The U.S Army has received a distress signal from Area 51 where a viral outbreak has shut down the research facility and the automated quarantine procedures have locked scientific and military personnel inside. A small special force unit led by specialist Ethan Cole of the HAZMAT Division (voiced by David Duchovny) is sent in to investigate. As Cole players will try and discover the secret behind the outbreak, and the truth behind Area 51 (and even other myths such as the faked lunar landing). The game, in terms of story, is filled with a great amount of twists and turns throughout to keep things interesting.

This all sounds promising right? I’d say so. Unfortunately, though this had potential to be great, the story is little more than a thrown together mess. The story seems to wander off when it shouldn’t, having very little focus (kinda like this review! Oh! Burn on myself!). David Duchovny doesn’t help the fact, considering he does a horrendous job of voice-acting. It’s a shame to, considering you hear him talking more than double the amount you hear everyone else in the game put together (did that make sense?). I suppose being a famous celebrity and all, they didn’t want to question him, it sounded as if someone was putting a gun to his head forcing him to do it. You can tell he put little effort into his character.

The rest of the audio is fantastic. The sound effects are spot-on and the music helps retain the games tense feel. The rest of the voice-actors, though also sub par, at least get the job done (I still can’t get over how bad of a job Duchovny does in portraying Ethan Cole).

Area 51’s visuals are top-notch. The character and enemy models are pitch-perfect and the environments are varied and truly gorgeous. The animations and textures are slick as well. The game also features several CGI cut-scenes that are breath-taking to say the least. I’m pretty sure that of all the games I’ve played in the past I’ve never seen cut-scenes that even come close to rivaling these. The only flaw in the graphics department is that the lighting effects aren’t as great as Xbox gamers may be accustomed to.

In its core, Area 51 is a traditional go here shoot this game. Fortunately, its all done extremely well. As with nearly every other FPS ever made, you will spend the majority of the game getting to a certain area, and killing everyone, and everything that opposes you. Gratefully, as I went through these parts of the game, I never once found myself getting bored. This is due in no small part to the fantastic environments.

The game also features some massive battles that will place you up against possible dozens of enemies. Some of these battles you will fight traditionally, but some of the funnest battles will have you manning a “plasma rocket” turret. These battles tend to be very easy, but yet excruciatingly fun. Battles always tend to end perfectly, stopping at its peak right before the battles start becoming monotonous. Fire fights are always intense, exciting, and fun as hell! Even when theres dozens of enemies and tons of action going on screen, I can’t remember the frame rate having any type of noticeable drop.

Breaking up all of these battles are various other gameplay elements (none of which are done extremely well, but they do help to break up the overall gameplay.) One of these failed elements is the scanner. The scanner is treated as a weapon, and you select it by going through your weapons. It even has a flashlight on it, and can be used for melee.

I will say that this is a great idea, and had a lot of potential, but isn’t done necessarily well. For the most part, you really can only scan things that they allow you to do, and most are mandatory anyway. If you try scanning something that is not alot (which is about 99.3% of objects in the game), you will get an air sample, telling you the oxygen, nitrogen, etc of the air. Though this is rather nifty at first, the fun does quickly wear off.