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Midway’s output over the last few
years has been decidedly poor. The plan for annual updates in the
Mortal Kombat franchise was undermined by lack lustre sales of
mediocre titles and precious
 little else has kept the once-great US
publisher on-the-radar, except maybe the decidedly average
Stranglehold, the XboxLIVE! Arcade re-hashes of their
twenty-year-old releases. However – as some would say foolishly – in
the wake of Halo 3, Midway have come back with not one, but
two First-Person Shooters: the highly anticipated Unreal
Tournament III, and the almost invisible Xbox360 release of
Blacksite.
Formally known as Blacksite:
Area 51, the latest in Midway’s arsenal is to be considered the
spiritual successor to the Xbox and PlayStation2’s Area 51,
which, in-turn, was by many considered to be an update of the
PlayStation and Arcade Light-Gun game of the same name. However,
those who found themselves lost and uninvolved in the previous
efforts the series has afforded needn’t be turned-off by Midway’s
first attempt at an Xbox360 First-Person Shooter.
Blacksite offers a similar
squad-based involvement to that seen in
Halo: Combat Evolved.
Given minimal command over the two or three members off your squad –
generally limited to targeted attacks and movement to a specified
point – the game relies on your interaction with the rest of your
squad to push forward many of the games conventions. However, this
“interaction” is limited to speech samples directed at you by the
members of your squad in a similar manner to that of Half-Life 2
and the Halo series, in that no action on your behalf is
actually required other than hitting a pre-set Checkpoint to launch
the A.I.’s next scripted event. The gameplay tasks the player with
traversing through expansive linear paths in the exact same manner
as that of
Halo 3 – with wide-open arenas for large battles
and tight corridors for more frantic fighting, and even featuring
vehicle sections and area-securing set-pieces. The Levels are very
well crafted with some exemplary design and enticing constructs that
rarely see that player wishing themselves past an unfairly difficult
or badly designed set-piece. The variety of environments and enemy
types is pleasing and far in excel of this year’s perhaps most
over-rated title,
BioShock, and even competes with the likes
of Halo 3 – obviously, the title’s most direct comparison –
and
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
The weapon variety,
however, is substantially limited when compared with that of its
peers. While numerically Blacksite may well be on a level
playing field, in terms of those which are actually fun to use, the
title stutters, and the player will probably play through the entire
Single-Player Campaign using only two or three weapons of those
available. The Multi-Player aspect of the title results in more
dynamic use of the available weaponry, leading this journalist to
believe that many of the guns were actually designed for use within
Deathmatch Arenas, as opposed to
 the Single-Player Campaign. This
aspect could be considered somewhat of an oversight given the
title’s release date and it’s proximity to the latest arrival in the
series considered to be the king of online console First-Person
Shooters; once again, the Halo series.
A huge
disappointment with the title though, is the distinct lack of
Co-Operative play. Billed prior to release as one of the title’s
Killer Apps., Blacksite has shipped to shop shelves without
any sign of the gameplay mode, bar a few obviously tailored sections
in the Campaign. Perhaps the mode shall be perfected and offered via
Downloadable Content at a later date, yet still, the lack of such a
huge feature at launch could never be described as anything other
that a disappointment.
Blacksite
pleases graphically. Very few bugs mar the generally well-created
scenery, and the Character Models are intensely detailed. The
environment illustrates the title’s atmosphere and never is the
player presented with invisible walls or other gaming conundrums
born of uninspired development. The aural quality is pitch-perfect,
with the sound effects and speech samples aided to draw the player
into the virtual construct and creating a very tangible, believable
world.
While Midway have done little of note in the last few years, and
could even be considered to have done little worthy of release on
the Previous-Generation, the stories of Blacksite’s failure
have been somewhat exaggerated. To say Blacksite is a bad
game would be doing the developers, publishers and the game itself a
huge disservice. While it may not have the girth to stand alongside
The Orange Box, or the customisability to earn a place
alongside Halo 3, the rest of this year’s First-Person
Shooter arrivals will have more competition than they may have
previously anticipated. Blacksite is not a masterpiece of
videogame design, but it’s also no less than a well-designed,
enjoyable romp through some well-realised Sci-Fi shenanigans.
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