BlackSite: Area 51 Xbox 360
Metascore
62 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 48 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 48
  2. Mixed: 35 out of 48
  3. Negative: 3 out of 48
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  1. Edge Magazine
    40
    Blacksite is a thoroughly unexceptional title for which unrealistic promises were made, and one that is further let down by a wide assortment of bugs and design issues. [Jan 2008, p.83]
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  2. Game Revolution
    25
    Five to six hours in and Blacksite curls up and expires, ending mercifully an experience that not even an alien would care to dissect.
  3. NTSC-uk
    20
    Instead of creating the game they promised themselves in the design documents, the end result is a spaceship sized wreck of catastrophic proportions and with very little redeeming qualities to prevent it from being placed at the very bottom of the bargain bin where it belongs.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.1 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 52 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 25
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 25
  3. Negative: 7 out of 25
  1. G.S.
    10
    Sometimes you just want an arcade shooter, lots of enemies to kill with beautiful backgrounds.
  2. sinadoom
    5
    Here are some questions to consider. Have you played Gears of War and thought it would work well if it was a military First Person Shooter instead? Do you like mediocrity? Can you settle for average? Can you cope with bad programming? Have you played every shooter you can think of and still want more, regardless of quality? Blacksite is the game you're looking for. Imagine Battlefield 3's campaign on a (VERY) tight budget, much lower quality and generally worse in every way. Blacksite is not a bad game, but not one that you would buy unless you have no alternatives. Graphics are not horrible but the lighting is practically non-existent and in desperate need of about 32x anti-aliasing. It runs on Unreal Engine 3 and is one of the more dated games. You can tell it's old from the old-school levels (very simple, walk and shoot), dumb AI and an average cliche modern American war action story. Achievements aren't good either. The only thing that's really impressed me is the shooting mechanics. Finally, a game where you can play purely by hip-firing, but with an ADS option as well. It kinda reminds me of Prey, but instead of making obvious its old-school mechanics it tries to make itself look better than it is. Controls are OK but could be better; certainly much better than some games. What really lets it down is how it FEELS low budget due to the medieval programming. Not so much glitchy/buggy, but when you play it you feel like it's still in the development stage, and that the levels aren't properly finished. Some games try to cover up lazy design subtly. This game makes no such efforts. It feels scripted and coded by amateurs with little concern over user experience; whereas other games flow much more smoothly with fewer faults. If you get this game, you should expect nothing more than a budget shooter.… Full Review »
  3. TheSquirrel
    3
    If half-Baked could be an artform, Area 51 would be a Picasso. There are pieces of a good game here, but it got put together all wrong. I spent most of playthrough laughing, either at one of the worst assembled story lines EVER, or at the various very entertaining glitches. How this got past Beta testing is beyond me. It's as if they designed seven differnet games, and then just through them together and had a programmer write a plot. Midway does Half-Baked Right!… Full Review »
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