A Good Game Ruined by Repetive Game Play
When Area 51 first graced video games with a popular arcade light gun shooter, which eventually found it's way onto the Sega Saturn and Playstation One. It wouldn't be until the Sixth Generation of game systems that we would be treated to a brand new instalment in the series.
Area 51 for the Xbox is actually a revamped verson of the original game, sharing it's storyline and title. The storyline forcuses on Ethan Cole, a member of a US Army HazMAT team that is sent into Area 51 in hopes of containg an outbreak of an alien virus that is slowly mutating everyone in Area 51 into alien-human hybrids.
The first thing one will notice is that the graphics are actually fairly good, and very vibrant, and a nice change from the original arcade game's FMV style cut scenes. Another thing players will notice is the addition of a third faction to the Area 51 Universe, the Illuminati, a group long accoiated with Area 51 conspiricies, oddly enough the Illuminati Black Ops Soldiers acutally prove to be far more deadly then the Alien Zombies, and in some ways a lot more frightening, especally since you never see what they actually look like beneath their featureless black masks.
Another interesting feature is that the game pays tribute to the real Area 51, all bet subitallly. The most obvious of these tirbutes is the name of the first level: Dreamland, which is a nickname for the actual Area 51, and the presence of an SR91 Aurora class spy plane, a plane allegedialy being developed at Area 51, during the player's decent into the base.
While the game offers some vast improvements over it's arcade counterparts, there are some flaws that may ultimatly turn gamers away from the game. The first of these, is that many enemies found in the arcade game are no longer present in this verson, and this leads to the second, and possibly worst aspect of the game, repetitive game play. All through out the game it's the same thing over and over, kill mutated security, hazmat, and science team members and Illuminati Black Ops soldiers, dispite the various levels of difficultly, this can actually grow very boaring after a long period of gaming.
Over all this verson of Area 51 could probably have become the definitive Area 51 Game, if not for it's repetitive gameplay. In the end, this game will appeal to fans of First Person Shooters, and the original Area 51 Arcade Games.