Area 51 Review

Platform: PC

How Could Area 51 Stand Up?

Area 51 for the PC was doomed simply because of its timing, which is a circumstance for which I hold little pity. In a time where first person shooters like Doom 3 are listed on the marquee, Area 51 didn’t stand a chance in its current state. It is a first person shooter, which is a change from the camera guided arcade hit predecessor from 1996, but the few notably unique aspects of this game haven’t been developed enough to have a lasting affect on even my impressionable, warped little mind. Therefore I seriously doubt it will hold anything too terribly memorable for anybody else. With that verbal curb stomp out of the way, I think it’s safe to say that if they make another Area 51 in the same vein, it would have great potential if only they spent more time making it unique to counteract its audio/graphic handicap. The game isn’t necessarily bad; it’s just put to shame by all of other releases in the same genre.

Back Story

You play the game as Ethan Cole, a character whose voice is credited as David Duchovny, though you wouldn’t realize it because it sounds like he’s taken to huffing chloroform before stepping into the voice acting booth. I have to admit that having Moulder do the voice in a game about alien infestations was an ingenious notion, but sometimes dreams are just a little better than realization. In any case, you may have guessed, but yes, we’re in Roswell’s own Area 51 for this assignment, because wah-nah-nah something has gone terribly wrong.

Gameplay

You spend the first section of the game in training, but once you hit the action you’re so frustrated that you pray for sweet merciless death. The only problem is that the game won’t let you die. No, not yet. You have to fight beside your comrades for a while before the game decides to remove the training wheels and let you rest in an alien induced eternal sleep.

One of the things they utilized was the scan system, much like that of Metroid Prime 1 & 2, allowing you to uncover the secrets of this government agency one bit at a time. You can use it to unlock doors and gather intelligence that may or may not make sense or be helpful, but you have to access this information from the main menu of the game, making it a bit frustrating when you have to stop playing just to go back and look at some useless document that you really don’t care about in the first place.

Eventually things do pick up a bit and if you really don’t have anything else to play, you may even start to enjoy the game at times. However, what was really disappointing for me was the mutation system. It had potential, but it was not really very innovative and never seemed to come into fruition. As you make your way a little bit into the game, you’ll find that Ethan Cole has been infected by the same virus that is changing all of the others around him into the ugly creatures that are just crying to be obliterated by whatever weapon you have handy. You can use this power to transform into something more than just the drug-induced stuporous being that Duchovny portrays your character to be, but the ability really falls just short of being useful. Cutting edge as it may be in the first person platform to have your character undergo some mutant transfiguration, it doesn’t do much save making your melee attacks stronger and help you shield a very small portion of the damage you would normally be taking.

Summary

Yes, in the end they even tried to save the game by introducing another star name as Duchovny’s antagonist: Marilyn Manson. It just seemed to me that their money would have been better spent on the actual game development rather than getting a bunch of celebrities to muddle their way through the game's voice acting. It plays just like a first person shooter, but with Doom 3 still on the scene, make sure that you play Area 51 only as a last resort. Or just go read a book or fly a kite or something. Maybe you can get extremely creative and simulate a creepier experience by watching some old X-File episodes and replace the sound with some old Manson songs. Just don’t tell Manson I said that, okay? You can tell Duchovny, ‘cause I’m pretty sure he’s so hopped up on smack that even if he put twice as much feeling into reaping his revenge on me than he did on this game, I would still have nothing to worry about. Just for the love of God, don’t tell Manson.