The visuals are impressive, if not jaw-dropping, with shadows swaying from bullet-rocked light fixings and particle-rich explosive scenery. And, thanks to the physics, enemy corpses will wrap limply around railings and flop on to boxes in a rag-doll fashion.
If there's one thing that lets the smooth action down, it's the slightly jaggy outlines of the characters. They're not as crisp as you'd like, but with almost three months of development left we'd bet good money on them smoothing the graphics over.
So, little glitches aside, we're pleasantly pleased by what we've seen in Area 51, even though Marilyn makes an appearance as a talking corpse.
We've not been able to get to grips with the online mode yet, but we're still expecting great things from what could be PS2's best FPS - ever! Just don't saddle it with the unfair expectation of being a Halo-beater.
Perform your own autopsy in Area 51 this April
