Thanks for posting. This was the 3rd game we worked on at Mesa Logic in Lewisville, Texas for Atari games back in the 90's. Area 51 was first, Maximum Force second, then Site 4. Site 4 came about because Area 51 had done so well in arcades. The biggest competition at the time was another shooting game called Police Trainer. An extremely simple game composed entirely of mini shooting gallery style levels. We decided to try that method in the Area 51 world. Originally, it was just going to be mini games but I felt very strongly that we needed to remain true to the original and also have an entire section of the game similar to the original. I wanted to explore what happened to Area 51 after the alien infection occurred in the first game. Site 4 is where the humans were loosely able to contain the the alien infection/invasion. It is basically destroyed and completely overrun with aliens. As you progress deeper you encounter the alien queen numerous times until finally you fight her to the death. I ended up doing most of the work for this section. Models, textures, Creatures, animation. camera, rendering, lighting, etc. My boss basically gave the whole thing to me and said get as much done as you can before we need to ship and if you get it done, we will put it in. There were numerous points in production when this section almost got cut from the final game but I lobbied long and hard to keep it in. There was worry that the queen was too hard and that players would not understand the game mechanic. Admittedly, the end sequence is difficult (shoot the guns off the tips of the tentacles to get the queen to uncover her brain while also shooting projectiles being shot at you. Once the brain is exposed, shot it as much as possible before she covers up again. Rinse and repeat until all the tentacle guns are gone then hammer on the brain). I'm glad it made it in the game. The team snuck themselves in the game a couple times. We are the zombies (I am the blonde one) and our names are on the businesses in the strip mall level. Thanks again for posting. Great memories.
That is really neat to hear from someone who made these games. I'm 26 (turning 27 in Februrary) and I can say the first one (I only saw the second a few times) definitely influenced me in those years to be intrigued by and love sci-fi based stuff. At the time I would get sucked in just by the trailer of gameplay playing for the first one. Funnily enough I joined in with a kid who was playing the second one at a skate arcade place and he left JUST as the alien queen boss at the end showed up so I tried on my own and got my ass handed to me :D. I had no idea about the tips I was just shooting at the damn thing and died haha. The thing that stuck with me from the second one was watching some kids doing that "alien slug maggot" level. Its funny the random things I remember from some of these arcade games as a kid. Was there any kind of "back story" to the gameplay at all with the aliens you guys had going on that couldn't really be told on a arcade machine? What was it about the aliens that would turn humans into basically zombies? What do you do these days as a profession? Do you still work in the gaming industry at all?
James... Love the info! If you don't pin, email me at my web site (check out www.aaarpinball.com)... I'd love to exchange a few emails regarding the game!
Question did you guys ever try and make a FPS game out of Area 51? I was shuffling through the internet several years ago where i found a 3D trailer for a cancelled game called "Area 51" which depicted a soldier beating up the jumpsuit zombies and orange crab aliens. It said it was from 2002 roughly around the time the midway game dropped but it appeared to be heavily influenced from Mesa Logics work. I haven't found anything about it before or since. i also read about something called "Area 51:Grey Dawn"
When this came out, there was a stripmall in my town that not only matched the layout of the businesses at 1:13 , but the businesses themselves were identical. Comic store where we bought pokemon cards, and next door was lamppost pizza where they had this game. Meta wrapped in meta. Im guessing one of the level designers was from saugus, california in the mid 90’s. Fun fact, if you watch santa clarita diet on netflix, the drugstore where joel keeps looking for a new toaster is called saugus drugs. In this game it would be roughly where the turqoise car is parked at 1:14.
This and many other old arcades were my childhood. I remember going down to this old pizza place that i used to go. Now its closed down. I wish I could play them again
My brother and I always seemed to get killed at the part where the alien queen throws rocks and rubble at you. The one time we made it to the end she destroyed us. Such a fun game!
