NakedSushi

I finished Area 51 on the PS2 a few days ago. It was mostly fun to play, but it’s not one of those games which will leave a lasting impression, which is why I’m glad I GameFly-ed it instead of buying it. Playing though it once will be enough for me.

graphics:
The graphics were good, even on the PS2. I liked how small details were added, like the fuzzy heat-evaporation haze coming off the bottom of a UFO. Even the camouflaged soldiers, what little you saw of them, looked good.

audio:
The sound was only mediocre. Nothing worth remembering. One gripe I didn’t like about the sound was that it was easy to tell if there was an enemy near because the music would change from it’s regular atmospheric tune, to some techno “getting ready to fight” tune. The element of surprise would have made the game better by increasing tension.

enemies:
The AI was smarter than I expected. They seemed to have an endless supply of grenades, and would use it whenever I stayed behind cover for too long. They also made good use of surrounding cover. Unfortunately, there were parts in the game where I was fairly close to the AI yet they didn’t react to me until I shot at them, which made it a bit confusing at first because I wasn’t sure if they were friendly soldiers or not.

bosses:
As with most games, there were also bosses. They were a bit annoying because it seemed like the developers just threw in one or two enemies with super-health to extend the play-life of the game. The actual bosses, Theta, were easy to beat with a combination of circle strafing, grenades, and mutant parasites. The last Theta wasn’t much of a challenge and I beat him on the first try. He was more a pesk than something to be feared.

The mini-bosses were more challenging than the actual bosses. These mini-bosses, The Gray’s, would have a protective shield around them which prevented them from being harmed, and just spawn an endless supply of enemy soldiers. After the battle with the first Gray, I thought that was the only one I would have to fight, but there were more and they got tedious. I wish the game had been more inventive with how to beat bosses because the same tactic could be used on all of them.

weapons:
There’s a fairly good selection of weapons. My favorite was the shotgun until I got the BBG halfway into the game. That gun needs no ammo refills and pretty much kills anything in 1 or 2 shots. It was all I ever needed. The “ammo” refills by charging up when not in use, which meant one could deplete the ammo in that gun, switch to another gun while it charged up, and then switched back, or used the “pause exploit.” The ability to pseudo-dual-weld was available, but most of the time, I didn’t like it because there was no control over each individual hand. Walking over a gun would make me automatically dual weld it and I could only hold the same gun in each hand. There was also no way to use the zoom or reload while dual welding. When a clip from a gun was emptied, that gun was automatically dropped and could not be dual welded again. Also, it was one trigger button for both guns, instead of a separate trigger for each.

plot:
The plot was confusing at best. I guess more of the plot is supposed to be explained through the databank and extra files you pick up in the levels, but after viewing a few databank files and “secrets” I was still confused. One of the supporting characters in the game, Edgar (the magic genie who lives in corpses) just disappeared from the last quarter of the game without any explanation. It was as if someone just completely forgot to write him in. I was disappointed about not finding out what the deal was with Edgar.

The strange thing I noticed about this game was that the first half of the game had a different feel/atmosphere to it than the later half. The first half was pretty scary, full of mutants/aliens popping out and attacking you from the darkness and not having enough ammo. AI teammates also helped keep the aliens at bay during that first half. The second half was more sci-fi shooter. I almost felt like I was playing two separate games. Unfortunately, both halves were fairly linear with only one path from A to B. One thing that I would have liked to see in this game is coop through the storyline.

Despite the complaints I had about this game, it was still enjoyable. It’s not game of the year, but I’d recommend it for a rental.