There has been mixed reviews about Midway’s latest FPS Area 51. Some hold this game as just another shooter while others go as far as claiming this is the next Halo. Want the truth? The truth may be harder to uncover and the road to it certainly isn’t without its share of conspiracies add that to a montage of people and creatures out to kill you in more ways than bullets can. According to the box, the U.S. Army has received a distressed call from; you’ve guessed it, Area 51 where a viral outbreak has forced the facility to shut down and a quarantine to be called. You play the part of Ethan Cole, a specialist in a HAZMAT team who has been sent in to investigate the mess. Easier said than done, right?

The opening movie is just great. It really sets you up to expect big aliens, many explosions and some close quarter encounters similar to Doom 3. The box art certainly leaves you to expect many of this plus some mystery. The game pits you right in to start playing with a quick briefing and only a few minutes with your trusty pistol to try to get used to the controls. Not something new as many FPS games now throw you right in on the action. Chit chat? No time for that, give me my gun and some aliens to shoot at!

After that initial few minutes of getting briefly acquainted with the pistol and the usual objective speech, you are sent to kill some sort of mutated creature that had escaped. This is mainly just practice so you can get out of the Halo control mindset such as ‘B’ is not a melee attack but rather a grenade throw. Frustrating at first since I had just stopped playing Halo 2, but after a few minutes with the game it was all second nature. You are first a part of a four-man team in essentially an improvised recon mission that turns into a shooting frenzy. However, the objectives are always clear and the witty remarks of some of your team mates remind you what you have to do with a snicker; letting you relax from an otherwise tense game play. Of course, as time goes on, you loose your team and find yourself alone against a whole lot of aliens – thanks a lot guys! The game plays like an FPS, looks like a movie, and feels like a good fiction novel.

The cut scenes are great and really add to the game. Each cut scene has some sort of reflection on what just happened and David Duchovny, the voice of Ethan Cole, offers his own thoughts of what is going on, feeling, and poses some intriguing questions. To add to this element, the voice of Marlyn Manson gives a creepy yet mysterious life to his character of Edgar as the story progresses while Powers Booth barks orders as Major Douglas Bridges. These three big names offer something distinct to each of their characters that really get you involved. Thanks to these cut scenes the game never felt boring or repetitive. These cut scenes were so great that sometimes you have to stop and wonder if you are playing a game or watching a movie unfold right in front of you. Reminiscing of those long hours spent when playing the first Halo, I found myself not wanting to put it down.

This game’s HD resolution is set at 480p and surely takes advantage of every single pixel and every clock cycle. To really enjoy the graphics, turn off the lights in the room and fire up your HDTV. Area 51 also takes advantage of lighting. Much like Doom 3, there are many times where it is pitch dark and can’t see a thing. However, unlike Doom 3, you CAN hold a gun and light up your surroundings. Not that simple though. The flashlight is attached to your gun, so that means every time you reload your weapon of choice, you have to lift the muzzle and go blind for a couple of seconds. Same thing is true during melee attacks. Whenever you try to hit a creature in the dark it’s a “I hope I got him” feeling. The graphics really are a piece of eye-candy. That’s not even counting the graphics during the cut scenes or the opening movie. As mentioned before, you will have a hard time convincing yourself it’s a game and not a summer blockbuster. However, as beautiful as the graphics are, they are not without their flaws. There were times when I noticed a suspended body here or there. Not that big of a deal though sense the fast paced action packed game gives you little time to dwell on why that lifeless body is just hanging there. Who knows, maybe it was on purpose; after all it is an alien game.

To really take advantage of Area 51’s audio effects, use a good surround sound system. Although a nice pair of speakers will do a decent job; the audio doesn’t come close as a good 5.1 set up. This element really does a great job of getting you even more into the game as you hear creatures come closer to you. Get ready to be hearing the sound of gun fire and many explosions as barrels catch on fire, grenades explode, and various other things explode – including marines.

As with most first person shooter games out today, Area 51 includes a Multiplayer mode. This mode includes the typical death match, team death match, capture the flag, and a not so typical infection mode. In the infection game play, one player is infected with the virus and tries to infect his opponents while the human players try to stay clean. Area 51 includes 17 maps and supports 2-16 players. The maps are dynamically scalable, which means that the map size depends on the total amount of players in the game. This adds to its replay factor, however with other multiplayer shooters in your collection, this doesn’t really add much to replay ability.

As a single player game, this game is great and sure to deliver many hours of entertaining game play. Its ability to immerse you into the game will certainly be blamed for many hours of sleep lost as well as some meals skipped. As a multiplayer game, this game is not much of a contender to other shooters such as Unreal or Halo. So is this the next Halo? Game certainly has potential, but it lacks a certain something to give it that prestige title. The truth may never be revealed, but this game certainly gives you something to get your imagination running wild, just remember: The Truth is Out There.