Last January we got to play BlackSite: Area 51 for the first time at developer/publisher Midway's press event. The playable taste was brief but very memorable. At Midway's E3 hotel suite last week we got some hands-on time with two more levels of the game that were each very different from the other.

The first took place in, of all places, a trailer park, as our player character and my AI teammates scouted the place for aliens. Naturally we found them as the bug like aliens come out of the woodwork to try to take you and your team out. The tentacled aliens crawl over trailers and other obstacles to get to you and while they don't take much effort to shoot down with your weapons they do have a tendency to come out of directions that you didn't expect. That demo level ends with you and your team meeting with a slightly nutty survivalist who helps you to escape.

The second and much longer E3 demo level we played had us manning a mini-gun on a helicopter that is escorting a convoy of vehicles on the ground. You get to see some action pretty early as worm like creatures come out from the ground to attack the convoy but your mini-gun makes short work of them. You then come under missile attack from the ground from what looked like power suited equipped humans along with attacks from ground vehicles. At one point our chopper took a hit but our pilot was good enough to keep it flying.

The demo then showcased a truly massive boss battle with a huge worm alien many stories high that was perched in the middle of a bridge that crossed a deep ravine. Your pilot circles the creature many times who attacks you not just with the huge tentacles but fire enabled sphere rocks that come out of its mouth. After several passes the creature finally goes down but not without taking another chopper down with it. It crashes in a nearby airbase and its up to you to follow and rescue the down chopper's pilot. You get out of your helicopter to accomplish this but he doesn't leave you; you can give him alien targets to shoot at which makes your job a lot easier.

BlackSite: Area 51 uses Epic's Unreal Engine 3 and as well our last hands-on demo many months ago it looks like this new game will use the engine well with some pretty spectacular visual, especially during the alien worm boss battle. We haven't yet played any of the game's multiplayer modes but we are looking forward to trying them out, especially the co-op features.

Again the game is looking good for being released later this fall and at the moment BlackSite: Area 51 looks to be a pretty entertaining game when it is completed. Look for a full review of the game from FiringSquad when it is released for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms.

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