Terra Nova

Review: Computer Game

Reviewed by Neil Mouneimne

Looking Glass
$45 on the street
Requires P-60, 8MB RAM, DOS, CD-ROM,

If you're a fan of Heinlein's Starship Troopers or Shirow's Appleseed, you owe it to yourself to check out Terra Nova -- the newest PC release from Looking Glass. You pilot a suit of powered armor and command up to three other squadmates on a series of special forces missions to protect your clan from a cornupr Earth empire. The interface will be familiar to anyone who's played the Ultima Underworld or System Shock games.

The real crown jewel of the game is the terrain. Terra Nova's terrain is prohahly unlike anything you've seen before. Hills and valleys, passes, plateaus, craters, lakes, ravines -- in short, the terrain is so real you'll probably swear you've been somewhere that looks similar. Terrain affects nearly everything, from what you can see and hit to how you can move. Be forewamed, however; this game is a real hog for power. The box clearly states that a Pentium 60 with 8 megs of RAM is the minimum requirement, and they mean in A Pentium-60 with 16 megs should be considered as the baseline machine. Even so, you must run the game at the lowest resolution mode and with most all options turned off.

The gameplay is pretty straightforward. You get assigned a mission, pick your team and equipment, and drop onto the planer's surface. All your walking is handled through the keyboard, while weapons targeting and firing is done with the mouse. The game is flexible enough rhar you can choose to accomplish your mission with stealth, brute force, or some compromise between the two. In combat, you'll he introduced to a good assortment of weapons, including particle beams, grenades, and continuos fire lasers. The action gets very thick at times, requiring a cool head in the most chaotic situations.

If you're looking for another variation on Doom you'll probably want to pass this up. However, if the thought of "making a drop" gives you goosebumps, make tracks for this game.

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