Graphical Groom Lake...
Graphically, Area 51 delivers what’s to be expected from a shooter nowadays. It doesn’t break any new ground but at the same time isn’t actually bad in any area. Explosions look like you’d expect them to, characters are well animated and detailed and just about everything you’d expect from a game of this ilk is here… The environments are nicely detailed and happily lack the over attention they suffered in Doom 3 and yes, you can actually see where you’re going most of the time. When you can’t you have a flashlight you can use, just like in Half Life 2. Though corridor and room based, there’s a fair amount of variety in here but after a while it does start to feel a touch samey, but you are underground after all.
That said, the mutated mode does offer a nice change, as your view changes to a Predator style heat signature view with everything else in whites and yellows and sort of fuzzed around the edges. This is very handy for spotting hidden enemies, be they mutants or Illuminati soldiers. It’s a bit of a shock the first time you mutate, especially if you play in a darkened room like I do as the screen becomes incredibly bright compared to it’s usual more muted colours. Still, it makes a refreshing change from the standard greys and browns you see here and in pretty much every other corridor and room based shooter on the market. I wouldn’t say the graphics are workmanlike as that would imply that they just did the job needed… I suppose the best way is to say that they’re competent… They do the job nicely but lack that little flourish to make them stand out.
Sound is very much the same as the graphics, to be honest. For once though, it looks like a developer has managed to get the right balance between ambient sounds, sound effects and vocals as I found myself not having to change anything. Well, anything except turning off the music which is a rather annoying techno beat style stuff that isn’t worth listening too.
Speaking of sounds, we’ve got some notable names doing some of the voice-over work here with Mr X-Files himself, David Duchovny narrating your exploits. And, thanks to Mr Duchovny, I’ve now discovered why I switched off the X-Files after series three… It’s his voice that does it, the man sounds like he’s either just woken up after a night on the sauce or he’s just been to the dentist for root canal work and can only drawl his way through the script. Be honest, if you’d just seen your mates torn asunder by hideous monsters with more fangs than a fangy thing in fangland, wouldn’t you get a touch excited? Apparently not if you’re David Duchovny who sounds like he’s getting ready to bed down for the night.
To be fair, the other voice actors of note, Marilyn Manson and Powers Boothe, both do little better. Boothe pops up over the radio from time to time and could easily have been any other nondescript actor and they could have made so much more of Manson… Even if you’re a fan of any of these guys, they certainly don’t put in enough of a performance or contribution to make it worth buying for their sake alone.