invisiblebob on 28/4/2001 at 03:08
Well, I just beat Terra Nova. Not a very long game, and with the exception of level 29, I found the game very easy. I beat the last level on my first try. Did anyone find this game to be more difficult back whenit was first released? Have other similar games honed my skills such that this game was a piece of cake?
I think the missions could have been a bit longer. Maybe more objectives per mission, as opposed to just "blow up target X, eliminate all bad guys, and exit to the jump ship".
But overall a good game. It's one of the few "abandonware" games that I've played to completion, which says a great deal for it. Despite the antiquated graphics I still played the game for longer than I've plaed some recent games :p
Shadowcat on 1/5/2001 at 18:10
Abandonware? You must have missed out on the cutscenes, then? (there are a mixture of pre-rendered CGI, and live-action scenes; the full game takes up most of its CD.)
Some might argue that losing the live-action is an improvement :) but while they aren't exactly the last word in character acting, they do help the story along, and provide a bit of extra entertainment.
I do agree, though... the game is certainly quite short, and I also wish the missions were more complex/varied. In the end the core gameplay is fairly limited, and rather restricts what the missions could consist of. Modern games often have scripting languages included which the designers can use to set up all manner of triggered actions and responses. I suspect all the non-standard things in Terra Nova were hard-coded into the executable, which makes the mission designer's job rather more difficult when it comes to creating diverse situations.
I've no idea whether it was an intentional aim to focus the gameplay almost exclusively on combat, or if that's just how things turned out. On the positive side, there are some pretty intense battles :)
Of course, with long missions the lack of in-game saves might have begun to hurt.
Ah well. I love the game regardless :)
invisiblebob on 2/5/2001 at 14:51
Actually, though I have an "abandonware" copy, it's an image of the original CD... so I did get to see the cutscenes. They weren't anything too special, but at least they weren't as intrusive as in the wing commander games....
Shadowcat on 3/5/2001 at 01:19
Hell of a download, that. I guess you're not reliant on a modem! (56Kbps-or-less, that is...)
