BlackSite: Area 51 Preview

Well kids, there's only two days before the E3 madness kicks in. Until then, we decided to take a brief peek at Midway's forthcoming multiplatform shooter, BlackSite: Area 51.

Put the gun down, you moron! I didn’t mean all that shit about your sister!

I want this alien-lobster served on silver platter!

Midway Austin, the development studio that's handling the game, is working to create a first-person shooter, predominantly taking place in and around a military research facility in Nevada - the infamous, and to some the hypothetical, Area 51.

The game kicks off in a small American town jam-packed with aliens. In an attempt to keep things quiet, the government tries to pull off a few desperate moves. Aeran Pierce, a former Special Forces assassin, is sent into the very heart of what is to be one of the most crucial events in American history. By the way, rather than using alien technology for the benefit of mankind, the government spent over fifty years abducting and torturing their own citizens and mixing their DNA with alien technologies in order to breed super-soldiers. After a while, a large group of people, heavily affected by these experiments, started revolting within Area 51, threatening to spread chaos across the rest of the United States. As a highly trained soldier, you are sent in with your squad to handle the situation. However, every step of the way, you may be faced with crucial moral decisions, giving rise to a lot of questions (I'll venture a guess; we're talking about another "The truth is out there" kind of plot).

Players begin their alienesque journey in Iraq (of course), incidentally no more than a couple of years prior to the events that occur in subsequent levels of the game. One of your first tasks takes you to the village of Ad Dawr, during the existing real-world conflict. Your job is to find and eliminate an extremely dangerous terrorist who's heading an operation focused on the research of weapons of mass destruction. (Lol. - 2Lions) In case you didn't know, the Iraqi village of Ad Dawr is actually the same place where Saddam Hussein got captured, back in 2003. Anyhow, as you tread through the village, you'll begin to notice that a great deal of the environment is destructible, which was stressed as an important part of the gameplay.

Like most modern-day shooters this one is not without teammates that will be going into danger along with the main character. Your team consists of two additional characters. One such companion is a woman called Noa. After running into her in Iraq, you discover she knows more than she's letting on, which definitely means you won't be able to rely on her 100%. The moral system incorporated in the game is connected to the way your teammates look upon the main character.

All fancy talk aside, we're most likely looking at conventional action-oriented FPS gameplay, coupled with a few cool elements to make things a bit more interesting. One part of the game involves giving out orders to your team, such as finding cover, kicking down doors, planting explosives, attacking the enemy and similar actions. Basically, how you act on the battlefield reflects the effectiveness and behavior of your squad members. Teammates may react differently when your orders don't meet their approval - for instance, they won't be happy if you instruct them to move into a highly exposed area right in the middle of an intense gunfight. Corresponding to such reactions, each squad member often expresses dissatisfaction, usually with sarcastic remarks. Should the player stick to endangering the life of his teammates, they'll gradually become less interested in taking out enemies and more concerned with saving their own skin. That's why you need to head into combat and risk your life as often as they do. Otherwise, you won't get much help.

Midway intends to use its Massive D technology, designed to ensure a higher level of destructibility throughout each level. Massive D has also been employed for their upcoming game Stranglehold. This particular technology allows for more realistic physics and quite simply enables a great deal of the environment to be blown to pieces, such as pillars, certain walls etc. In other words, you have to be careful which object you choose for cover.

Enemy AI doesn't take chances either. They too will engage in combat cautiously, taking cover and reacting in accordance with the player's actions. The AI recognizes the difference between solid cover and more risky positions. So, if the player starts tearing down their cover with gunfire (be it a wall or anything that's destructible), the AI moves to look for a better covering spot.

Hey, I think I saw a shiny coin down there somewhere…

I’ve had enough… Arghhh!

The developers promised a co-op multiplayer mode that's very similar to the one we've seen in the recent X360 smash hit, Gears of War. It's possible to play with one friend, who can join the game at any point and play with you to finish the game. Mind you, the single-player campaign remains the same as if you played by yourself, which means the AI-controlled characters will still be there. The main player represents the squad leader, while the second player assumes the role of an extra Special Forces soldier. As for the rest of the multiplayer, you can expect to see more that just traditional DeathMatch, Team DeathMatch and CTF matches. For now we know of a so-called Siege mode, entailing a capture-and-hold scenario where the player supposedly captures enemies during the match. As far as we know, 16-player matches will be possible.

All in all, BlackSite: Area 51 certainly has the potential to deliver a more than satisfying FPS experience. The good news is that the game's Creative Director is Harvey Smith, once a member of Ion Storm's Deus Ex team. With that, we're happy that the developers at least decided to follow the right examples, like Gears of War for the co-op. Furthermore, they also mentioned that the game follows the same principle of in-engine storytelling as Valve's Half-Life 2. Pretty much like HL2, this game also allows you to stay in control of your characters during most cinematic sequences, which helps keep a seamless experience throughout the entire game.

If all goes well, players will be fighting alien scum come September 3, 2007, when the game hits retail for the X360, PS3 and PC.