The first-person shooter genre will continue to be strong so long as there are ugly things to shoot, and few games have offered up as many hideous targets as the arcade classic, Area 51. But rather than clinging to its quarter-eating, light-gun roots, Area 51 has taken its base premise—shooting mutants in Nevada—and borrowed heavily from shooters like Halo, Doom 3 and Metroid Prime to form a full-fledged, if somewhat unoriginal, action-adventure in the infamous, conspiracy-laden installation.
David Duchovny appropriately lends his voice as Hazmat officer Ethan Cole, uncovering the base's darkest secrets and putting hordes of infected mutants out of their misery. But the frantic early sections in the game eventually give way to slow corridor crawls with uglies predictably jumping out from behind corners. The repetition holds the game back from true greatness, though you'll never be as bored as Duchovny sounds.
MIDNIGHT CLUB 3: DUB EDITION (E10+) (4 stars)
Rockstar
PlayStation 2, Xbox
Street racing is about breaking laws, and in Midnight Club 3, that spirit extends to the laws of physics, as well. In arcade racer fashion, this title lets you take ridiculous jumps at absurd speeds without any regard for realism. There isn't even a set track. You simply drive from point A to point B, and in between, anything goes. Just don't get lost. That badass feeling fades pretty fast when you're reversing out of a dead end.
HAUNTING GROUND (M) (2 stars)
Capcom
PlayStation 2
Imagine trying to solve the most irritating puzzle in an old Resident Evil game. Imagine you're attacked mid-puzzle by not a stumbling zombie, but a villain who's pretty spry for a big, fat guy. Imagine there are no guns, so you have to run for several minutes to escape. Imagine your map is incomprehensible, so it takes you 20 minutes to backtrack to the puzzle. Imagine what you could do with the 40 bucks you didn't spend on Haunting Ground.
HOT SHOTS GOLF: OPEN TEE (E10+) (4.5 stars)
Sony Computer Entertainment
PlayStation Portable
If you already have a PSP, chances are you're frequently asked about it whenever you play in public. And since pausing your game to answer these questions is certainly getting irritating, you should try Hot Shots Golf. Its step-by-step play lends itself particularly well to portable gaming. Example: long drive onto fairway. "Yeah, it's the new PSP"; Careful shot onto the green. "Yeah, it also plays movies." One short putt into the hole. "About $250." That's a birdie!
Matthew Scott Hunter has been known to mumble, "Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start" in his sleep. E-mail him at
[email protected].