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Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 21
Date: July 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Ive seen screen shots and videos of this game this is a must buy

Awesome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: October 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I have played a demo for this game and it is outstanding! It has a halo feel mixed in with a creepy story line but has great game play and controls. I am definately going to buy this game and I recommend the same to anyone else who likes good quality video games. A+++

Great Looking Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 08, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game looks like it's going to be great. I've heard and read great things on it. You could look on ign.com and see more about it. On ign.com it says that it is going to be multiplayer, online and you will be able to download new things with the Hard Drive. I've played the demo and it is great. Im going to buy it as soon as it comes out.

Midway classic....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is an intense shooter with a decent story. Language can be as intense as the firefights. Remeniscent of Halo 2 getting the chance to both play as a human Hazmat ( a fully armed one) member and then as one of the mutants. You'll want to sleep with one eye open and your M-11 Scorpion pistol under yuour pillow!

Classic Area 51 fans rejoice

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game immediately gives the great feeling of the classic shooter game. The story presentation gives more detail in to the conspirator's world and guides the player in to a situation where blasting everything in sight is not only fun, it's imperative to your survival.
There are 4 movie scenes that unlock as the game progresses, not including the standard cinematics guiding the game. These are among the best, if not the best, graphics of any Xbox game to date.
GUNS! This game has some very sweet guns and artillery. Including some alien technology, one of their guns allows a laser sight to peek around corners, giving access to bank shots! This one should make for some great multiplayer fun.
Overall, this game is easy to review. If you like the classic Area 51 for arcade, get this and get ready to flash back in time!

THE CLASSIC SHOOTER COMES TO X-BOX

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Area 51 by Midway was a classic arcade shooter brought home now to the X-box. While it doesn't have quite the same shooter style as that arcade version it adds more of a storyline to make this a fun game experience. Area 51 concerns that legendary secret military base where remains of alien spacecraft and bodies are supposedly stored. In the story a viral outbreak at the facility has put it into total lockdown, trapping all personnel inside. A special forces unit is sent into the base to investigate. David Duchovny of X-files fame provides the voice of Ethan Cole, a role that the player takes on as a member of this HAMAT special forces team. As you and the team begin your investigation you'll encounter the former Area 51 staff who have become mutated from the alien virus.

You'll encounter hordes of enemy mutants along the way and begind blasting just like in the arcade classic. Handguns, sniper rifles, automatic weapons, gun turrets, even alien weapons will be at your disposal to use. One cool feature is the ability to wield two weapons at once although it has to be the same weapon and control with two weapons is a little bit on the dicey side. You'll really be kept on the edge of your seat as enemies pop out from virtually anywhere so you have to be on your guard constantly.

The graphics are really fantastic and the cut-scene cinematics are some of the best I've ever scene. The gameplay action moves smoothly and is very crisp and brilliant. The model are rendered very well. Great sound is also on display. Besides Duchovny you get Powers Boothe and even Marilyn Manson doing voices in the game. Be prepared if you have kids around. There is a lot of swearing in the game that really earns it the Mature rating.

The game can be played online on X-box live through all the usual game types such as death match and capture the flag. There are 17 different maps to play on offering a lot of diversity and I'm sure they'll be more to download later. all in all this is a great game. The cinematics and storyline make this rise above the standard shooter.

Speechless. Just Smply Speechless.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: May 05, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game it the best game I have ever played. I mean the graphics are great and the game is so great. I bought this game and I thought, this game is going to be pretty good. Well I was wrong this game is like Halo but with a different storyline. Plus I think this is way better than Halo..

Some Secrets Are Best Left Uncovered

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: May 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Granted most XBOX owners have been completely and utterly spoiled having played HALO 1 & 2, so to expect anything less from a 1st Person Shooter would be uncivilized. Right? Well, yes and no. The problem is, with any great game such as HALO, the bar is always raised exceptionally high for posterity. As such, any game that came on the market after November 4th, 2004 (HALO 2's original release date) must live up to the high standard set by an almost instant classic.

Here gamers are confronted with AREA 51. A noble attempt at mixing HALO with Half Life that fails miserably in the end. It's not that this isn't a great game....ok well it isn't a great game. But, that's not the point. It's a decent game that does what it does well. The problem is you will get tired of it doing what it does and eventually wish you had rented it and not purchased it.

