The Triangle

Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: MCT Campus

Area 51, the little chunk of land in Southern Nevada, has received much attention in the past. Everything from campy novels to long lived television dramas have had their take on what really happens in that large secretive military airfield. "Blacksite: Area 51" is the next installment for the long ago arcade born shooter series that wants to have its go with bringing a new edge to the myths and conspiracies on both the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 platforms.

Blacksite throws players into the role of Aeran Pierce, leader of a group of very special, Special Forces militants in their conquest to debunk any and all conspiracies revolving around Area 51 while eliminating every foreign object that comes into their field of vision. The story is forgettable; there are a few instances of betrayal and plot twists, but by the time they come around you have given up on caring about the shallow characters and decided to finally disregard the choppy plot that is mostly progressed through in- game dialogue that is hard to hear or follow, even if you felt so obligated to do so in the first place.



The game is a first person shooter and it plays just so, as an uninspired, bland kill-fest that is anything but satisfying to play. Almost everything this game has to offer is completely standard fare. Though the premise of this game is Sci-Fi, the guns are oh-so-depressingly bland; your arsenal of destruction consists of pistols, rifles, shotguns, and rocket launchers. The only gun that stands out at all is the alien plasma rifle, which if you have any experience with first person shooters, acts much like any standard rail gun from any Quake clone with bullets that ripple through multiple opponents at a time.

The guns are also incredibly unbalanced. They are either too weak or take too long to reload, making the rifle you start with the best and most balanced in the game. Once you run through the insanely buggy single-player campaign where objects float oddly, textures become warped, scripted events fail to trigger, the frame rate is inconsistent, the game freezes mid-play, and models will simply disappear from the screen, you can finally take that trusty rifle online.

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