Photos: Alienware 2011 launch

Dressed up as "Area 52", Alienware launched its 2011 range in South Melbourne's Neverland entertainment venue, complete with flashing lights, obscure sounds and powerful machines.

Well, if you insist.

We were taken to what appeared to be a dark parking lot at first, and then the black-lights, UV paint and strange sounds hit us.

All roads should be lit by black-lights. Then we could pretend we're in Tron while driving.

At the Copa ... they fell into ... well, an Alienware event, we suppose.

The abduction tunnel of doooooom!

Inside the mothership, pretty lights reign supreme.

The new M17x taking its best shot at DeadSpace 2. Action was absolutely fluid and didn't skip a beat.

The M11x chews up Bulletstorm. We loved the previous M11x, and, by all reports, this one improves on the formula, offering more power and a gigabit Ethernet port.

Not just terrible photo-taking skills: Crysis 2 is running in 3D here, thanks to Nvidia's GeForce 580M.

The most important element at any event: booze. There is a disturbing lack thereof in these glasses, and the incredible urge to run a spoon across them.

Oh! The show is about to begin!

Hmm. A plain white Winnebago. Is Paul here, perhaps? Maybe there are muffins inside.

It's a space Winnebago! Ten HD projectors are used to create a 3D projection map, courtesy of Boffswana.

Radar Man: Radar repaired, sir. We're picking up the outline of a ... Winnebago.
Dark Helmet: Winnebago ...? Lone Starr!

The space Winnebago lands.

We always knew Winnebago drivers had something odd about them.

Gadzooks! The military gets involved. Presumably to steal the muffins.

FIRE BAD! FIRE BAD! (Language warning on that link there!)

We're pretty sure that we've seen this in Call of Duty 83: The Quest for More Money.

Holy Space Winnebago Batman! It's real! Apparently it's not a Winnebago, but an "AirStream". It'll be touring around the country to give people an idea of what Alienware products are like.

Half-trailer park, half-sci-fi. We're expecting first contact any time now.

Alienware's four new laptops are inside, showing various games to illustrate their power.

The new Area 51 desktop has an ominous, menacing presence. It's also rather sexy.

You just expect them to float off into zero gravity at any moment.

"Where we're going, we don't need roads!"

The AirStream kicks off its tour in Sydney's Circular Quay on 19 July, also hitting World Square, Westfield Bondi and Martin Place. Exact details and future travel plans will be revealed shortly on Alienware's impending Area 52 YouTube channel.

Craig Simms travelled to Melbourne as a guest of Dell.