I remember playing this game in a ice skating place during the school field trip with some kid that I don't know. My teacher keeps me away from this game and go to ice skating but I keep coming back to this game.
I never see the cabinet. I think I’ve only played it once and that was when it came out. Do the PCBs fail more that the other one? I see the origins Area 51 all over even today.
After all these years, I final understand how the game calculates the player taking damage. It seems when an enemy is firing on screen, a damage value rapidly accrues, when it reaches 100, the player loses 1 life. Given how rapidly the enemies fire and appear on screen, it becomes impossible to hold onto your lives in the long run, the best you can do is delay the inevitable depending on how fast your reaction is
Man did I have a lot of fun playing this game back in the day! I had a lot of fun times playing this arcade game and it really does bring back some really good memories! thank you for uploading this!
Imagine a mini game in this where you have to defend civilians on the streets of Las Vegas from those zombies. And I have a feeling that those Alien Slugs are the cause of those zombies.
God, the keep the aliens away one gave me nightmares as a kid Oh yeah, and if you shoot the rappeling aliens before they start going down you can get secrets :)
Finally! All this time I thought I played the original Area 51 in an arcade back in the 90s, but footage of the arcade version I looked at online as well as the PS1 port never looked familiar and there's a scene I remember well that I never saw in any of them. Now I know what I played was this one, because it DOES look familiar, and at 19:27 is the scene I remember. I remember it being more graphic than that, with like blood splatter everywhere instead of JUST guys strung up there, but it's an old memory and I think it has to be that. It was definitely cooler in my mind but this game's still pretty cool, so I'm glad I know which one it was for sure now.
I knew I hadn't imagined this game, I remember seeing this once in a Pizza hut as a kid and wondered if I had imagined it because I couldn't find any info for an area 51 sequel other than the Xbox Area 51 game.
I just went looking for this game because some guys on a podcast were talking about old arcade shooters and I remember this at a field trip from school at a skate place we went to. I walk up to the arcade game and another kid is playing. so I join in on the second gun and start playing with him. He quits after a little bit and goes off but this gigantic red alien (the boss) comes out. I try yelling at him to come back but hes gone. So I grab both guns and try my best to kill this thing and die horribly :P. Ahh, area 51 games.
Nice to see a full playthrough of both the field exercises and beyond area 51 for once. Maybe next time, you should try to make another video playthrough of this game where you successfully defeat the alien queen. I think you did a great job getting as many special weapons(grenades) as possible on the field exercises, and then saving most of them for the final battle with the alien queen. Maybe next time, however, during the final 90-second battle with the alien queen, try this: 1. Shoot down all 6 yellow/red flashing tentacles on her arms (which shoot the green projectiles) as quick as possible, without using your special weapons. 2. Use all your site 4 special weapons on her; and then if those run out, just keep shooting the dome on her head until her life runs out.
so once you've practiced playing this game enough to where you can beat the alien queen, do you plan on making another video play-through (all 4 sites) where you destroy the alien queen and see the ending?
What a nostalgia! I remember when I was a kid/pre-adolescent not having money to play those in the local mall but eager at the point of memorizing all the stages and getting a trick from back then... The machine gun mode. When you vibrate your finger between the coil ring and the trigger, getting up to 15 shots a second. Hahahaha! Good old times!
Always loved playing this as a kid but never got very far due to not only having enough time at the arcade but the zombies scared the hell out of me lol
Thanks for posting. This was the 3rd game we worked on at Mesa Logic in Lewisville, Texas for Atari games back in the 90's. Area 51 was first, Maximum Force second, then Site 4.
Site 4 came about because Area 51 had done so well in arcades. The biggest competition at the time was another shooting game called Police Trainer. An extremely simple game composed entirely of mini shooting gallery style levels. We decided to try that method in the Area 51 world.
Originally, it was just going to be mini games but I felt very strongly that we needed to remain true to the original and also have an entire section of the game similar to the original. I wanted to explore what happened to Area 51 after the alien infection occurred in the first game.
