Which revolutionary elements for example Veho?
It's the first real squad-based tactical shooter game. You lead a squad of AI-controlled teammates, you issue a whole range of commands , and unlike shooters where squadmates are glorified NPCs and a sufficiently l33t player could have them wait in a barrel and beat the level on their own, some missions are impossible to complete without their engagement.
There is also the wide open fully 3D landscape. Other shooters at the time took place in interiors and enclosed spaces only, Terra Nova took place outdoors. Other 3D games with outdoor terrain at the tame were MechWarrior, which had a flat terrain with unclimbable boulders strewn here and there, and flight simulators that had a lower level of ground detail (higher graininess). TN had hills, valleys, rivers, lakes and islands, and no part of the terrain was flat. And it was vast. In theory you could walk for hours; in practice if you left the area defined by mission parameters (which was vast) by too far, you would be called a "deserter" and the game would be over, but even at this edge of the play area there was a long long way still to the horizon.
The physics model that allowed for the suits and the weapons to behave differently on different terrain, under different weather conditions, and different gravities (missions take place on several planets / moons).
That and the variety of on-the-fly customization in the HUD that allowed you to pick the best view for any given situation. It was similar to the HUD in System Shock, also by the same studio.
Check these out:
Default view: smaller field of view, three smaller screens displaying squadmate stats, minimap and weapons status (this is important; there are no health packs, ammo crates or pickups, you're stuck with what you equipped before the mission start (with weight and weapon/ammo/equipment slot constraints, MechWarrior style), and if it gets damaged/depleted,
tough cookies):
"Tactical" view, better for combat: wide field of view, no clutter:
Drone control view: the main display shows video feed from an aerial drone (that you can either control directly or set to autonomous mode with waypoints and/or patrol routes), while one of the displays shows your suit's front view:
Drones were great for recon, and for drawing enemy fire away from your squad. Enemies later on had bomber drones, the pesky little fuckers. The player only has recon drones.
360 view, front, back and sides:
Look at them rolling hills. And the trees can be destroyed too. Smoke from the trees (or smoke grenades, if you remembered to bring some) lowers the range for laser-based weapons, so you can use it to your advantage.
Infrared view, for night/low visibility environments:
Full map view:
And multiple combinations of the above. Any screen could display any feed so you could combine at will.
This is what I could find online. There are also two other suits with slightly different HUD design but same functionality.
how are the graphics (for their time?) Not very good. The hardware at the time couldn't cope with all the stuff going on in the background and still render high-end graphics, so they sacrificed resolution for fluidity. The game moves very nicely but the resolution is low and everything is blocky.
your favorite boss ? There are no bosses, this is a mission-based shooter. My favorite mission was one where you had to sneak into an enemy outpost in one of their battle armors, and tap into the communications array. You'd then be discovered, and had to retreat under fire. What made it interesting is that the enemy armors are completely different from the player ones, so the whole mission is unique.
EDIT: Found a shot of the pirate armor, it may look similar but once you're used to the standard suits it plays like a cardboard box that hates you:
It says "drone" there but you don't actually get one. There's also the "comm" option but since you're alone, it is useless.
Another one I really liked was where you were supposed to pick up a defector but ran into an ambush and had to make it to the extraction point alive. Not sure if the mission is really that interesting but when I played it they beat the crap out of me, the suit integrity got to almost zero, no weapons, half the suit systems glitching at random, and the other half completely gone. I had to sneak around enemy patrols in the dark, in the rain, with the HUD fuzzing out all the time. It was great
least favorite boss ? I can't really think of one. Probably one of the samey ones (get in, destroy stuff, kill guys, waltz to the extraction point). There were 37 missions in total, they can't all be gold
Could you show us some gameplay ? Sure. YouTuber DosLegend has videos of several missions, unfortunately not all, but they give a general overview, show several terrain types and environment conditions, and general gameplay. Shame he always uses the default suit, and never shows what gameplay is like in a heavy or scout suit. Little warning: transcoding to YouTube video format makes it look even worse than it really is.
I'm not going to embed them because that many videos in one tab kills my browser
Mission 5
Mission 7
Mission 8
Mission 9
And then...
Mission 27:
shit gets real.
What made you buy this game ? I played the demo that included three missions, fell in love, and had to buy the game.
how would you rate it 1 to 10 ? Realistically, not that high. The reception of the game was great, both among the players and the game critics, all reviews had scores above 90%, and I would agree, but the fact a squad-based game didn't have multiplayer (budget constraints (halfway through the higher ups decided the game had to include FMV cutscenes, the cost went through the roof; this also made the game a commercial failure despite decent sales) made them scrap it in hopes of releasing an expansion pack later on; it didn't happen), that the "random mission generator" play mode that replaced it was completely unplayable due to a bug that was never patched, and the graphics; although I highly recommend it, I can't look today's audience in the eye and claim it to be a 9/10 game. I do urge anyone who can look past the DOS graphics to try it out at least.
