Midway Austin’s alien-bashing FPS is due for release on PS3 on 14th September. A follow up to their excellent PS2 title Area 51, you are in charge of a special ops team sent to the sleepy Nevada town of Rachel (near to the infamous Area 51) in response to some sort of ‘incident’. On arrival, of course, you find all manner of genetic experiments and human-robot hybrids on the rampage, tearing up gas stations and smashing up diners.
Although it’s not a squad-based shooter as such, you can direct other team members to move, attack, kick down doors etc, and their morale is heavily dependent on how well you’re playing. If you’re terminating with extreme prejudice, pulling off headshots and dealing death like the devil’s own croupier, your squad will also up their game. If you’re titting around and getting shot up left, right and centre, your compadres tend to perform just as badly. A clever touch, which alongside impressive enemy AI makes for smart, realistic combat.
There are plenty of weapons at your disposal, including the cannons on gunships – useful against the bigger mutants. Thanks to the Unreal 3 engine, the physics are hyper-realistic and the graphics are lovely, with a good eye for terrain and weather detail. Have a look at these screenshots. We think it’s a quiet classic in the making.
Some more screens for you:
1st looks sweet
Comment by lakaihigh — Jul 27, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
Anyone know what engine this uses? Is this Unreal3 based? or something else?
Comment by Mark Gillespie — Jul 27, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
looks good!
Hot babe
Comment by Whazpoppin? — Jul 27, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
it says in the comments with the screen it is unreal 3 based! looking awesome!
Comment by Ben W — Jul 27, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
Mark - “Thanks to the Unreal 3 engine, the physics are hyper-realistic and the graphics are lovely”.
Looks great!
Comment by Tom Eccles — Jul 27, 2007 @ 8:37 pm
http://bhnetwork.blogspot.com/
This game is going to get crushed on the 360 because it comes out on the same day as halo 3, i played the demo the games kind of meh, at least when i played it there was no cover system but your teammates could take cover and some weird glitches but the game does look buiteful.
Comment by [URL=http://bhnetwork.blogspot.com/[/URL] — Jul 27, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
Oh and i thing the psf version will do alot better in terms of sales i cant beleave there going to sell this on the same day as halo 3, DUMB.
Comment by [URL=http://bhnetwork.blogspot.com[/URL] — Jul 27, 2007 @ 9:41 pm
So , the Unreal Engine 3 is working on PS3, great news for many developers i think
Comment by Fangelico — Jul 28, 2007 @ 1:35 am
I’ve checked the demo on Xbox 360 and I don’t remember me seeing the Unreal Technology logo. mmmmm
Comment by Roger — Jul 28, 2007 @ 9:30 am
Can’t wait for this game. I loved Area 51 on the ps2. All I wish is that sony add the original area 51 game to the PS3 backward compatible list.
Comment by Mr Pickle — Jul 28, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
oh good ANOTHER shooter
Comment by Carl — Jul 28, 2007 @ 4:32 pm
I wish they would give there opinion on how the PS3 version plays, and not just say it looks great.
I played the 360 demo and it had serious framerate issues but did look good.
As for the Unreal 3 question, I can’t remember seeing that, but then maybe I wasn’t paying attention at the time.
Looks like it has promise, but it is yet another FPS game. I think people are going to get really sick and tired of FPS games soon, and just end up buying a Wii for party games instead.
Comment by Cape — Jul 28, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
Lol. All game on 360 has framerate issues..
well,either that or very slow pace liek in GeoW.
And there is always talk about bricked xbox when new game comes out. Poor litte xbox cant handle the physical demand of new game and breaks down.
buying an xbox is like a lottery, except the only thing you win is a broken xbox 1/3 of the time.
Comment by Whazpoppin? — Jul 29, 2007 @ 12:46 am
for the xbox360 it might be yet another FPS, but on the PS3 there aren’t that many.
it’s mainly because the xbox360 still is America only, and the PS3 has way more European/asian stuff coming.
the month September is going to kick the 360’s behind hard
Comment by stewiemark — Jul 29, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
grafics do look sweet, I just do hope there wont be serious frame-rate issues like mentioned.
Comment by konnichi — Jul 29, 2007 @ 6:20 pm
The big alien is awesome.
Comment by Benny — Jul 29, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
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Comment by mozrzbffvy — Jul 29, 2007 @ 10:03 pm
Looks pretty good but definetly not up to Halo 3 standards.
Comment by Sam Jamieson — Jul 30, 2007 @ 9:17 am
Is this going to be yet another case of the Xbox 360 version running more smoothly and having better graphics? Because I’m starting to feel a bit of a mug for having bought a more expensive, yet seemingly less sophisticated games console.
Comment by Mothra — Jul 30, 2007 @ 10:04 am
I wouldn’t trade my PS3 for an xbox NO WAY! But i am getting nervous about current releases and lazy devs who just port the games to PS3 without tapping the ps3’s power.
I hope this isn’t going to be a stupid 360 port.
Comment by Anthony — Jul 30, 2007 @ 1:55 pm
To Mothra: At E3 (I think), there was an announcement that Sony was working very closely with Epic to optimize the Unreal engine for the PS3. That’s the reason why some games play worse on the PS3, because there’s a lot that use the Unreal engine. With Sony’s engineers helping Epic get the Unreal engine into shape, we’ll see a greater improvement in that area. With the cell processor, hopefully that will mean that we can get MORE than the 360 can performance-wise.
All of that said, I think BlackSite looks like a same-old, same-old FPS. Even if the PS3 doesn’t have a lot of FPSs, I’ve played games like this for *yawn* years.
Comment by Brian — Jul 30, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
@Brian: Yeah, I’m aware that Sony have finally pulled their finger (and presumably their chequebook) out and started helping Epic to enhance the Unreal 3 engine for PS3. What I’m not sure about is how late into a game’s development this improved engine can be used? And when might we start seeing games that perform at least as well as their Xbox 360 counterparts?
Comment by Mothra — Jul 31, 2007 @ 10:14 am
Played the demo on XBL…generic crap and pretty darned awful…go for Stranglehold featured in the article above this…it’ll be much better…Max payne stylee action is always going to work..
But yea, maybe the demo on XBL not being up to much is the fact it doesn’t have the power of cell…or something…i have a bit of straw in my hand should you need to clutch it..
Comment by Basil Brush — Jul 31, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
Man I can’t beleive how good this game looks.
Comment by Tommi — Jul 31, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
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