Blacksite area51 Rip For PC

June 11, 2007 - At Midway's Gamer's Day this past January, we had the chance to wrap our hands around the company's follow-up to its 2005 extra-terrestrial shooter Area 51. We were highly impressed with what we saw of BlackSite: Area 51 back then, but it's been awhile since we'd seen anything new. To quell our craving for more alien madness, Midway dropped by our offices today to give us a look at what it'll be showing of the game at this year's E3.

The game opens up with a short tour of duty in Iraq that takes place a few years before the events of the rest of the game. Your outing in Iraq has you seeking out a high-level terrorist who is supposedly in possession of some weapons of mass destruction, and the events here lead to your inclusion in the oddness that unfolds a number of years later. As you might assume, being that this is a game about aliens, the guy you're seeking out doesn't have your everyday variety of WMDs.
 

The section in Iraq that we saw was roughly the middle 20% of the scenario with you charging upon a small village in search of these weapons. You're already in charge here and have access to the squad commands that you'll be using for the rest of the game, and the ever-changing morale effects already begin showing their usefulness. For instance, after having sniped a soldier up on a balcony and having been praised by the team, one member then quickly snuck up to the next doorway and stealthily sliced the throat of another soldier.

This teammate goes by the name of Noa, a woman you meet up with in Iraq and who looks to play a part in the bulk of the game's events. She knows more than she's letting on, which means that while you might not be able to trust her, but she can also prove to be a huge asset at times.

Shortly after the unfortunate soldier has his blood spilt on the ground, the group finds themselves on the second story of a building overlooking a courtyard where a group of soldiers defend something they don't want you gaining access to. Making use of the nearby turrets, they don't stand much of a chance.

One thing this section helps show off is some of the new destructibility effects that have been added thanks to the Massive D tech seen in Stranglehold. The team moved over bits of the technology and has enabled some of the environment to be blown to bits, like walls that can be used for cover or high-standing statues that are begging to be blown apart. While not everything will be destructible, what is looks very convincing and reacts in a pretty realistic manner. In short, the game is more bullet-friendly than we'd previously seen it.

The next scenario that we saw is entitled Quarantine and takes place in crazy ol' Nevada, the place where aliens seem to love to hang out. Starting right outside of the Little A'Le'Inn, an actual restaurant/bar just outside of Area 51, your squad starts in to find any survivors in the area. Working through the establishment and then out back towards some trailers, a number of xenophobes called the Drudge scurry about on their spider-like legs and mess with soda machines and other scenery. One thing that the developer is working hard to do is create nice "introductions" for each creature and even encounter, never just placing you into a room chock-full of new enemies. In this case, one Drudge at a soda machine just before you light it up with bullets, while others attempt to climb up and into a nearby hanger.

After dispatching all of the nearby Drudge and entering the hanger, you come in contact with a southern fellow who owns the adjacent gas station. He mumbles and rambles a bit, but somewhere in his diatribe you learn that nearby troops are making their way in force to the area.

 

Minimum System Requirements:

• OS: XP or Vista
• CPU: 3.0ghz cpu Intel or AMD equivalent
• Memory: 1 gig physical memory
• HDD Space: 15GB
• Pixel Shader 3.0 capable video card with at least 256MB of RAM and DirectX9

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3