Ever since the demo was released about a year ago, I’ve been looking forward to this game. Midway promised us a tactical squad fps, with advanced commands and squad members with human-like intelligence. The demo provided us with plenty of target practice and and ends with cars flying in slow motion as a giant spore tower crashes into a building right in front of you. I had to replay the demo at least two more times just to experience that slow motion effect again. A slow-mo tactical squad shooter? It couldn’t go wrong. Or so I thought.

On the wrong side of the enemy lines in Iraq, captain Aaron Pierce and his squad are searching for possible weapons of mass destructions. After a serious firefight, the team arrives where the weapons are supposed to be hidden. Inside an underground facility, they find a large crystal, supposedly stolen from Area 51 and sold to Iraq. Despite being warned, private Logan Somers touches the crystal. Pierce faints, but gets dragged out in time before the team seals the door for contamination purposes. Somers gets trapped inside, and the team declares him dead when they return. Three years later, the squad is sent out to find out what’s going on in the city of Rachel. On they way, they discover several enemies that seem to be mutated humans. The squad has to plunge through the lines of an unknown enemy to discover the truth behind the mutation.

The game starts off as a very simple and plain fps. You will find the enemies easy to shoot, the ammunation easy to find and the explosive barrels easy to spot. The game features a typical regenerative health bar system. At all times, you have the ability to order your squad mates around to do things. Actually, you there’s a remarkably few things you can do. The ‘advanced squad commands’ Midway promised consists of pressing a button on a door and watch as your teammates kick the door open. This is something you can’t do yourself and, since the game is so horribly linear, the whole game feels more like a movie than a game. A terrible movie.

Just as you get tired of popping human heads, hunchbacked midget mutants show up to give you a good smacking. This is where the game gets interesting again. If the firefights won’t get you interested, then the story and dialogues will, although the story is pretty classic. The goverment decided to mutate their own army, then the army gets out of control, and you’re sent in to clean up their mess. Actually, the story takes a major twists somewhere down the road, but I’m not going to spoil anything. And the road is pretty much covered with enemies, so you won’t have any time to think about the story.

Graphically, the game doesn’t stand out, save for SOME character designs. The level design has it’s moments, but feels very flat and uninteresting compared to other games using the Unreal 3 engine (*cough* Gears of War). One thing they seem to be very proud of is that the rain interacts with your gun, making small annoying splashes. There are quite a few graphical bugs that you will easilly spot right away. There are a lot of bugs in general as well.

Let’s take a look at the good parts. As I mentioned above, the slow-mo scene in Rachel is what made me interested in Blacksite. Sadly, these parts are the best parts of the game. As you squeeze the trigger and slowly approach the giant worm-like organism that just made a mess out of the buldings in front of you while dodging flying cars, you can’t help but feeling sorry for this ruined game. Typically, the slow-mo effect only happens three times through the game. Certain parts in the game are quite hard if you’re ambushed by enough enemies. The worm boss on the bridge is also very stunning graphically, but it still feels very, very scripted.

The single player campaign consists of only five levels, and you can easilly beat the whole thing in less than 10 hours. One would expect a massive amount of types of enemies and weapons to make up for the short gameplay. I can sadly announce that they failed at that as well. You will only find six weapons in the game - including the handgun! And they even replaced the shotgun with some kind of fancy alien-based super shooter! Blasphemy! In-game, you will only face about six or seven types of enemies, but they all have their own abilities and skills, which is a plus of course.

When the game is as linear as it is, it allows the creators to throw in more cinematic features and explosive events. This will quickly get very tiring and annoying, and it will feel like you’re no longer in control. As you’re the one triggering all the events, sending your squadmates first won’t help. As the game progresses, you will easilly spot these triggers. It’s a shame you can’t do anything about it, though. Hell, even the driving part near the end of the game feels linear and scripted.

The multiplayer mode features the standard Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag mode, as well as the unique Human vs. Reborn and Siege modes. The multiplayer feels pretty much exactly like a game of Quake, except it’s slower. Also, the lack of weapons really is no fun online.

In conclusion, Blacksite is THE stereotype of a classic fps. The outdated gameplay, lack of weapons and the presence of major bugs gives you the feeling that the game is only half done. It had great potential to be something big, but I guess you couldn’t except such a game from Midway. The fairly good multiplayer will keep you entertained for a few hours if the single player campaign fails to do so, but you will soon find yourself switching discs. One can only hope that the planned sequel will be far better.