Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri

Reviewing from original CD, not GOG version This game earned a bad reputation by falling short of its prerelease promises, particularly the lack of multiplayer. But like most Looking Glass projects, it was far ahead of its time. You command a squad of up to 3 other soldiers in power suits. You can send them anywhere on the large maps with a couple of clicks trusting their AI to put up an effective fight. Your suit selection and loadout are usually fully customizable. Suits have partially regenerative armor with 4 facings, but none can survive sustained fire very long. Mechwarrior comparisons end there; combat is quick and chaotic, never feeling like you're piloting a vehicle. The visuals were always painfully low-resolution. Soldiers are sprites with many facings, while larger vehicles and turrets are simple polygon objects. But looking past that, Terra Nova was one of the few shooters before the modern era to give you a huge open world with rolling terrain. Jump jets let you traverse rocky cliffs. Rain and other weather conditions constantly interfere with your movement and vision. Visual range, weapon arcs, stealth, smoke, all play a part in every fight. The numerous missions run the gamut from stealthy recon to all-out assault, some going well and others falling apart before first contact with the enemy. The videos between missions are cheesy, but again not as bad as their reputation for a game from that era. The story covers a covert conflict between Earth's egalitarian dystopia and the Alpha Centauri colony your character inhabits. It's fleshed out well and reminds me of Firefly's backstory. Controls are not particularly good. They're too clunky for the fast-paced combat. You'll need to review the manual carefully. With a streamlined modern interface and less-pixelated graphics , this would be a 5-star classic for everyone. But it'll turn some players off. I greatly enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind the dated look and controls.

THANK GOD FOR GOG! This game is one of the most underrated games of all time and incredibly ahead of its time - so much that it's SCARY. This game game out when people were playing Duke 3D, Quake, right? This game poops on all of them. You're basically a squad leader in an armored battle suit. THIS SUIT IS AWESOME. It comes with all the "optional extras". It has a main visor you see out of and three critically important, interactive MFD displays. Weapons are mounted on your character's wrist. You can modify them, pick what you want. You also have a jump-jet pack, and you can choose a special item (extra shields, extra energy, auto-repair, auto-heal, drop a turrent, drop mines, etc.) EXAMPLE: -You have sensor/radar. -You can launch drones to scout ahead, like mobile radar stations, but you can also pull up what it sees on an MFD or your main display! You can also call it back if attacked. -You can use your MFDs to see what your squad-mate see (or see their stats). -You have max 3 other guys, have them up on all MFDs if you want. -You can order them around where to go very easily with them map. -The AI is very good at following orders. You can tell them to sneak, hold fire, cautiously engage, be aggressive, etc. It has a lot of commands like the ARMA games have but WAAAY more reliable AI. -Nightvision, zoom in/out. With these features, there's a ton of ways you can carry out your mission or make changes on the fly. The interaction with your squad, drones works so flawlessly, so simple, so well, you'll be angry why no one has made any game that comes close to this. ARMA series probably comes close, but falls majorily short on execution and features by comparison. Game story is campaign with FMV, Wing Commander style. There is Skirmish mode which helps replayability. LEAST: -Controls take getting used to. -3D Graphics ahead of its time: Weather effects, reflecting water. BUT, its incredibly pixelated, the game is barely SVGA. -Too bad there were no sequels.

I've got the original CD that I picked up second hand from somewhere many years ago. Being a big MechWarrior 2/Heavy Gear fan, I thought I'd give it a go, and the stamp of "Looking Glass Studios" on the back of the jewel case certainly didn't harm my hopes for the game (I love Thief almost as much as I love MechWarrior). So, I installed it on my outdated Windows 98 machine (at the time, my only computer, ah, high school) and was not terribly impressed. The FMVs were kind of hokey, and I wasn't really into them at first. But, the mission briefings were really well made, and outlined exactly what needed to be done in each mission. The graphics were really low res, but I was capable of getting past that (been playing DOS games since I was eleven, and while this couldn't hold a candle graphically to say, MechWarrior 4, which had recently come out, it was clear enough visually that I could tell what things were supposed to be almost instantly). However, you can pretty much see forever, and the water reflects the terrain, which definitely impressed me, given the age of the title. But it was the gameplay that blew me away. The jump jets could almost literally hurdle the power suits over mountains. Multiple weapon slots added a lot of varied tactics to fights (though not as much in the early levels, where your tech is still limited). Your suits are tough, but not invincible, so smart, fast, well executed strikes against the enemy are best. The armor partially regenerates, so you can (if you get into trouble) make a run for it and come back if things get too hot. It's not really an FPS, as the controls not that simple (they're kind of clunky in a simulation way), but not as complex as say, MechWarrior 2/3 (3 had worse controls than 2, in my opinion). The missions have a ton of variety, and they're really fun. The hokey FMVs start to gain weight and a certain charm as you fight your way through the story, and I ended up loving them and the characters. I recommend it.

I am so glad you guys found this game. I worked on this game, and made sure that they didn't drop the night vision mode from the MFD, I helped the guys make it look more military and make it useful like thermal vision was at the time. The strategies that the AI used were done by this brilliant MIT guy. He was an amazing coder. The sound was done by some brilliant guys that used some of the first real positional audio recording equipment. The whole team at the time put out a game that was way ahead of anything that was available. Parts of this team also went on to make a new company and build Bioshock. This game was so ahead of its time. The FMV was done by some pretty decent actors (although cheesy sifi), and two of the bad guys, you seriously hate by the end of the game. I mean these guys were great at being bad lol I am gonna play this game for a good long while.lol