Super Bunnyhop - Retro Review: Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri
9 replies, posted
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBHsmCoNjsk
If the vid spiked your interest the game is actually on sale at GOG
https://www.gog.com/game/terra_nova_strike_force_centauri
looking glass was too good for this world
This game is pretty fucking cool but the controls among other things have not aged well at all
I really like this game and was really surprised he would cover it.
The whole hegemony plot thing is pretty badass, even when you realize youre fighting globalist totalitarian space socialists
Is that procedural foot animation, in 1996? Damn
Technologically this looks like a decade ahead of its time
The sprites for the allies are quite amazing to behold. I think this is one of the first games to use skeletal animation on pre-rendered 2D sprites in a 3D context. Each part of the power armor is rendered in 16 or more positions that really give their movement an uncanny sense of fluidity for being sprites.
This was a recurring theme. I recall reading an interview where Warren Spector says something along the lines of "I have no idea what we were thinking when it came to our controls."
They always have so much ambition, and then put how to lean variably, tip toe, walk your dog and read the Constitution all over your keyboard to the point that you either have to pick out the keys one at a time like an old person or you've got pretzel hands.
I feel like I'm the only person who likes System Shock's control scheme :v
They definitely take getting used to coming from modern gamer sensibilities but in terms of old FPS controls, I think it's better than Doom or Wolf 3D. As a proto-WASD setup, it's pretty easy for basic movement to become second nature so you can engage more with the world through the mouse cursor. I do feel like Terra Nova could've done with a mouselook toggle because you only ever use the mouse to interact with the HUD (if you don't use hotkeys) and to shoot things, far from the breadth of uses it had in System Shock. Although if George is right about Terra Nova trying to be hyper realistic, then I suppose the controls were kept that way for that realism feeling.
I loved the control scheme in System Shock too. It really made you feel like you were some average guy who was forced to get cybernetic implants and had no idea how to use them. Eventually it all just clicks and you get to see all the great shit System Shock 1 has to offer.
Ultima Underworld is fantastic too since it shares the same UI/control scheme as Shock1.
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