Site 4 is where the humans were loosely able to contain the the alien infection/invasion. It is basically destroyed and completely overrun with aliens. As you progress deeper you encounter the alien queen numerous times until finally you fight her to the death.
I ended up doing most of the work for this section. Models, textures, Creatures, animation. camera, rendering, lighting, etc. My boss basically gave the whole thing to me and said get as much done as you can before we need to ship and if you get it done, we will put it in.
There were numerous points in production when this section almost got cut from the final game but I lobbied long and hard to keep it in. There was worry that the queen was too hard and that players would not understand the game mechanic. Admittedly, the end sequence is difficult (shoot the guns off the tips of the tentacles to get the queen to uncover her brain while also shooting projectiles being shot at you. Once the brain is exposed, shot it as much as possible before she covers up again. Rinse and repeat until all the tentacle guns are gone then hammer on the brain). I'm glad it made it in the game.
The team snuck themselves in the game a couple times. We are the zombies (I am the blonde one) and our names are on the businesses in the strip mall level.
Thanks again for posting. Great memories.
That is really neat to hear from someone who made these games. I'm 26 (turning 27 in Februrary) and I can say the first one (I only saw the second a few times) definitely influenced me in those years to be intrigued by and love sci-fi based stuff. At the time I would get sucked in just by the trailer of gameplay playing for the first one.
Funnily enough I joined in with a kid who was playing the second one at a skate arcade place and he left JUST as the alien queen boss at the end showed up so I tried on my own and got my ass handed to me :D. I had no idea about the tips I was just shooting at the damn thing and died haha.
The thing that stuck with me from the second one was watching some kids doing that "alien slug maggot" level. Its funny the random things I remember from some of these arcade games as a kid.
Was there any kind of "back story" to the gameplay at all with the aliens you guys had going on that couldn't really be told on a arcade machine? What was it about the aliens that would turn humans into basically zombies?
What do you do these days as a profession? Do you still work in the gaming industry at all?
James Mestemaker back at an old arcade in Virginia I often went to this game stood out. It intimidated the hell out of me
I love the aesthetics, music, and presentation of this game... its so extreme
James... Love the info! If you don't pin, email me at my web site (check out www.aaarpinball.com)... I'd love to exchange a few emails regarding the game!
Question did you guys ever try and make a FPS game out of Area 51? I was shuffling through the internet several years ago where i found a 3D trailer for a cancelled game called "Area 51" which depicted a soldier beating up the jumpsuit zombies and orange crab aliens. It said it was from 2002 roughly around the time the midway game dropped but it appeared to be heavily influenced from Mesa Logics work. I haven't found anything about it before or since. i also read about something called "Area 51:Grey Dawn"
In an era when attacking spaceships could be destroyed with a single handgun....
That was a good era :)
...in one shot
When this came out, there was a stripmall in my town that not only matched the layout of the businesses at 1:13 , but the businesses themselves were identical. Comic store where we bought pokemon cards, and next door was lamppost pizza where they had this game. Meta wrapped in meta. Im guessing one of the level designers was from saugus, california in the mid 90’s. Fun fact, if you watch santa clarita diet on netflix, the drugstore where joel keeps looking for a new toaster is called saugus drugs. In this game it would be roughly where the turqoise car is parked at 1:14.
I love how the mini games show a story in another way
Area 51 Site 4 is a much better game than I thought... turned out to be a fun one to get and fix up.
That music and thise zombies creep'd me out as a kid
Shark Reckless I was scared to play the mission where you have to keep the zombies at bay and you’re shooting their arms off.
This is such a great game... it's such a shame it hasn't been re-released on any systems.
It's for the Sega Saturn as well.
Warner Bros. does own the rights to most of Midway's video game franchises, one day WB will re-release this game.
i wish this game was playable in MAME
@@sierra.taekwondo.8559 Thats the original.
