive reviews. I asy obscure, because it
was eventually released for free (with advertising).
But that version crashed on install for me,
and I couldn't find a second-hand version to
purchase. Even then it took two torrent versions
before I finally got a working copy.
The PS2 version was thought
to be the best FPS ever at the time, although
that's not saying much. This led me to go in
expecting a gem of a game. Unfortunately, my
expectations were not met.
From the design perspective;
both the power of the engine and the level design,
Quake 4 eats Area 51 for breakfast. Some of
the earlier Area 51 levels look quite bland.
Since the entire game takes place in an under
Area 51, I guess the designers were trying to
maintain some realism in the design. With realism
comes bland, futuristic walls and textures.
Later in the game levels start to get more variety
with the peak being the alien world and UFO
ships. However, while the engine is capable
of something great, the level design doesn't
ever reach awe-inspiring. Good, but not great.
The mess of a story was a bit
hard to understand. Near the end of the game
I wasn't sure if I was still in Area 51, the
alien world, or who the bad guy even was! David
Duchovny's monotone mumbling didn't help at
all. He really should stick to acting. And Marilyn
Manson was a waste of money; I could have voiced
the characters better. At the end of the day,
you won't be playing Area 51 for it's story
anyway. Your playing for the action...
Action which was fairly fun
and fast all the way through. The dual-weilding
of weapons is fantastic and doubles your fire-power.
Having two shotguns go off in quick succession,
blowing your enemies away, was a great feeling.
However when your down to just one weapon at
a time, they feel a bit weak. Unfortunately,
it took me most of the game before I realised
that the BBG, a powerful gun in it's own right,
is self-regenerating.
Along with this, you get the
half-man/half-mutant idea also done in Quake
4, where you can transform into mutant and use
it's abilities. Every kill you make while in
mutant-mode gives you health back. Area 51 definitely
does this idea better than Quake 4 and makes
it mean something with the gameplay. In Quake
4 you wouldn't know the difference.
Provided you don't overuse
the BBG, Area 51 is still quite a challenging
game.
Now to the cons: the biggest
problem with Area 51 is, firstly, no quicksave.
You're forced to use 1-3 checkpoints through
each level. Fortunately they're usually in useful
places so you don't have to do much replaying,
but I still loathe the idea of no quicksave
in a fast paced FPS. Perhaps developers think
if your forced to replay much of the game then
it'll extend the overall playtime. Even so,
it's still only barely a 10 hour game.
And secondly, the game would
come to a crashing halt at the end of almost
every level for me (with a total of 18 levels).
With no quicksave, i'd have to replay from the
previous checkpoint only for it to crash again.
I was forced to use someone elses saved games
in order to load each level. However it wasn't
such a big deal compared to most games, because
your ammo and health in Area 51 are often 100%
anyway.
So overall, Area 51 is definitely
a decent game to play alongside the best of
2005. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking.
