Graphics: The visuals in Blacksite are decent but not close to state-of-the-art, despite the use of Unreal Engine 3. Many scenes look washed out and lack vibrancy, looking almost monocolor in tone. Glitches abound, including occasional clipping and getting stuck in spots. Whenever I traversed a long stretch of road in a vehicle, there was always a break at a fixed point where everything would come to a stop before movement could continue. The incessant motion blur — which can’t be disabled — is the most distracting and worst I’ve ever seen in a computer game.

There are, however, some positive elements. Given that most of the action takes place in typical suburban settings, the surroundings are realistically depicted, right down to familiar-looking trailer parks and nacho and hot dog stands. And the giant worms that spring up from the ground are both terrifying and ominous. Also, the visual effects surrounding weapons fire are fine, except for a stock explosion associated with throwing grenades.

Interface: The controls involve typical mouse-keyboard first-person shooter assignments. However, in a very dysfunctional design decision, you can’t access the options menu to change mouse button or key assignments during gameplay. Also, annoyingly, to pick up weapon, you have to hold down a button an extended period of time.

The decent play screen involves a heads-up display showing squad morale, ammunition, grenades, objectives and incoming fire. But the menu screens lack the usual scope of user options. Rather than allowing players to save their progress wherever they wish, as is an expectation in PC shooters, Blacksite unfortunately uses console-like predetermined checkpoints. Unbelievably, to install the game, you have to have a whopping 15 gigabytes of free disk space — the largest requirement I’ve ever encountered in a PC game — with the code taking up two DVDs.

Gameplay: Blacksite is a first-person shooter for the twitch crowd, which likes a lot of frenzied action, rather than those who want a more cerebral play experience. At times, the action can be exciting, but it never gets too tense, because if your health goes down, you can just hide and watch it regenerate before re-entering the fray.

As has become a tradition in first-person shooters, Blacksite lets you jump into a few vehicles and engage in combat from that vantage point. For example, you get to drive a Humvee through a canyon and a helicopter across a combat zone, and often, you can command a gun turret and shoot your foes as you’re zooming along. A lot of the in-vehicle action is fun, although you’ll feel as though you’re in a rail shooter, where a lot of the movement and action are predetermined. In addition, the sensation of actually driving the vehicles is a bit unconvincing and the sorties on the ground are a bit prolonged.

Playing through from beginning to end, there could’ve been more content. Even exploring every nook and cranny at a leisurely pace wouldn’t take more than 15 hours. The final fight could’ve been a lot more challenging, too. There are over 40 hidden dossiers, but unlike similar extras in other first-person shooters, there’s little in these files that enhances the gameplay in any significant way.

Multiplayer: Blacksite has an online multiplayer mode supporting Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Abduction modes of gameplay. In Abduction mode, the game begins with one Reborn player, and then you try to kill the humans so they move to the Reborn side. If you play a human, then you try simply to stay alive. No cooperative gameplay is available, and unfortunately, there’s nothing distinctive or truly exciting about any of the modes included.

Sound FX: Like so many other aspects of Blacksite, the sound effects are adequate but not special in any way. At lease the sounds of the weapons and explosions are loud and jolting. As to the vocal effects, your character never says anything, and the comments barked by the other characters are at times mildly amusing. However, there’s too much mindless repetition in the dialog, such as when I was battling a huge monster and had to hear over and over again from my comrades, “Hit the parts that glow!” Other frequently repeated comments during combat (such as “Fire in the hole!”) are also irritating.

Music: The music score in Blacksite is exceptionally sparse, so much so that one could hardly characterize the game as having a soundtrack. Generic rousing music plays during battle scenes, but otherwise, there’s nothing but the sound effects. What little you hear is at least an appropriate full orchestral performance. One advantage here is that the score never distracts you from focusing on the action.

Intelligence: The artificial intelligence of your comrades is disappointing. If their morale is high, then they behave somewhat reasonably, but otherwise, they’re dolts. They’ll fearlessly run toward peril, not engaging in significant evasive maneuvers, and then perish quickly, providing you with little functionally effective combat support.

The enemy artificial intelligence is only slightly better. At its best, your foes sometimes take cover when you fire at them, but usually, you can mow them down like sitting ducks. This pattern is particularly noticeable when you’ve triggered a swarm of enemies you just have to mindlessly knock off one by one. Sometimes, even if you attack them at pointblank range from the rear, they don’t react. Although the boss monsters are far more powerful and far harder to kill than the respawned mutated soldiers, they don’t exhibit any greater artificial intelligence.

Difficulty: Blacksite has three difficulty settings: Threat Level Yellow (easy); Threat Level Orange (hard); and threat level red (expert). The range is sufficient to allow those of all abilities and levels of FPS experience to enjoy the gameplay.

Overall: The biggest problem with Blacksite is that it attempts to mix three largely incompatible play elements: serious critical commentary on American military operations abroad, haunting paranormal exploration of the mysteries surrounding Area 51 and mindless arcade shoot-em-up style action. As it’s nearly impossible to be successful at all three simultaneously, this release is disappointing, particularly if you were anticipating something more thought provoking. In so many areas, Blacksite lacks the polish, consistency and finishing touches that would’ve made it a real success, and it fails to carve out for itself a distinctive niche within the crowded field of PC first-person shooters. Although enjoyable in many spots, the net result is an average offering.