It's safe to say that Halo 3 is and will remain the first person shooter of choice for many months to come, despite garnering mixed reactions. Even if the game was awful it would still sell by the bucketload and keep the millions of diehard fans happy - and why not? It's a fun experience made even better by some of the best online play seen on any format. The one problem is that many (but not all) of the Master Chief followers are so embroiled in the saga that they will take one look at other FPS games hitting the shelves for a while and instantly make unfair comparisons to Bungie's epic, before turning their noses up at them. [Not me - as crazy as I am about Halo, I'm all for playing other awesome shooters as well like the incredible Orange Box and insane UT III! Open-Mind-Ed.] Those few who can tear themselves away from the sprawling battle against the Flood and the dodgy Chief/Cortana love thing [What?! They're just good friends you muppet! Ed.] will do well to give Midway's Blacksite a try, because it most definitely has a lot going for it.

Beginning with a small squad of bad-ass marines based in Iraq, comparisons to Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4 are glaringly obvious both in appearance and control method (more on this later). The sun-soaked villages with their cracked pavements and rundown appearance, the witty banter between team mates and the brutal exchanges of gunfire seem very familiar - yet all of it works extremely well. As they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and while in some respects Blacksite borrows functional elements heavily from other shooters, it does so with such finesse that it's entirely forgivable. Anyway, your squad are in Iraq to try and locate a nuclear bunker that's said to hold some pretty nasty atomic missiles. Battling your way through war-torn villages and a short but fun driving section (again nicking ideas, this time it's Halo's Warthog), you arrive at said bunker. Once inside, the game takes a sinister twist, as nerve gas test subjects run out of doorways and shadows to both scare the bejeesus out of you and make you all kinds of dead.

After a few frantic battles with these mutated foes you find yourself at the heart of the complex, where a terrible secret awaits. A few freaky scenes and a heart-stopping escape later, the game skips a few years later to present day Nevada, where the events in Iraq come back to haunt you and your squad once again when visitors from another world decide to pop down and destroy everything in sight. With a game so embedded in mysterious plot threads it's often difficult for developers to make a good story on paper work well in a game, but Midway have hit the nail on the head with this one. The voice acting, plot twists and narrative flow are all very effective, and while not reaching the dizzying heights (or depths) of Bioshock, they perform coherently and entice you to keep pressing forward to learn more. In the opening level the Marines' cocky gung-ho American stereotype is irritating to a point ("Oooorah", "Hell yeah maaaan!" etc.) but when the sense of dread and horror sets in further on in the level and things start to go horribly wrong, their cocky demeanour is reduced to nothing more than weakness and helplessness, a transformation that makes the experience more powerful and believable.

Take big screen blockbuster Independence Day for example - ordinary day in America, the aliens come, they blast us to smithereens and a lot of people go splat! What's their reason? What are they trying to achieve? Who are they? All of these pieces of information are teasingly fed to the viewer in such small chunks that as garbage as the film was, it was impossible not to sit through it to gain an understanding of the reason for their unprovoked and ruthless invasion. This is where Midway have been clever, by drip-feeding snippets of info here and there so that whatever you are doing in the game and wherever you are, you know it will all lead to clarification in the end. The sense of mystery and conspiracy here has transferred well from script to screen, with a story that stands against its triple-A brethren.

The control method has been ripped almost entirely from Call of Duty 4 and works well, with left trigger for zoom, right trigger to fire, B for melee, left bumper for grenades, Y for weapon changes and so on. It's a comfortable method but the default aiming sensitivity is a tad on the responsive side to begin with; I found it really hard to pull off effective kills with the sniper rifle due to the twitchy reticule flying about. Luckily all settings can be tweaked in the helpful pause menu that offers objective pointers and all sorts of customisation options.

The combat is weighty and begins with the usual tools of the trade; grenades, pistols, machine guns and scoped rifles, all non-descript but varied enough to suit your chosen approach and another example of the game's simple yet effective dynamics. It's only later that more interesting weapons become available, with a host of alien boomsticks at your disposal. A projectile launcher similar to Unreal Tournament's Flak Cannon sends shrapnel ricocheting off walls, tearing up foes in brutal fashion and posing as one of the more interesting methods of enemy disposal. The AI is smart too, as enemies run for cover, blind-fire from behind walls, lob grenades and try to flank you at every opportunity. The only gripe here is that the enemies that walk upright (the enemy commandos, the unnamed US special force trying to take you down and the alien grunts) all react in a similar fashion and run about in erratic, zigzag lines a little bit faster than what could be deemed as realistic, resulting in some gunfights that seem unfair at times. You never seem to move as fast as they do, which can annoy at but is a small problem in a sea of positive elements. The more inhuman enemies move more organically and charge at you with a ferocity that will make you panic and fire recklessly with fear.

