Area 51 (Arcade) Secret Easter Egg - Play as an Alien

Here's a blast from the past. I was just made aware of this little secret recently, and I played the absolute shit out of this game as a kid. 10 year old me would have been very impressed if he had seen someone do this in the arcade.

It's a special mode called Kronn Hunter, and to get it you shoot the first 3 STAAR members you see, using only 3 shots. Don't shoot anything else, and don't miss. It's actually kind of a pain in the ass to play this way, but it still blows my mind that they hid something like this in the game.

[WanderleiFan]

I did this once in the arcade when I was 9. The staff flipped out and thought I screwed up the game.

[IamTheTimmy]

I remember pulling this off at the arcade.  people standing around watching would be like "wtf are you doing? idio--  woah, COOL!!!!"

and then I finish the game squinting at it all the rest of the way.

[jimpowers]

This game was in the lunchroom at my college- we discovered it when someone dropped their soda on themselves while playing. It was a momentous day.

[ReCharredSigh]

If you play in this mode it's much harder to see for obvious reasons but your score is much higher, you get a special ensign and you can still unlock most of the other secret rooms.

[Batlord_Carcas]

I always enjoyed playing as the Kronn Hunter when I was able to unlock it

[rocklee]

Oh great, I get to make my eye's bleed what joy.

[Lithonion]

Just got a secret level, "Gone Fishing" on my area 51 cab and no clue what I did. Fish jump out the water and you shoot them.

[alexk]

Wow, to think that they hid such a secret play feature in the game's code

[EternalPodcast]

I played this at wonderland arcade in Salem, Oregon when it came out! I did this trick many times blew peoples minds and mine the first time. The first time it was an accident and no one knew you could. I was a freshman in High School when this game came out.

[xavierv]

I like playing as the alien because it has infinite HP wow

[mantis]

What version are you playing? Mame or PC? I could only get PC version to run on vmware (win XP Pro SP3) which is fine but the resolution was really low and I couldn't find a way to increase it.

[BloodySawBlade]

So....you play as an alien....just to continue destroying them? Ok.

[scurvy]

This game has always been one of my favorites

[pigfish]

note that the graphics are garbled, its supposed to be a green night vision filter, instead of this color soup.

[DarthGk]

You can tell this is done on an emulator. The background should be green, and the kronomorphs should glow red when they're about to shoot you.


Source: I did this on my Saturn on stream last year.

[NaTaS-]

I did it all the time and people did freak out. More that I was letting people shoot me at the beginning though.

[roflcopter]

This is legitimately my favorite game of all time. How do I play this on mame? I tried to get the emulator and Rom but I kept getting CHD errors despite having the CHD

[JamesEmirzianWaldementerGaming]

I'm played as aliens. The game shooter was very fun times to heard played it

[masterklaw]

Kronomorphs... they can manipulate time!

[christophermarshall]

Is there a special ending for Kronn Hunter Mode?