Area 51 review: the gun game critics shrugged at and players loved
The verdict: rough around every edge, and a better arcade machine than its reviews because it rewarded the curious.
- Made by
- Mesa Logic; published by Time Warner Interactive under the Atari Games label
- Released
- Arcade, North America, November 1995
- Genre
- Light gun shooter
Point the plastic gun. Pull the trigger. Something grey and screaming falls over. Area 51 did not invent any of that, and its reviews said so. The line in front of the cabinet said something else, and the line was right.
Why did players love what critics did not?
The honest answer is that it respected the player's trigger finger. Enemies come at you constantly, crates explode, barrels burn, and the screen is almost never still. Critics compared it unfavorably to slicker gun games of the day, and fair enough, it looks rougher. But roughness was not what you noticed with a gun in your hand. You noticed that you were never waiting.
There is a rule underneath the noise that keeps it from being mindless. You are on a team, and you have to shoot around the STAAR team members running through the same corridors. Hit a friendly and the game remembers. It is a small thing, but it turns a spray of bullets into a series of split-second decisions about who is standing where.
The best arcade secrets are the ones a stranger shows you.
The pistol is always waiting for you
Weapon upgrades appear as targets, and the machine gun and shotgun make you feel invincible. Then you take one hit and you are back to the pistol. That single rule does more for the game than any graphics upgrade could. Power is temporary, so you play carefully when you have it and hungrily when you do not.
And then there are the secrets. Shooting certain objects in the correct sequence opens hidden rooms and bonus areas that the main path never shows you. Nobody learned these from a manual. You learned them from the kid who had been standing there for an hour.
Area 51 was developed by Mesa Logic and published by Time Warner Interactive under its Atari Games label, reaching North American arcades in November 1995. It was produced as a last-ditch effort to reverse Atari's struggling fortunes; critics were underwhelmed, but players liked it and it became a major hit. Getting hit downgrades the player's weapon back to the pistol, and shooting allied STAAR team members is punished.
Source: Area 51 (1995 video game) · Wikipedia (checked September 14, 2026)
What it meant back then
It was made as a last-ditch effort by a company that badly needed a hit, and it got one. You found it in the arcade section of the movie theater, next to the claw machine, while the previews ran long. You found it at the bowling alley and at the pizza place with the ball pit. Two guns, one screen, and a younger brother desperate to take the second one before you let him. The game became a major hit not in magazines but in exactly those rooms.
Playing it today
The digitized look has aged into something almost charming. What still works is the rhythm: the upgrade, the hit, the pistol, the scramble to earn it back. Play it with someone who remembers the secret rooms, and let them feel like the older kid one more time.
Did someone older ever show you a secret in this game, and did you pass it on?