Remembering Area 51, The PS2 Horror Shooter That Made You Want To Believe

The moon landing was fake. Aliens are real. The government is run by lizard people. Today, these are your average talking points on The Joe Rogan Show, but back during the twilight years of the PlayStation 2, a now-defunct Midway used such classic conspiracy theories as the unsettling foundation for an incredibly underrated first-person shooter.

With the Pentagon recently releasing a bunch of once classified UFO files, there are few better times to revisit a game that takes place within the infamous military base. But instead of infiltrating the compound with a faster-than-light Naruto run, you and a group of expertly trained operatives are tasked with going deep underground to search for a dangerous monster after losing contact with the team sent in before you. Unfortunately, what begins as a routine extraction mission quickly evolves into a quest to save the world.

I was utterly fascinated with extraterrestrials as a kid, often spending time watching cheesy documentaries, scouring the internet for sightings, or looking up in the night sky hoping that I’d catch a glimpse of something not of this world. Growing up on a Welsh farm in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a dense forest meant I was pretty much in the perfect place for a little green man or two to show up as well. So, when my parents got me Area 51, you could say I was transfixed immediately.

To the dismay of our editor-in-chief, I have still never watched The X-Files. But I have seen both of the movies and failed to understand what was going on half of the time.

Little Grey Men

You play Ethan Cole, a timid marine brought to life by none other than David Duchovny of The X-Files fame. He’s surrounded by a stacked supporting cast that includes Nolan North, the late Powers Boothe and Ian Abercrombie, and a very poorly aged appearance from Marilyn Manson. Despite its narrative being firmly cemented in the realm of cliché, strong voice acting and decent writing meant this tale of a team of marines slowly being picked off one-by-one by an alien menace until Duchovny is the last man left standing was undeniably compelling.

You feel for Ethan Cole when his close friends are suddenly killed or wind up infected by a deadly virus that threatens to turn normal humans into violent killing machines. Going even deeper into the base will reveal hidden military secrets like illegal experiments on a prison of unwilling captives, a set where the faked moon landing was filmed, and plenty of other clever ideas for levels where you will inevitably spend time laying waste to enemies ranging from a disgusting range of common infected to black ops soldiers tasked with making sure none of these secrets ever make it to the surface.

Area 51 unfortunately isn’t available on any of the current digital storefronts, so you’ll need to track down an archived version of the PC release or buy a physical console copy. I hope GOG works its magic on it one of these days.

I won’t spoil much more of the narrative just in case you want to check it out for yourself, but I promise the creepy grey aliens show up eventually and become a core part of the plot. It’s even more fun when you get to blast them in the face with a shotgun. Take that, you freaks!

I Want To Believe

From a gameplay perspective, Area 51 is a competent first-person shooter with a handful of neat twists to help it stand out. You can dual-wield the majority of weapons, even the bigger ones like assault rifles and shotguns, while there are a number of different grenade types or other abilities that make dealing with swarms of recently transformed zombies a breeze. It’s common for you and your squad to be locked into large rooms and then have to deal with a frequently spawning monster closet of enemies until you’re allowed to move on.

Later on in the campaign, you will become infected with the virus yourself, but instead of our hero being transformed into a zombie, he instead adopts powers that allow you to enter this incredibly deadly yet brief frenzied state to deal massive amounts of melee damage. Levels will also gradually transition from bland office facilities and military training areas to far more complicated alien architecture as the game progresses as well. But it isn't particularly long, as a single run of the campaign only takes about six hours on average, or a few more if you’re the type to look around and scan everything.

Oh god, I haven’t even mentioned the scanner! This mechanic felt ahead of its time, with the scanner on your wrist used to scan every character in the game to find out personal details alongside what was in their pockets, alongside corpses and parts of the game world. I sometimes needed to scan a keycard or figure out the code for something by tracking down a corpse. It’s a small feature, but one that stops Area 51 from becoming an even more generic shooting gallery.

While it’s harder to play through legitimate means nowadays, anyone with the slightest interest in traditional alien fiction owes it to themselves to give this game a spin. It only takes a handful of hours, and makes someone like me who believes we aren’t alone in the universe smile so damn widely.