Well it took me several months, but last night I finally got around to completing Area 51. It's a strange game in that occasionally it hints at being something quite good, but then never delivers on it's promises. There's just enough there to keep me playing but it really became more of a chore than anything else - I think this is probably the worst game I've completed since Red Faction 2.
Good points:
-Performance was very good in 1600x1200 high textures with 8x AF - even 512meg systems should handle this no prob.
-Some of the video/databank material is quite interesting re: real life conspiracy theories
-Graphics were impressive in places
-Weapons are reasonable if few in number, and the mutation is a nice twist
-The squad-based sections at the start of the game can be quite fun.
Bad Points:
-David Duchovny is clearly just going through the motions with his narration. He sounds utterly disinterested and incredibly wooden/contrived.
-A blatant console port, right down to the 'checkpoint system', bland graphics/environments, and lack of configuration options
-There's a bug whereby if your FPS goes over ~100, you can't jump. There are no patches available for the game.
-The enemy AI is pretty weak for the most part. Combat is usually only a problem when facing a large number of enemies rather than any 'skill' on their part.
-The story seems a bit grandiose and lacking in focus, moving between a variety of topics. It's hard to empathsise with your character or really follow the story when progression is so disjointed.
-The finale is uncannily similar to Halflife2
-The difficulty seems a bit unbalanced - most sections are fairly straightforward, but there's a few which are extremely hard. The sections in turrets for example are clearly tailored with gamepads in mind, as with a mouse they are ridiculously easy. Whereas some of the turrets you come up against in open spaces are particularly nasty.
-Level design is a bit.... uninspiring. Reminds me of another console port, Halo, in this regard. It's linear for the most part with a few annoying bits of back-tracking.
All in this is basically a poor man's FEAR. There are similarities with the enemies and weapons, but the combat an graphics are vastly inferior. Had this game been released a few years ago, before the likes of CoD, FC, D3 and HL2 hit the scene, it would have been OK. But in the space of a year, those 4 games redefined our expectations of what we expect from a modern FPS. It's hard to recommend this game to anyone other than a hardcore FPS buff (like myself) who's played all the recent good ones and still wants more.
Good points:
-Performance was very good in 1600x1200 high textures with 8x AF - even 512meg systems should handle this no prob.
-Some of the video/databank material is quite interesting re: real life conspiracy theories
-Graphics were impressive in places
-Weapons are reasonable if few in number, and the mutation is a nice twist
-The squad-based sections at the start of the game can be quite fun.
Bad Points:
-David Duchovny is clearly just going through the motions with his narration. He sounds utterly disinterested and incredibly wooden/contrived.
-A blatant console port, right down to the 'checkpoint system', bland graphics/environments, and lack of configuration options
-There's a bug whereby if your FPS goes over ~100, you can't jump. There are no patches available for the game.
-The enemy AI is pretty weak for the most part. Combat is usually only a problem when facing a large number of enemies rather than any 'skill' on their part.
-The story seems a bit grandiose and lacking in focus, moving between a variety of topics. It's hard to empathsise with your character or really follow the story when progression is so disjointed.
-The finale is uncannily similar to Halflife2
-The difficulty seems a bit unbalanced - most sections are fairly straightforward, but there's a few which are extremely hard. The sections in turrets for example are clearly tailored with gamepads in mind, as with a mouse they are ridiculously easy. Whereas some of the turrets you come up against in open spaces are particularly nasty.
-Level design is a bit.... uninspiring. Reminds me of another console port, Halo, in this regard. It's linear for the most part with a few annoying bits of back-tracking.
All in this is basically a poor man's FEAR. There are similarities with the enemies and weapons, but the combat an graphics are vastly inferior. Had this game been released a few years ago, before the likes of CoD, FC, D3 and HL2 hit the scene, it would have been OK. But in the space of a year, those 4 games redefined our expectations of what we expect from a modern FPS. It's hard to recommend this game to anyone other than a hardcore FPS buff (like myself) who's played all the recent good ones and still wants more.
At least in the X-files there's some semblance of passion or inflection along the lines.