Terra Nova – 1 Mission Demo

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Pix

I’ve got two demos for Terra Nova and have uploaded both for anyone who wants to try them out. This first one was taken off the May 1996 PC Zone Cover Disk and features a single unique mission.

In the mission, a new highway has been opened linking together some farms. The convoys on this road have come under attack by pirates and it’s up to me to take them out.

I remember the missions at the start of the game being incredibly short 1 or 2 minute affairs. This is considerably larger with a large map to explore and plenty of opposition. I wouldn’t say it’s tough but I couldn’t just walk in and finish it on my first attempt without learning my way around the controls and techniques again.

I don’t get a team to help me out so I have to be a one man army in this mission taking out a dozen+ pirates on my own. They usually only attack in ones or twos making the task much easier. Sidestepping is very effective in this game and provided I keep my distance I don’t get hit much. The terrain shows off some of the better aspects of Terra Nova, with deep canyons and bases hidden in quarries. It’s a lot less flat than I might expect in an early 3D game.

The main opposition is right at the end of the level with a pirate captain + a tank lobbing shells at me. I’ve had enough practice to get through this unscathed and the drop ship comes in and picks me up.

This is well worth playing and definitely recommended. I was a little disappointed in Terra Nova back when I played it, partly as it had been sold to me as having the FMV production values of Wing Commander 3 (which it didn’t), and also because it didn’t have the depth I expect in a Looking Glass game. However, it is still fantastically good fun if you just fancy blasting some mechs. I definitely went into it with the wrong expectations first time around. It did have tactical aspects also with a strike team to command although those weren’t shown in this demo.

I recently purchased a VFX-1 headset on Ebay (spending way too much money in the process as usual) and Terra Nova is one of the supported games. I’ve had my eyes out for one of these for years and it was one of my reasons for wanting a working DOS PC in the first place. In the case of Terra Nova, it doesn’t work in stereo-3D but does have built-in support for full head tracking and this is definitely one of the games I’m most looking forward to trying out. I can imagine this playing extremely well if I’m able to look around independently of movement and it should be great fun if my neck and eyes will take the strain. It was only posted today so I’ve got a couple of weeks waiting before I can find out.

F-15 Demo

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Pix

This is the last Origin demo which I’ve been able to locate so if anyone has any more feel free to send them my way. It’s another flight sim so I’ve only had the briefest of looks at it.

It’s a similar demo to the Longbow 2 one, only this time there are clear mission objectives. The task is to take out a chemical weapons factory.

Even defaulting to casual mode, being dropped straight into a sim like this can be daunting. The wise decision was taken that the demo would run on autopilot, unless you choose to move the joystick and take over control. When on autopilot, the demo swaps views constantly to show all the different planes, ground vehicles and buildings.

There is a ton of opposition and friendlies around to show off as many game objects as possible. From a modern standpoint, some of the autopilot views possibly don’t show the engine in it’s best light. A building close up is a rectangular block but you wouldn’t normally be so close for this to be apparent. It’s still impressive enough judged against other games of the time but however pretty the engine, it’s not all that likely to win me over to the genre.

This doesn’t mean the end of the demo’s as I have a pile of Looking Glass games still to go among others but I’m long overdue to get stuck into a full game. I’ll have a quick look at any Terra Nova demo(s) I can dig up and then pick the next one off the list.

Longbow 2 Demo

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Pix

I can’t say I was particularly looking forward to it but I thought I’d finish my trip through Origin’s demos which means 2 modern flight sim games. I’ve said it many times on here but these aren’t my cup of tea, although I have to admit that Longbow 2 is a good-looking game for its era.

After some basic instructions, the demo dumps me straight into the middle of a tank battle with orders to seek and destroy enemy tanks and choppers. There are huge armies of both and the demo defaults to unlimited ammo and casual flight modes.

If you care to change these settings and fly properly there is actually a good deal of gameplay. Flying into enemy territory reveals banks of SAM sites and more choppers and tanks to take out. I of course stayed on the default settings indiscriminately firing hellfires and stingers left, right and center.

There didn’t appear to be a way to actually win the mission as far as I could tell. You just end it from the menu when you have had enough. There is still plenty here for the flight sim aficionado to get their teeth sunk into though, with a large area to fly around and masses of opposition. It’s a good showcase for the game but speaking for myself, I’d rather have been blowing up the Kilrathi.

Bioforge Collector’s Edition

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Pix

I was searching around the web for the Bioforge demo (which I entirely failed to locate) and came across this app for Android. Despite what the name implies, it isn’t the game itself but a gallery of most of its assets.

This includes the intro and outro movies, unfortunately with adlib sound, …

… all the logs from the game, sound files, graphics and music. It even claims to include a couple of unreleased bits and pieces. The only ones I was able to find quickly browsing through were two pieces of music and a couple of speech sound clips. I distinctly remember the unreleased Dr. Escher sound clip being used in the game though.

I’m not entirely sure who this app was designed for or how it originated but it’s a curiosity at the very least. It’s free and available on the Android marketplace for anyone who fancies reading through all the lengthy logs from the game, or setting their ringtone to “If you’ve come for the fork you’ll be sorely disappointed.”

Wing Commander Prophecy Demo

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Pix

There were two demos released for Wing Commander Prophecy. I’ve already looked at the first which was a simple but immensely fun gauntlet against the Kilrathi. This second demo was released around the same time as the game and is a unique 4 mission branching campaign. I had a little trouble running this as it kept randomly crashing on me forcing a reboot each time. It turns out that it didn’t like the Amiga-Merlin 3dfx drivers and it was far more stable as soon as I swapped back to official drivers. It also overrode Hypersnap with its own screenshot capturing system so I didn’t get half as many screenshots as I expected but there are enough for the job.

The action all takes place from the Midway but the bar is deserted each time with no cutscenes inbetween the missions. In the first mission briefing, I’m informed that a convoy is moving in and we have to fly a 3 point patrol to ensure its safe arrival. This is a straightforward mission against the smaller enemy fighters. Unlike the 3dfx test demo, this looks just like the final game as far as I can see.

In mission 2, the convoy has arrived and we have to escort them in. There are two hulking transports and a wing of Shrike bombers for us to escort. Of course the moment we get there they come under fire from fighters and Manta bombers. I’ve played enough Prophecy to know to concentrate on the bombers here. They do manage to hit one of the transports but it’s survives the skirmish. There is more opposition on the way back but a single Manta isn’t much of a threat to a whole wing of fighters. I think this guy was put there more to show off the fighter design.

With the transports and bombers safely back the final mission is to escort the bombers to destroy an incoming enemy cap ship. The briefing says to concentrate on the the turrets but I ignore that and take out the fighters while the bombers do their job. The demo ends after autopiloting back to the Midway.

The demo is actually branching and features an alternative third mission for those who fail number 2. In the alternative, the transports and bombers are destroyed and we have to patrol the area while waiting for another two supply transports. This mission is extremely difficult and clearly put in there for anyone who fancies a challenge. There are a huge number of fighters to destroy before getting to a final capship which must be de-turreted. It’s doable but this is a half-hour marathon with a heavy emphasis on conserving afterburners while taking out the 40-50 enemy fighters.

I didn’t play this demo back at the time and there was a lot more to it than I expected. The gameplay is exactly the same as WCP but with the original missions and a branching campaign, it’s almost like an extra Secret Ops episode.

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