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RealGamer :: PlayStation 3 :: Reviews :: BlackSite Review

BlackSite Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 25th March 2008

BlackSite Score:

5 Poor

Blacksite was released sometime ago for the Xbox 360 and didn’t really impress many people. The PlayStation 3 version of the game sadly is probably going to be received with a slightly less enthusiastic response.

Blacksite starts off in Iraq with you as a member of a small Delta Force squad searching for WMD. During your search you infiltrate an underground bunker where you encounter strange mutated humans. A result of chemical warfare! As you progress deeper you come across a strange artefact, suddenly all hell breaks loose and you are attacked by strange creatures, here you lose one of the members of your team Somers. After making your escape from the bunker, the game takes you forward two years to Nevada. An extremist militia has seized the abandoned Area 51, home to some very sensitive experiments however, things aren’t what they appear and you soon discover the militia are in fact KIA and MIA US troops who have been “reborn” and that all the trouble is the result of a black ops experiment gone haywire.

In an already very crowded genre, first person shooters have to not only get things right but do what they do to an exceptional standard and unfortunately Blacksite doesn’t, the game feels very mediocre and is let down badly by a series of faults.

Blacksite is a rather simple affair! The game only features a single player campaign mode and a multiplayer versus mode. The games campaign is fairly short and you should be able to beat the game in a disappointing five hours, although you probably won’t be that fussed it’s over so soon, as much as the game tries to pull you in with its conspiracy fuelled storyline it fails and you simply feel like you’re going around shooting enemies for the sheer hell of it.

When moving through the levels you have a very restricted path to follow, yes I know in most games you have to follow a set path but when a games set in an open environment you would expect to be able to deviate a little from the path and you can’t do this in Blacksite which gives the games action a very scripted feeling.

As you move through the games environment there are numerous objects for you to take cover behind, however, these are often destructible. So if you come under heavy fire you may soon find your cover has gone so staying in one place too long is never a good idea.

One of the reasons the games campaign doesn’t last long is due to the simple enemy AI. They will take cover and advance on your position and throw grenades at you however they are ultimately stupid. They will often run directly into your line of fire and that’s not all. You will also find it very easy to sneak up behind them as they seem to like looking in the opposite direction.

From time to time you will have to take part in boss battles. These are an extremely simple affair you only have to hit a specific spot on the giant sized enemy once or twice in order to take them down!

Weapons wise the game is rather limited. Throughout the whole campaign I think I used five different weapons in total and that’s including the standard assault rifle and pistol you start with. Adding to the frustration I finally get my hands on a cool plasma rifle, when the next level loaded my inventory had been reset to the default weapons.

As it’s now come to be a new standard to have vehicle sequences in first person shooter, Blacksite is no different. The games features some extensive vehicle based action sometimes with you at the helm and sometimes with you manning the gunners position. The vehicle sequences are often broken up with some short shooter action which is a welcome relief as the vehicle action can be a little bland as you simply drive through an environment from point to point encountering minimal enemy resistance.

Blacksite also seems to have some technical problems as the game seems to be constantly jerky especially in earlier levels. Loading times are also very long in between levels and on a couple of occasions the game froze up when loading.

As mentioned earlier Blacksite also features a versus multiplayer mode, this comes with the usual game types you would expect to find in any First person shooter, Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the flag and a game type called Abduction. In Abduction a random player takes on the role of a reborn, and must kill human players in order to gain team mates scoring points for kills as you go. Once all human players have been killed the sequence starts over until time runs out.

Maps in the games multiplayer mode are pretty small which means you don’t have to run around looking for other players constantly, and unlike in the single player campaign there are a number of power-ups which can be collected. These include armour, a stealth generator and a damage multiplier. The games multiplayer mode also seems to run well, with no lag however I did find it difficult to actually find games to play in.

Visually Blacksite isn’t very impressive, environments are bland looking and vehicles seem to look a little out of proportion. Character models are ok but seem to have a strange blue-white halo around them, which makes it look like they’ve being superimposed into the games environment.

Sound in the game for the most part is ok, music is a little limited and starts up when action starts but it doesn’t seem to fit into the game well. Weapons fire and explosions are probably the highlight of the games sound, voice acting is ok but has long pauses in between characters lines and a lack of feeling in what’s being said.

Overall Blacksite fails to standout from other FPS, its too easy, too short and in all honesty hard to recommend as there are far better games out there that offer a lot more of a rewarding playing experience!