Bal is right. It's cool. But it hurts the fingers... 

Having just played through Quake 4, which was released six months after Area 51 in 2005, it'll be easy to draw comparisons in that both themes are modern base.

Quake 4 received it's share of undue criticism, with an aggregate score of 81% on gamerankings.com. Area 51, meanwhile, scored an aggregate of 78% so only marginally behind, but both IGN and Gamespot both rated Area 51 as better than Quake 4.

Nevertheless, it seems to be a fairly obscure title on the PC despite many positive reviews. I asy obscure, because it was eventually released for free (with advertising). But that version crashed on install for me, and I couldn't find a second-hand version to purchase. Even then it took two torrent versions before I finally got a working copy.

The PS2 version was thought to be the best FPS ever at the time, although that's not saying much. This led me to go in expecting a gem of a game. Unfortunately, my expectations were not met.

From the design perspective; both the power of the engine and the level design, Quake 4 eats Area 51 for breakfast. Some of the earlier Area 51 levels look quite bland. Since the entire game takes place in an under Area 51, I guess the designers were trying to maintain some realism in the design. With realism comes bland, futuristic walls and textures. Later in the game levels start to get more variety with the peak being the alien world and UFO ships. However, while the engine is capable of something great, the level design doesn't ever reach awe-inspiring. Good, but not great.

The mess of a story was a bit hard to understand. Near the end of the game I wasn't sure if I was still in Area 51, the alien world, or who the bad guy even was! David Duchovny's monotone mumbling didn't help at all. He really should stick to acting. And Marilyn Manson was a waste of money; I could have voiced the characters better. At the end of the day, you won't be playing Area 51 for it's story anyway. Your playing for the action...

Action which was fairly fun and fast all the way through. The dual-weilding of weapons is fantastic and doubles your fire-power. Having two shotguns go off in quick succession, blowing your enemies away, was a great feeling. However when your down to just one weapon at a time, they feel a bit weak. Unfortunately, it took me most of the game before I realised that the BBG, a powerful gun in it's own right, is self-regenerating.

Along with this, you get the half-man/half-mutant idea also done in Quake 4, where you can transform into mutant and use it's abilities. Every kill you make while in mutant-mode gives you health back. Area 51 definitely does this idea better than Quake 4 and makes it mean something with the gameplay. In Quake 4 you wouldn't know the difference.

Provided you don't overuse the BBG, Area 51 is still quite a challenging game.

Now to the cons: the biggest problem with Area 51 is, firstly, no quicksave. You're forced to use 1-3 checkpoints through each level. Fortunately they're usually in useful places so you don't have to do much replaying, but I still loathe the idea of no quicksave in a fast paced FPS. Perhaps developers think if your forced to replay much of the game then it'll extend the overall playtime. Even so, it's still only barely a 10 hour game.

And secondly, the game would come to a crashing halt at the end of almost every level for me (with a total of 18 levels). With no quicksave, i'd have to replay from the previous checkpoint only for it to crash again. I was forced to use someone elses saved games in order to load each level. However it wasn't such a big deal compared to most games, because your ammo and health in Area 51 are often 100% anyway.

So overall, Area 51 is definitely a decent game to play alongside the best of 2005. Just don't expect anything groundbreaking. 

How do the SMB leaderboards work? Or how to make sense of them - 0, 100, 101 and so on. And why are you so good.

And why did MS drop gameport support in Win7... 

Managed to get my hands on this on Steam when it finally became available to UK/EU and finished it last night. Keeping it brief, it was an amazing and enjoyable game. It's like it took many elements from various other games and combined them into a solid title, while having its own distinguished feel. Combat felt right and the visuals have a nice presentation.

Still need to gather my thoughts however, considered giving it a full review while I'm still inspired for it. Hmm. 

I have no idea how that leaderboard works, it doesn't show up like that in-game... 

is it as good as System Shock? 

Need for Speed - is it as good as Tetris? 

 

it isn't. but the same team? 

Bioshock 1
Just Cause 2
Left for Dead 2
Half Life 2 Episode Two

from the Steam Sale later tongiht, any other recommendations for good bargains? 

What do you not have?

Just Cause 2 is similar to Red Faction: Guerilla, which is a ton of fun if you have the physics card to support it (or good dx10 card.) I would say if you are interested and it's ~$10 or less then pick it up! 

I dont have too much from 2005 onwards.

Will look into Red Faction. 

looking for $10 or less games at the moment. 

for $15 looks like one of the better specials today, even if you're just interested in the SP. It's short but ultra polished and really fun IMHO. 

actually I'll list post 2005 games I have :

The Witcher EE
Call of Duty MW
Call of Duty MW2
Call of Duty WoW
Crysis
Crysis Warhead
Stalker SoC

Question: If I get L4D2, is there any point in getting L4D1? 

I prefer L4D2 - more weapons, better effects, much better gore. But if you like the game and want more then get L4D1 too. They are both great. 

There's a pack of both games I think - you lose money buying L4D1 alone now.

Well reccomend it as well, you also get a lot of additional content in the form of free DLC and the game is maintained - very polished gameplay. 

If it's on sale for $5, grab it. The question whether to get both became more valid when they ported the first L4D campaign to L4D2, so the first game is kind of reduced to three individual campaigns.

Also be sure not to get the Low Violence versions if you're buying from Australia!!! 

at the moment. Grabbed 2, will consider grabbing 1 before sale ends.

negke, cant seem to avoid the low-violence versions for Aus (no R rating for games) but have googled a couple of hacks which supposedly work. 

You need to have someone gift it to you. Hope the hacks work. 

 

Not a very good game IMO. Very poor plot, game dynamics are "blow up a building and grab these random pieces of metal as 'salvage'".

I think they were aiming at 9-11 y/o boys with that game. 

The main game I haven't played, that's true. But just running around demolishing shit is a blast. 

Installed, played and completed today. Fun game, lovely art and level design and good parkour mechanics. I also loved sliding along the floor to pick up a gun and firing it an enemy during the later stages, really made gunfights more interesting.

Though three specicif spots really annoyed the hell out of me as they didn't seem to 'work' as intended. Example, during the last segment of the Jack-knife level. There were three pipes I had to jump between, but Faith would never jump for the last one as she should do causing a painful death. Did this everytime, and only got lucky when she decided to 'glitch' onto the bottom and managed to climb up. The other two problem areas were also similar unresponsive situations, one I succeeded by screwing up with a double 180 key tap. Ironic. 

Mass Effects 1 + 2 on sale on Steam for $10.00 each. If you haven't picked these up, pick them up, they are amazing. I beat Mass Effect 2 basically in a weekend, this game was so damn good. Remember it is fundamentally an RPG and secondarily a shooter, but man were these games good.