The core of the game takes place in and around the town of Rachel, Nevada and the levels are all bursting with identity and scale, some offering large expanses ripe for exploration and hiding many dossiers that contain unlockable snippets of information and prizes for achievement point fanatics. From long, heat-hazed highways to humble desert towns full of alien-themed diners and truck stops, you get a real sense of geography here as tumbleweeds roll across the sandy flats and dried-up rivers border each road. Graphically it looks great and while not offering a diverse palette when compared to some shooters, it still bleeds life from every pixel. Textures are rich and retain quality when viewed close up, while even in the heat of battle the draw distance and graphical quality remain intact. The slightest hint of pop-up during some of the more hectic driving sections can be forgiven due to the overall quality of the visuals. Hammering down baking hot tarmac while blasting giant alien worms similar to those seen in the movie Tremors both looks and plays brilliantly; the most surprising thing is that the driving sections don't suck - if anything they add to the adrenaline factor and slot set pieces together nicely.

I'm deliberately not mentioning too much from later in the game because it would spoil some of the best bits (and there are many) but one memorable set piece early on takes place at an alien-themed trailer park called The Little Alie-Inn. You may remember it from documentary show Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends (it's actually a real place in Nevada). The owner is shacked up in a homemade bomb shelter as tentacled aliens try to batter the doors down. As you enter the compound an eerie silence falls and the invaders retreat, leaving you with only the sound of the wind and the clanging of chimes hanging from the trailers that litter the park. It's oddly chilling and when the aliens suddenly jump off the roofs of trailers and start attacking from their hiding places the blood starts pumping again and the rousing musical score kicks in, both giving you a fright and a real sense of atmosphere. It's all very cinematic and adds ounces of character to the experience.

Speaking of characters, there are a number of squad command elements to the game (stop groaning - they actually work!) When your team can work together in blowing open a door, raiding a house or many other situations, a military icon flashes clearly. All you have to do is aim at the symbol and hit the right bumper, and the preset action plays out. It's incredibly simple and there's no trying to remember which squad button does what in the middle of an intense gunfight. If you want the team to focus fire on a specific bad guy just aim at them and press the right bumper or if you want them to take cover behind some debris then simply do the same. The AI is smart and responsive and because there are only two other team members to work with, you don't have to babysit a large team. Sharp, simple and easy, just the way squad dynamics should be. In addition their banter is funny at points and borrows heavily from the gung-ho attitude displayed in Gears of War. Lines are never repeated and their dialogue is well acted and never overused. In this respect you will want to make sure each member lives through each battle because of the sense of friendship these guys have; they always have your back, so it's only polite to offer them the same courtesy.

The offline experience could have benefited from co-op play, but as a standalone experience it offers enough fun to happily justify a purchase. Just try to remember that this doesn't aspire to be a Halo-beater or the next big thing, it's simply a great game with a solid core dynamic and enough memorable set pieces, well-versed dialogue and plot twists to earn a place in your console's disc tray. It's a good length too, offering more playing time than some of the more recent shooters out there and at a comfortable pace. Online it's also simple yet effective, featuring standard game modes such as deathmatch and capture the flag. The real draw here is in the level designs, because there are no symmetrical compounds to battle through; each level is oddly-shaped and features many layers, offering many vantage points and sweet spots for the more adventurous player to discover and take advantage of. The train yard level is great fun, as there are many overturned carriages and freight containers that can be used as hiding places for vantage points for stealth kills or quick cat and mouse chases. Some real thought has gone into map design here and the Rachel, Nevada level is particularly interesting for a number of small reasons; public phones playing dead tones, flickering lights and burning oil tankers all act as fiendish distractions and do their best to wreck your steely concentration while making the locales feel more realistic. That and they make them that little bit more creepy too!

What can you say against a game that is as humble as Blacksite? It looks great, plays great, sounds great and works well online, yet never pretends to be better than it is. It will slip under the radar of many gamers, but for those who are a fan of the genre it comes highly recommended. An action-packed title, the intriguing storyline and effective set pieces are as every bit as memorable as they come, helping to secure Blacksite's position as one of the best hidden gems of the year - bring on the sequel, please!

Reviewed by Dave Cook for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).