Space-themed rail shooter, takes place in space and then you infiltrate a facility
 

I would be forever indebted and grateful to anyone who might help me identify a game which has always eluded my own efforts at identification whenever I happened to be in a nostalgic mood for those old PC games I enjoyed as a kid.

What I remember about the game was that it was a first-person space-themed shooter and that you had a vertical health bar comprised of small rectangles on the left or right side of the screen. The first few levels took place in space where your goal was to destroy these turrets and generators on larger, white ships against a rapidly-shifting, starry black background. Pretty sure it was a rail shooter but the movement was very chaotic--think Chaos Control instead of Star Fox or Star Wars: Rebel Assault.

After cleaning up the bogeys in space, you landed your ship in a snowy (or was it metallic?) crater-like depression and you had to shoot numerous enemies who approached from all sides. What I remember vividly now is you then approach a door built into the side of the crater/depression and have to enter an entry code into a security panel to proceed, and at this point an enemy appears on the screen. I could never react in time as a kid and he would always shoot and kill me, which honestly ticked me off quite a bit... I remember I would always blame my crappy mouse (or was it an old school joystick?).

I should mention that this was most likely a DOS-based game I played on my dad's Windows 3.1 PC in the late 90s. Could have also been on Windows 95 but that's less likely. I have to emphasize that I was probably less than 10 at the time so my recall of certain elements might be questionable. I don't recall anything memorable about the music.

Continuing on with the details, after dispatching the heinous agent of ambush, you infiltrated some sort of facility or warehouse of sorts and had to shoot a bunch of enemies who popped out from behind boxes (similar to Time Crisis I think). The setting was some large underground cavern with a lot of rocks and crates. Don't think I got too far past that point. This is most of what I remember about this game. If anyone could identify this oldie for me I would be eternally grateful! I remember it was a pretty fun but difficult game for me back in the day, and I enjoyed it along with Magic Carpet, Lode Runner: The Legend Returns, Raptor, Quest for Glory, Lemmings, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Brain Dead 13 and more.

Have you searched MobyGames? I don't really know the game, but from a quick look I would guess that Wetlands seems at least similar to the description.

Hmm yeah, I've looked through the MobyGames catalog as well as a few other lists online, unfortunately none of the games seemed to match what I remember... I search for the game at least once a year and it's really starting to bug me haha.

Could it possibly have been Creature Shock?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/creature-shock

Descriptions reminded me of Cyberia, but shots are nothing like your description... and actually nothing like game I remember. Either it's very selective screenshots, or I am messing it with some other FMV game. %|

You know, that name does sound oddly familiar to me. And in the YouTube videos I viewed of the game, there is a scene involving punching in a key code and shooting enemies behind cover which bears uncanny similarity to my description. However, I don't recognize any of the characters or cinematics in Cyberia, and I don't think there was a space battle of any sort so it probably isn't the game I'm looking for. I will comb through more gameplay videos of it and its sequel just to make sure though--maybe the content I remember takes place in a different episode. I'm actually starting to wonder if I hallucinated it all and combined aspects of different games such as Raptor for the health bars, Time Crisis for the underground cavern, and maybe some Star Wars game for the battle in space, but then again I don't think so... Thanks for the lead though!

Hmm it wasn't Creature Shock either, the enemies I remember were humanoid for the most part and I don't think it had a horror aspect to it at all. I appreciate the suggestions!

Have you looked at videos of The Hive? It's on Mobygames, but without screenshots. In fact, media of it seems pretty scarce on the internet, but I think it's a pretty strong contender for the game you're remembering, at least based on my own memories of playing a demo.

Holy crap!!! This is most definitely the game I've been looking for all these years! It has the whole flying in space against a backdrop of stars, crash landing in a snowy crater-like depression, getting ambushed by an enemy while speaking on an intercom, and infiltrating an alien facility aspects, and the insane difficulty checks out too! Thanks a ton for digging this up, you've definitely made my day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqcD6P7uU4c

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/hive

Aww. I could spot it if not poor sites description...