The Terminator: Future Shock

The Terminator: Future Shock description

Here is a revolutionary 3D first-person shooter in all respects, even slightly ahead of the appearance of the equally revolutionary Quake, but, unfortunately, not well marked by the target audience. The game uses The new xngine 3D engine for that time. With all due respect to the creative genius of John Carmack, the Terminator: Future Shock was perhaps the very first truly three-dimensional shooter at the time. But this game is not only a technical breakthrough in its graphics. There is a stunning post-apocalyptic atmosphere and interesting plot solutions…

Of course, many of us saw the firstborn of the Terminator Saga not immediately in the distant 1984, but a little later on videotapes and, most often, in close darkened rooms of the basement type. That small, but very impressive piece of the future, which showed the war of humanity with ruthless machines, was just a film fragment on the theme of Kyle Reese's memories in a dream. And then all the fans, of course, strongly wanted to look deeper into such a terrifyingly post-apocalyptic "beautiful far away". In the epic sequel – "Terminator 2" (1991), this future was shown even more briefly: the film mainly focused on earlier events. And now, the rapid development of gaming technologies has finally allowed us to plunge headlong into the terrifying everyday life of war with merciless machines…

In the 1990s, the Terminator: Future Shock was preceded by both the Terminator: Rampage and the Terminator 2029 (both projects were also from Bethesda). The first of them was a clone of Wolfenstein, in which the atmosphere of the film could not be recreated for reasons of both plot and technical nature. But in the next game, the Terminator 2029, it was already much "warmer". It was quite an independent representative of the FPS genre, however, with a step-by-step type of movement. Here already appeared the first signs of the correct story atmosphere of the film: always night, the ruins of buildings, various models of terrible machines-terminators. But points in favor of the gameplay, this step-by-step, of course, did not add. And now, in 1995, 11 years after the release of the first film, the developers from Bethesda were finally able to meet the needs of fans at least 100%. They took that little piece from Kyle's dream, developing a compelling and powerful storyline based on it. Rather, this is not even a plot, but a plot.…

The game takes place in 2015. You are invited to become an ordinary soldier of the Resistance army. You will fight against hundreds of vehicles in single-player missions. The plot is significantly different from the movie Saga, but does not contradict it, and very organically complements, if you understand well and approach everything from the standpoint of strict logic of time travel. Here, or rather, in this time stream, doomsday happened a little earlier – in 1995. With this interpretation, the action of the Terminator I, II films takes place as if in a different parallel branch, branching off from the main arrow of time at the moment of its own Apocalypse with a different date in 1997. The game just fully reveals the great secret of the appearance of consciousness in the main processor in Cyberdyne systems. But first you need to make a small historical digression forward in time…

This was indeed inevitable. After its creation, Skynet was programmed at some point in its development to start sending information messages to itself in its past. This happened in 2015, when many Resistance soldiers began to notice inexplicable sensations such as "deja vu" in battle, followed by the appearance of robots as if out of nowhere, often in the rear of the rebels. It was in such operations that the highest percentage of combat losses was strangely observed. This Skynet from the future, learning more and more about the results of the outcome of a particular battle, sent information to itself in the past (that is, in the present for soldiers) and thus gradually changed the results of battles in their favor. Gradually, these small experiments were embodied in a time machine that appeared no later than 2029 – here the plot of the Saga is beautifully complemented by a game story without logical contradictions. But the most important sending of a packet of information from 2015 was addressed randomly in a small period of years-somewhere in the second half of the 1990s. Apparently, this gave rise to many temporary branches, each beginning with its own doomsday. The contents of that "parcel" to the past are modifying machine code that reloads the functions of consciousness in the main processor of Cyberdyne systems. Instantly Skynet was endowed with intelligence, and in a microsecond the fate of all mankind was decided far from in our favor. The idea of such activation of the processor with a message from the future is at least a brilliant plot solution. It was this sending that the Resistance managed to block – Skynet did not become reasonable, and thus people changed their present for the better, judging by the game's plot. Reading such a story, of course, you can build a whole bunch of interesting guesses that can not be cited here. The fact is that all this was precisely programmed, most likely to hide such bright mental abilities of the computer system, which in the mid-1990s was obliged to remain just a lifeless obedient"piece of iron". And the whole thing was developed by a genius – Professor Dyson. And here I would like to know where and, most importantly, when it appeared in our world – this question can be answered by new bright stories of movies or games that will probably still please us…

