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Almost as good as Halo and Halo 2

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: July 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Wow midway did a good.Job The grafics are amazing! The story and control are amazing. I love this game so much. I would not let any kids play this. This game could scare them. For a M rated game on the back it does not say gore but this game is gorey. It is creppy at times to. You have to use your head alot to to find your way thorugh the levels. I would by this game after you have halo and halo 2. This game is graet by it.

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

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!

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.

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!

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..

Enough of Halo already...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: July 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I was reading the reviews to see if I might want to buy this game and for a minute I thought I might be in the wrong area 51 (pun intended)
Yes, Halo is a great game, but NOT anymore great than Half-life, Deus Ex, etc... You guys act like Halo was the second coming of Christ or something! It's just an FPS, just like any other FPS, let it go already!
And about your comment on beating Area 51 in 4 days, I beat Halo 2 in 3 days, doesn't really justify $50 does it?
Btw the other reviewer is right, Halo 2 is garbage, all $50 worth of it

This review written 2005 A.H. (after Halo)

One of the great games available on XBOX

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: April 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Recently I've been going back through and playing some of the games I've never finished in my library (such as this title). And realizing I've never given a review on some... So here goes...

This is a great game, EGM said it "could be your second halo" but I believe this is what halo was meant to be. It's a fast paced first person shooter, but with more 'meat' to it than halo. The visuals are what you would expect from all the original Xbox hype. They are sharp and clean. With an HDTV (which I didn't have when I played it before) you can really see how sharp the graphics are. It's a harder game than halo, and even halo 2, so it provides plenty of challenge for the hardcore and casual gamer alike. This one is online enabled, but like many gamers, I've never bothered with paying MS to use their service, so I have no idea how the multi-player is. But the single player game is definitely worth the money.

The Truth About "Area 51" (Xbox)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: May 23, 2005
Author: Amazon User

"Area 51," the FPS redux of the arcade blast fest of the same name, is fun and addictive - two qualities that are certainly necessary in any good FPS. However, it is also, in a word, anticlimactic.

In "Area 51," you take on the guise of Ethan Cole (straight from the Generic Hero Name Generator), a soldier voiced by the "X-Files"' David Duchovny, as he and his team are sent into the legendary military facility known as Area 51 to investigate some strange occurrences there. Suffice it to say that Ethan and company get more than they bargained for, and have to shoot hordes of aliens and genetically enhanced baddies to ultimately win the day.

"Area 51" owes the usual debt to "Half-Life." The setup is similar, it goes without saying, but the infamous underground base and namesake of the game do provide some unique thrills - even if they're not fully capitalized upon. The level designs too often involve lots and lots of flip switching and button pressing, but otherwise do their job admirably. Still, although the top-secret setting provides ample opportunity to theorize in a fantastical way about what kinds of things that are truly taking place there, the game makes it feel quite familiar, like pretty much any other generic sci-fi corridor crawl, complete with bloodthirsty mutants and evil extraterrestrials. There are too few moments of sheer inspiration here - which makes one sequence, a sardonic discovery that the first American moon landing was faked, all the more memorable when it occurs.

Enemies suffer from this same sense of "been there, done that, shot that a million times before in a million other shooters." That said, there's more than a little something to be said regarding the gameplay, which is fast, furious, and ultimately compelling. Weapons, while mostly boilerplate (not surprisingly), pack a real wallop that is too often missing in the genre of late, and taken in effect with some very good rag doll physics make for action that is truly tasty. Given that this is an action game through and through, that's certainly high praise, and makes the game recommendable on that point alone.

Halfway through the game, the player character develops mutant super powers that further inject some sense of variety, allowing him to slow time, hurl vampyric parasites that can restore his health, and ultimately turn his enemies against each other. Whether or not this mutant element of the game is essential from a design perspective, it nonetheless adds flavor, and at times these abilities (particularly the parasites) are extremely helpful in dire combat situations.

Production values are another high point in "Area 51." As previously stated, the graphics are easy on the eye, and don't come with a high price attached. Despite the onscreen action there's never any discernable slowdown, and load times between missions are exceptionally brief. Also worthy of mention is the professional voice work, done by the aforementioned Duchovny (whose recognizable brogue makes it easy to settle into the conspiratorial setting despite the character's blandness), Powers Boothe (underused here as Major Bridges), and Marilyn Manson (whose alien, "Edgar," is the stand-out). Unfortunately the sound effects wrapped around these things can be a bit tinny at times, and, on a few occasions, quite annoying. Weapons discharges have a good sound to them, though, which helps make up for this.

It's unfortunate that the storyline running behind the scenes here is so unremarkable -- except perhaps for its remarkable ability to confound and confuse. It's a convoluted mess chock full of loose ends never properly tied. Perhaps the biggest flaw in "Area 51," however, is the anticlimactic finale, which comes and goes without much ado - so much so, in fact, that I had no idea I had reached the conclusion until I got dumped back onto the menu screen. Given that the single player campaign is fairly brief, this is a real disappointment.

All in all, though, "Area 51" provides an enjoyable FPS experience while it lasts, which unfortunately isn't long enough. Even so, the quality of the action at hand nullifies many of the game's faults. Well worth checking out, when it's all been said and done.

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