Yeah I feel the same way about it too. Because I remember that I use to play this game a lot when me and my brothers where kids
ตามหาเกมนี้มาทั้งชีวิต จำได้ตอนเด็กๆเคยหยอดเหรียญ10บาทเล่นในที่โยนโบลิ่งตามห้าง จับปืนสีเขียวกับสีแดงยิงเอเลี่ยนสนุกมาก ดีใจมากเจอสักที
They still have this at the local laundromat I have 3rd place for years close to 10 till someone took over lol
This and many other old arcades were my childhood. I remember going down to this old pizza place that i used to go. Now its closed down. I wish I could play them again
I feel your pain brother me and my couising used 2 flip it with one credit in this old hamburger place the Best times of the childhood..
Know how you feel man. All the old games like this are gone. I remember when these were at EVERY movie theater. really sucks.
I would find gems like these every once in a while, but yeah, they are no longer around.
My brother and I always seemed to get killed at the part where the alien queen throws rocks and rubble at you. The one time we made it to the end she destroyed us. Such a fun game!
I remember playing this game in a ice skating place during the school field trip with some kid that I don't know. My teacher keeps me away from this game and go to ice skating but I keep coming back to this game.
I think it's unfair that machine gun and shotgun power-ups can only be collected in sites 1-3 and not in site 4.
I never see the cabinet. I think I’ve only played it once and that was when it came out. Do the PCBs fail more that the other one? I see the origins Area 51 all over even today.
I wish this was out on consoles! Love the mini-game challenges!
I too wish they would re-release this in a more portable format.
After all these years, I final understand how the game calculates the player taking damage. It seems when an enemy is firing on screen, a damage value rapidly accrues, when it reaches 100, the player loses 1 life. Given how rapidly the enemies fire and appear on screen, it becomes impossible to hold onto your lives in the long run, the best you can do is delay the inevitable depending on how fast your reaction is
2:50 I hear marble madness music in the background
Man did I have a lot of fun playing this game back in the day! I had a lot of fun times playing this arcade game and it really does bring back some really good memories! thank you for uploading this!
Imagine a mini game in this where you have to defend civilians on the streets of Las Vegas from those zombies. And I have a feeling that those Alien Slugs are the cause of those zombies.
God, the keep the aliens away one gave me nightmares as a kid
Oh yeah, and if you shoot the rappeling aliens before they start going down you can get secrets :)
Thank you very much for posting gameplay of this!!
Used to play this all the time at my local Round Table Pizza... until new management started giving no shit in maintaining their machines =(
omg how I missed this game
I can still smell the pizza from Round Table each time I watch this. Who else does?
I'm eating pizza right now thanks for asking😆
Is it all like that? Just minigames?
EDIT: never mind. The real game starts at 16:13.
I remember playing this in the arcade way back in the day, brings me back!
Finally! All this time I thought I played the original Area 51 in an arcade back in the 90s, but footage of the arcade version I looked at online as well as the PS1 port never looked familiar and there's a scene I remember well that I never saw in any of them. Now I know what I played was this one, because it DOES look familiar, and at 19:27 is the scene I remember. I remember it being more graphic than that, with like blood splatter everywhere instead of JUST guys strung up there, but it's an old memory and I think it has to be that. It was definitely cooler in my mind but this game's still pretty cool, so I'm glad I know which one it was for sure now.
I knew I hadn't imagined this game, I remember seeing this once in a Pizza hut as a kid and wondered if I had imagined it because I couldn't find any info for an area 51 sequel other than the Xbox Area 51 game.
I was little when I watched my older brother play this, the part with the alien slugs really terrorized me
I just noticed, there were instances when the way you turned to fire made it look like your lightgun actually had recoil.
I used to love playing this game with my dad at a local Fuddruckers back in the day. We loved the bus mini game!