At the beginning of the game, you escape from the death camp and immediately join the Resistance, becoming the right hand of Colonel John Connor. Before any mission, you will receive detailed briefings, where not only the upcoming task is discussed, but also an interesting storyline develops. The dynamics of the importance of performing all 19 missions will only go on increasing. Each result of your exit (departure, departure) will give a new piece to solve the sinister mystery. Gradually, your comrades will guess the nature of the observed and difficult-to-explain changes in Skynet tactics. There are few actors in the briefings. John Connor is the leader of the Resistance army: he is energetic, literate, and cruel to his subordinates. Reading the briefing lines, you can't help but realize that this person's orders are not discussed in principle. Next comes Dr. Hanover, the leading technical specialist of the Resistance forces. It was he who first realized that Skynet can already change the present and the past from the future, and it was he who wrote the virus program that blocked the activation of doomsday in 1995. Catherine Parker-Connor's female Deputy (Yes, in that war, women fight on a par with men). In a good plot of any self-respecting movie or 3D shooter, there should always be a traitor who "dug in" just a couple of meters from you. Here in the game it will be Milton Bishop-a rather unpleasant type. He has long been in the ranks of the rebels, is extremely pessimistic and no longer believes in the victory of people over machines. He will hand over all the Resistance with giblets, and it is on his genetic basis that the first instance of the t – 800 series infiltrator robot will be created in Skynet. The image of this model of terminators was perfectly played in the movie by a charismatic American actor of Austrian origin. On the first task (the third level of the game), you will rescue three prisoners from the death camp (among them there will even be a certain teenager named Kyle Reese), and all of them will also participate in briefings. Unfortunately, everyone dies in the end…

The gameplay is instantly addictive. Here you not only move on foot, but also will make trips in a jeep with a laser gun installed on it, as well as perform combat missions (!) on one of the models of the Hunter/Killer class fighter. A similar innovation in a very sluggish graphical version was implemented almost at the same time in another 3D first-person shooter – CyberMage: Darklight Awakening (1995). And in the Terminator: Future Shock, driving vehicles will be absolutely "honest" - in full 3D graphics. No, of course, this is not a simulator, but taking into account the basic physics of controlling these machines will definitely give you all the necessary feelings of realism in the game. The action of the missions always takes place at night – this does not contradict the main plot of the Saga, well, for 3D graphics, darkness in those years was always technically preferable to modeling the abstruse effects of adding the logarithm of the brightness of light sources. In addition to walking on the main map, you can enter buildings. However, there will be a complete zero on the part of the plot: mostly dilapidated houses are used for uninterrupted supply of ammunition, armor, medicines and weapons to the player. By pressing the familiar Tab key, a map will appear, but it will not be a flat map, as in sprite shooters of the time, but a three-dimensional map (!). In General, it is quite difficult to remember more games with truly three-dimensional maps. From harmful factors in the gameplay added radioactivity. On the level maps, you can always get a life-threatening radiation dose in any funnel from nuclear explosions, so an individual Geiger counter was integrated into the game panel. Metal opponents in the game will meet a variety of-and giant, and very small. Some of them are taken directly from the movie Saga, and the other are fictional models of cars, but they will all have a common art concept, strictly in the style of " made in SkyNET". Multiplayer, unfortunately, was not provided.

The graphics in the game are specific, with a resolution of 320x200. X-ngine gives our eyes a dark world in gray-blue shades against the black starry sky. The ruins of many buildings in war-torn Los Angeles are successfully implemented with a minimum of polygons-apparently, this is the specifics of the ruins or the simple architecture of buildings in L. A. so helped. And small objects on the ground are sprite objects. Opponents also do not Shine with 3D detail, but they are still quite recognizable. To make the player feel more comfortable in an honest 3D environment, the camera rotation was implemented on the basis of a full-fledged mouse-look. And I would also like to note the minimal animation of the briefing images. The characters only move their lips and eyes (!), but they still seem alive – so painstakingly worked out images. Well, what a wonderful music in the game! There are only a few themes here, but they all carry a disturbing and depressing note, catching up with the atmosphere to the maximum…

