Thanks I though that might be the case. When I get to the command area there appears to be a dark room with a line on the floor that leads to this area. The line fades as the room gets dark. I wonder if they changed they way they implemented night vision in the game but didn't set up the training area properly. It would seem they intended you to follow a line from the start, up the stairs and to the command area. I played the ridiculously crappy gamecube port a while ago and don't rember having difficulty but that was a while ago.. and they could have implemented things differently.
Oh well