The American government is satirized in "BlackSite: Area 51." This fun shooting-adventure game mocks the unpopularity of the president and the Iraq war. There's even a nod to Hurricane Katrina. Politics aside, Midway has delivered an entertaining escapade.
Grade: A
(Reviewed by Doug Elfman for Boston Herald on November 3, 2007; the review is based on the Xbox 360 version)
Derik Moore of Gaming Rebellion Writes: "Welcome to another Gaming For Official Use Only. I have wanted to cover this topic for a long time, but I really couldn’t decide on which Area 51 game I would cover. There’s the classic light gun arcade game from the 1990’s, and a fairly forgotten FPS reboot from the 2000’s. I spent too much time trying to figure out which I would cover until it hit me: I don’t have to choose. I’ll cover both before going on to probably the most well known conspiracy theory in mainstream media. Let’s start with the awesome light gun game."
EB's Nat Smyth writes, "Blacksite Area 51 piqued my curiosity when I was a new Xbox 360 owner in 2007, and I had seen it on the shelf too many times in visits to my local Gamestop to pass it up, so I finally bought it. What I got when I played it was a dull, lifeless, and somewhat ugly looking first person shooter that didn’t hold up at all next to the recently released Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare."
Justin from TMSGamer is back for the third, and final part of his article about the worst games he has played on this generation. Remember, these are games only he has played.
The Herald shouldn't do game reviews. They should stick to Bush bashing. That was terrible.
"mocks the unpopularity of the president and the Iraq war."
I get the Bush mocking part but what about Iraq war.
Anyway, Great find. This looks like a cool game but it has no chance this month with all the heavyhitters coming out as well as the ones that are already here.
If it's ok to shoot russians in COD4 and make satirizing ads about other countries leaders like Valdimir Putin, Kim jong il and Fidel Castro(really not sure if he fits in with the aforementioned), it should be ok for games to make satire out of the Bush administrations politics as well.
It's pretty innocent if you ask me. The whole idea behind those COD4 ads seem to be to drag "communism" through the mud. Kinda funny, cause if you've read anything about socialism and it's values you would know that dictatorship is as far from it you can get. Too bad media has helped portray it as evil for so many years. Putin and Jong Il and Castro are dictators, not socialists.
@MK_Red - Bush (Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz) is the force behind the war in Iraq, that's probably why they touch upon it in the game.
cool game.
the ultra liberal Boston Herald gave the game an "A" because the story bashed President Bush and the United States. Right.... Perhaps they should have, you know, mentioned how the game actually plays, graphics, etc.
Hey game designers, please keep politics out of our games or I won't buy it. Thank you.