Terminal Velocity is a game whose action is set in the 27th century. Earth has been ravaged by assaults from several alien worlds and your mission is to find out why these ancient alien friends are now attacking Earth. With the remains of the Solar system's defence, you arrive at the first alien system and discover that the central computer of defence is responsible for all the attacks. It is now obvious that someone or something has taken control of the computer, and you have no other choice than exploring the alien worlds to destroy what is controlling the whole system.
Like Doom, Terminal Velocity is divided into three episodes. This is because the game is available under different forms. The shareware version features only one episode, but if you pay to register, you will receive the two episodes. The commercial version sold by FormGen offers the three episodes plus a bunch of other sharewares from Apogee with latest versions of Wacky Wheels, Rise of the Triad, Hocus Pocus, Raptor, etc...
There are 8 planets, one asteroid and one alien ship to explore in Terminal Velocity, which represents an unbelievable area of over 400,000 square miles. Each planet has different textures from one to another and specific elements for the landscapes like mountains, water, trees, ice, etc... The terrains you will fly over are very impressive by their realism. The sky alone is a wonder and if you fly high enough, you will pass through to discover an ocean of clouds that looks just like when you look out a window on a plane flying at high-altitudes. Then when you head down, watch out that you don't dive into a mountain laying down below the clouds if you want to keep your shields intact.
The game could be considered as a peaceful flight simulator, if there weren't any enemies around ready to blow up your craft into pieces. There are many targets to destroy in Terminal Velocity. They can be classified in four categories: immobile ground targets, ground targets, air targets and bosses. In the immobile ground targets, you'll find bunkers, headquarters, communication centers and lasers, for example while in the mobile targets, you will encounter tanks or two-legged robots. Air targets are by far the most difficult targets as they quickly swift around your craft and generously use their lasers and missiles. Fortunately, your shield will protect you enough to resist to several critical hits, but you still need to find powerups to regenerate it from time to time. There are 5 different powerups in the game. The afterburner is a yellow glassy ball that you can find when blowing up a structure, that gives you extra speed, very useful when you want to escape danger. The shield powerup will restore the shields to their nominal value, while the Power Core will increase them only by 10 percent. Finally, the invincibility and invisibility powerups only have a limited time effect of 30 seconds.
When you start your first mission, your craft is equipped with the standard Plasma Assault Cannon known as a PAC which comes with infinite ammunition. It is not very conceivable even in a distant time, but it is so practical that nobody will complain. You only need to find ammunition for the extra weapons by destroying structures exactly like with the powerups and also when exploring tunnels. The new weapons range from more powerful cannons such as Ion-Burst and Lasers to missiles of various technologies. Finally, the smart bomb is a device that destoys everything within a given radius except you which is surely the reason why it is so called "smart".
During your missions, you will sometimes notice one or several holes in the terrains. If you fly directly inside them, you will enter underground tunnels in which you will find powerups, weapons, and enemies. Made with a hexagonal shape, the tunnels also feature obstacles of different forms. They can be sliding doors, rotating or fixed barriers, etc... and each time you bump into a wall or a barrier, your shield will be damaged.
For the sounds, Terminal Velocity allows you to change the quality. You can switch to mono or stereo reproduction with a range of frequencies from 8000 Hz to 44000 Hz. The graphics can be altered as well with shadows, high-resolution graphics and high detailed textures, but you will need 12 Mb and a fast processor to enjoy SVGA graphics.
Terminal Velocity fully supports multi-player modes through a serial link, modem and network play. There are six Comm-bat zones designed specifically for multi-player sessions with up to 8 players at the same time on a network. Finally, the RemoteRidicule option lets you send your own prerecorded message to tease your adversaries during the network play.
Terminal Velocity has it all to make you scream, with its excellent gameplay and its astonishing graphics. There are, of course, plenty of cheat modes available in the game, but you will have to find them yourself or browse the nets.
486 DX-33 MHz or higher,
Min 4Mb memory,
MS-DOS 5.0 or later,
Hard drive required with 24 Mb (Disk version) and 40Mb free space (CD
version),
Double speed CD-ROM drive or faster (CD version),
VGA video graphic card (SVGA graphic card for SVGA graphics),
Microsoft mouse and 100% compatibles.
Creative Labs Sound Blaster, Pro, 16; Gravis UltraSound;
MediaVision Pro Audio Spectrum 8/16 and Aria supported.
AS SHAREWARE
3D Realms Entertainment,
P.O. BOX 496419,
Garland, TX 75049-6389
Technical Support: 1-214-278-4670
COMMERCIALLY
FormGen Inc.,
7641 E. Gray Rd.,
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
In Europe:
In UK:
US Gold Ltd.,
Units 2&3 Holford Way, Holford,
Birmingham B6 7AX.
Overall: 90%
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