That alien queen sure makes some funny grunting sounds during the final 90-second confrontation!
yay gameplay keep it up
This was my favorite game as a kid I used to go to the pizza joint in town and play it all day lmao
608
I wanted this to come to ps1 so bad. Still do actually.
The o.g. did and played great.
11:06 - The disturbing minigame you should NEVER play!!!
Nah it's just missile command updated
I still remember spending all my money on this game back in high school, that pissed off my parents all the time
You're not alone man.
I just went looking for this game because some guys on a podcast were talking about old arcade shooters and I remember this at a field trip from school at a skate place we went to.
I walk up to the arcade game and another kid is playing. so I join in on the second gun and start playing with him.
He quits after a little bit and goes off but this gigantic red alien (the boss) comes out. I try yelling at him to come back but hes gone. So I grab both guns and try my best to kill this thing and die horribly :P.
Ahh, area 51 games.
Nice to see a full playthrough of both the field exercises and beyond area 51 for once. Maybe next time, you should try to make another video playthrough of this game where you successfully defeat the alien queen. I think you did a great job getting as many special weapons(grenades) as possible on the field exercises, and then saving most of them for the final battle with the alien queen. Maybe next time, however, during the final 90-second battle with the alien queen, try this:
1. Shoot down all 6 yellow/red flashing tentacles on her arms (which shoot the green projectiles) as quick as possible, without using your special weapons.
2. Use all your site 4 special weapons on her; and then if those run out, just keep shooting the dome on her head until her life runs out.
Thanks for the tips. I just got this and haven't defeated the alien queen yet.
madmyerstube
I read that you get a special ending if you successfully defeat the alien queen before time runs out.
so once you've practiced playing this game enough to where you can beat the alien queen, do you plan on making another video play-through (all 4 sites) where you destroy the alien queen and see the ending?
Matthew Rivera I'd love to see that.
What a nostalgia!
I remember when I was a kid/pre-adolescent not having money to play those in the local mall but eager at the point of memorizing all the stages and getting a trick from back then... The machine gun mode. When you vibrate your finger between the coil ring and the trigger, getting up to 15 shots a second. Hahahaha! Good old times!
Handgun is credit to team.
Missed some secrets.
LOL I hear occasional bits from Marble Madness in this video
:) Yup. It sits next to Area 51 Site 4 and was turned on while I was playing...
madmyerstube
believe it or not, there IS a secret room on this game called Marble Madness
How this game wasn’t so large is beyond me. So hard to come by and I only beat it once
Always loved playing this as a kid but never got very far due to not only having enough time at the arcade but the zombies scared the hell out of me lol
Jeez, there's not much room for error on here is there!! D;
*Cool! I remember this game from an arcade in my city mall.*
I used to play that one before
I LOVE THIS GAME AREA 51 SITE 4 ITS BADASS GAME
They have one of these machines at my local bowling alley, I got annihilated first time I played but still pretty neat
What a party FPS game, I miss this arcade FPS arcade game for so long memories.
I appreciate you making this. Unfortunately, I can't watch this video- the flashing white light makes me feel dizzy.
Oh my god I hated playing this game as a kid. It was so hard!
This game used to excite and scare the living shit out of me as a kid
Nice Gameplay!
Wow this game looks fantastic
Imagine if this is what really went down on September 20, 2019…
1-3 sites Minigames.
Site 4 main mission?
Why was this never released on console? :(
The resolution of the video is horrendous
Making it a Point Blank clone was a bad move!
I watched it all cause I'm thinking about buying this arcade machine....
i can hear the music of marble madness music 2:51
:) Yes... Marble Madness is right next to it!
Oh ok
madmyerstube I've never play this game.i have the first game and max force on my ps1
I can smell the pizza and wings from the pizza parlor this used to be at near me 😂 good times
Man, this is really strict on quotas.
Seems like I'm the most recent comment in years on this video.
Anyone else like me here?
Good Arcade game.
JASON LANESE💪
Where'd ya film this crap?