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| There’s an alien out there…somewhere | That’s right, I’m a medical student |
The idea behind Terrawars: New York Invasion is that aliens have invaded New York. Why they want to do that is never really certain since there is very little that resembles a storyline attached to this game. It’s one of those things where the aliens are there and killing people so rather obviously bad. We’re not sure if they struck first, or if they’re just retaliating after humanity has done something stupid, but that doesn’t really matter. If it’s vaguely alien shaped, and vaguely shaped is as good as it gets, then shoot it. A lot. With extreme prejudice even.
Since we’re talking about the shooting, your role in this games is as John Armstrong, military superman…erm…well…not exactly. The name John Armstrong is right, but instead of being soldier, marine, cop or anyone else that makes any type of sense in this situation you’re a medical student, which might actually be useful if you weren’t doing the job of a military specialist. You do happen to be a member of the National Guard, but that hardly seems to justify the training that would be required in order to use grenades, sniper rifles and rocket launchers. Though maybe the state of America by the time the aliens invade is just that scary.
Regardless John’s job over the next dozen plus levels is to wander through the remains of New York exterminating aliens wherever they might be, and there are plenty of aliens to exterminate. The one consistent in the game is the number of aliens that are continuingly in your way. There are objectives associated with each level, but the levels are so scripted that as long as you keep moving through them and shoot stuff you won’t have a problem making the objective. Aliens always appear in the same places every time through the game, I tried the first level twice just to see, so there’s little replayability unless you just want to improve how fast you can slaughter every alien in sight.
Graphically this game leaves much to be desired. It has the feeling of a much older game, and won’t even give a not-so-robust system a run for its money. The media art is much prettier than the actual game which seems to be trying to mimic good ideas from better games but with limited results. Most annoyingly the collision detection seems to be hit and miss at best. Sometimes you’ll find yourself being shot and having no idea from where…until you realize that’s an alien arm sticking through the wall and shooting at you. Apparently aliens can do that…erm…somehow. They can also walk through corners and shoot you when you’re behind them, so don’t let these little tricks throw you. Also don’t count on anything you’ve ever learned from actual tactics to save you. Details in the background have been avoided by a red misty haze that obscures the details of anything outside of your immediate circle of play. The details you do get tend to be highly pixilated, and often out of perspective. The lighting in the levels leaves something to be desired as well, even when I had the brightness turned up as high as possible it was often hard to tell what was an alien and what was a house plant until I was being attacked.
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| What’s with the lighting? When did the sky turn red? | Death smoke! |
The sound features of Terrawars does little to redeem it from utter despair as there is no real soundtrack to speak of. A few bad gun effects and alien moans and grunts are about it. The voice acting is obviously the results of bad translations and worse American accents. “All your base are belong to us” isn’t too far off from some of what is given here, except that the former is actually funny.
As mentioned the gameplay required for Terrawars consists mostly of killing everything that gets in your way. You can do this with a variety of weapons, though all of them play almost the same. It’s more of a pain to switch back and forth than just to pick something and stay with it. There are supposed ‘upgrades’ you can pick up for your weapons, but these really don’t make much different to how the weapons behave or how much damage they do, which are generally the points that an upgrade is supposed to address. Groups of aliens can be taken out with grenades fairly efficiently, but it’s more a matter of whether you prefer guns or grenades, not that one is better or worse in a given situation. Don’t expect anything cool in the deaths of the aliens either. No matter how much fire power is laid down they go down flailing in a green puff of steam or smoke and vanish. Somehow that’s just disappointing. I don’t need a Kill Bill massacre, but at least put a little bit of dramaticism in there.
Another lovely feature of the Terrawars gameplay is the inclusion of platforming. This is defined as being put on a platform of some sort and having to jump to another one some distance away. Platform jumps are very popular in RPGs and side scroller games, but not such a great idea shooters and a worse idea in this one. Not only is the timing required, but because of the issues with a lack of collision detection you can end up just hanging on the edge of the platform unable to go forward or back, or you’ll just miss the jump all together for a reason known only to the video game gods. Likewise frustrating are the obstacles put in the way in order to keep you moving forward. You’ll have to crawl over boxes and through tubes and each of these is an exercise in frustration as John Armstrong is the clumsiest medical student in the world. I wouldn’t want him doing first aid on me.
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| Biomatter, which is useless | If he doesn’t have a name he’s not important |
There is a multiplayer mode for Terrawars, but no particular server to connect to which means talking someone else into buying this game so you can play the same frustrations at the same time.
All in all Terrawars was a disappointing experience and one that may leave you much as the paperboy in “Better Off Dead” but wanting your twenty dollars.
Top Gaming Moment:
TOP GAME MOMENT
The uninstall…I really enjoyed the uninstall.