I want to tell you about the continuation of this game, which was released by the same Bethesda in 1996. It is called the Terminator: SkyNET. There is, as it were, a parallel stream of time, plot - wise unrelated to the events of the Terminator: Future Shock. Graphics (resolution – 640x480), gameplay and multiplayer in the Terminator: SkyNET, of course, succeeded, but the story there was just crumpled and "no", if compared with the game's predecessor. And all the fun is spoiled by an absolutely indistinct ending and incompetently filmed videos, but it's better to read about this in another description…

The year 1995 in the history of 3D shooters for some reason was not marked by the release of any loud delusional plotless game revelations, as it happened before. Gradually began to appear of their antipodes, with a good plot. Earlier, in 1994, there was already a very good franchise product called Dark Forces from LucasArts, but it was almost not noticed, because everyone was drinking heavily in Doom II. It seems that the Terminator: Future Shock suffered a similar fate. It is difficult to say what the reason is: maybe the audience of that time was really not ready for such games with a well-developed plot? Yes, the average Russian gamer then just did not bother reading lengthy briefings in English, which, of course, he is forgiven. But it seems that in the West, players did not really want to delve into such a wonderful "story", so to speak, the best of its kind on the subject of the war of humanity with ruthless machines in the universe "Terminator". And those fans who are familiar in detail with the entire chain of events described here 3D-shooter, recently, probably want to cry bitterly from the annoyance and unfair vicissitudes of fate – "Well, why before the creation of the movie " Terminator 4: Yes, the Savior will come" (2009), the writers never bothered to sit down at least once and play in the Terminator: Future Shock?"It would have turned out to be a stunningly atmospheric film! But, unfortunately, everything is left to chance…

An alternative description from Agent Provocateur. Probably, all without exception remember the eerie scenes from the first two films " Terminator", showing the unhappy future of the Earth. A desolate land that has turned into a large and sometimes radioactive dump, miserable shelters of the last people and a crowd of merciless and sooo evil robots that mow down the resistance at the root. Most of the population died in the atomic war and subsequent battles with SkyNET (remember, the so-called Supercomputer and global network that started the war). Survivors fight robots, die, and end up in extermination camps.

Now, you are one of them. However, you were lucky, and you were saved by a certain Resistance fighter. He himself was less fortunate - a huge mechanical spider left little living space on his body. It remains only to grieve a little over the mortal body and grab the remaining from the Savior "Uzi" and a couple " Molotov cocktails". Fortunately, before gluing together the flippers, the fighter managed to tell where he left his luxury jeep, which can be used to leave the zone under the control of robots.

Then you will find a lot of tricky missions, each of which will be a lot of mechanical blockheads that are a priori stronger than you, and you will have to fight more often not so much with weapons as with cunning. Speaking of weapons, the Arsenal is truly impressive. Starting with a completely useless lead pipe and a puny " Uzi", by the end you will find a huge pile of bullet, laser, plasma, rocket weapons. At the same time, they will give you a ride on a jeep hung with weapons and a flying robot killer converted into a human. Don't think it will be easy - robots are waiting for you.

Robots are diverse. They cut, burn, shoot, blow up and do everything to make sure that you do not have a wet spot left. Walking, flying, crawling, driving - a huge number of varieties. Meet and Terminator Combat Chassis-the famous " iron skeleton", and the robot tank Goliath, which can be seen at the beginning of the T-2 and which is almost impossible to destroy, and T-800, familiar to us from the movies " Schwarzenegger".

Missions are quite tricky, and you often have to go around the entire map several times to complete them. There will be time for sabotage, the elimination of traitorous people, brutal shootings and the final attack on SkyNet, after which it will never recover.

T:FS-a game that in many ways anticipated many masterpieces of the future, is definitely absolutely necessary in the collection of a connoisseur of the 3D-Action genre.

P.S. Be sure to set the sound in the game. Often robots can only be heard before they open fire. In addition, save before entering buildings - the game may hang in them on a number of configurations.

Enjoy playing The Terminator: Future Shock online, it can be played on your browser and is free.

Source: Archive.org, Mobygames.com