In the ohh so familiar words of my Business Law professor from Sophomore year: "Here's the deal". You're Ethan Cole, a bio-chemist @ the Groomlake testing facility we all know as AREA 51. Your list of credentials is as long as my....well you get the idea. You've been summoned to Dreamland in an effort to control and increasingly less controlable situation that has overrun the base. You soon find out that YOU have been infected with the virus and learn that you can mutate into a...well "mutant" and kill your enemies. You use some of your super mutant powers (you'll see what I mean), your mutagen level will dissapate quickly and your must find an infected corpse to suck the mutagen out of or find a vial to inject yourself with. Consequently the best way to use your mutant powers is to melee attack your enemies which, for some strange reason, builds your mutagen level back up. Talk about roid rage. I think throughout the game I used the mutate ability once or twice. It's just not as fun as blowing some poor cloned SOB over a railing to watch him fall to his death. Sounds exciting right? Not so much.

Gameplay doesn't falter, because it runs on the ever effective "I shoot you before you shoot me" engine. My faults with the game lie with the repetitive nature of the game. First there are only 5 or 6 different types of enemies. The mutant dudes, the mutated dudes, black-ops dudes and grays. While i may have missed one or two, 90% of the game is spent blasting away @ these creatures like there is no tommorow. It just get's boring.

I hate to keep referring to HALO, but this is the base for which all games get judged. Remember how the Master Chief was always doing something to help someone, going to different worlds, indoors and out, riding on vehicles, in outer space etc? Don't come to the AREA 51 dinner table and expect to get any of these meals. They're fresh out. As you climb deeper and deeper into the bowels of the base you will start to think...Damn, didn't I do that before? Yes, Watson, yes you did.

Another problem is while some parts of the game are almost too easy, some parts are just way too damn hard. You'll find yourself playing some pieces over and over and over. While this is to be expected, it just seems like sometimes you get bogged down in places for hours on end. Why? The weapons. They just suck. With the exception of the sniper rifle, none of these weapons has an outside purpose, and even it doesn't have the kick that a sniper rifle is supposed to have. What's worse is the horrible dual-weilding mode that you have no control over. Back to HALO, you could walk over most weapons and CHOOSE to dual weild AND you could dual weild different combos of different weapons. Here the computer does it for you. If you happen to walk over an assualt rifle it will automatically dual weild it and you can't drop it OR reload (which SUCKS, especially when you're running low on ammo). This coupled w/ the fact that you can't save the game until you reach a pre-determined checkpoint is enough to drive a man to drinking (more). It's analogous to climbing all the stairs in the Empire state building only to be told that you have to start @ the ground floor again because you missed a step. AREA 51 is soon approaching the $5.00 bin @ Wal-Mart.

The final straw for me was the game's sound and graphics. You'll be ready to toss this one back after you hear the horrible sounds that these creatures make when they attack, get shot and die. I still can't put my finger on what the Black-Ops dudes sound like when they take some lead to the chest. And while the environments are rich with vivid colors and meticulous detail, everything else looks like it was drawn @ a pre-school. Overall the game's graphics are comparable to a early PLAYSTATION 2 game, if not worse.

You would think there would be some high points for this game? Well they're arent' many. I haven't had a chance to evaluate the online play (which I hear is quite good) so perhaps I would have given it a better review had I experienced AREA 51.

Again, if you're looking for a decent run of the mill shooter for the weekend. Rent it and return it. Otherwise, buy it once it goes on sale.

its no halo but its good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game is realy fun. I didnt think i would like it but when i played the demo on mortal kombat i knew it would be good. its a very unique game witht some parts that feel like halo but its alot darker and more brutal it makes halo look like a kids game.Its prety chalenging and has a good story line with huge twists like turning into a alien zombie is the craziest part in the game but real fun and unique. one down fall is that later on throught the game the levels do get very old and you it makes you feel like your just fightin wave after wave of the same wierd lookin guys with blue blood that come from no where. but other than that it is still a good game with very good graphics and some surprize voices like marlyn manson who plays the perfect role in this game and dave douchey from the x files who is in the perfect game for him. i dont think i would pay 50$ for it right now its not an excelent game but later on when it gets a lil cheaper ill be sure to buy it, even after you beat it theres always extras to find so you can go back and find them all the second time because there hard as hell to find some times. but for alien freaks out there you should buy this game now its very fun and crazy and has a real good story line so pick it up and have fun

Original is better!!!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 5
Date: May 16, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I have played the demo but not the real game and it stinks!
Worse than original(the original OWNS!!)
Guns are definitly ripped off from halo 2
and did I mention the original owns? Nothing can beat the original Area 51 (by the way, you can buy the original for ps1)!!

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