The Terminator: Future Shock (1995)
Genres:Shooter
Themes:Action, Science fiction
Game modes:Single player
Story:The Terminator: Future Shock is a first-person shooter computer game released by Bethesda Softworks in 1995.
The game depicts Judgment Day as happening in 1995, then the setting jumps forward to Los Angeles in the year 2015. The gamer plays a human escaping entrapment by Terminators. After escaping hostile enemy territory in the first mission, the player meets with John Connor, the leader of the Resistance. From that point on, one plays as a Resistance fighter. Skynet's uprising in 1990 has left most of humanity dead, with control in Skynet's hands. All around is death and decay, scattered with remnants of a past society shattered.
Future Shock is played in the first person perspective at all times. Each level in the game requires the player to solve a number of objectives before continuing to the next level, while fighting enemy robots with a wide variety of guns and grenades. Another obstacle in each level is the harsh terrain, as many areas contain too much radiation for the player character to remain alive. The terrain is navigated in three ways, 'on foot', in a jeep with a mounted cannon, or in an Aerial Hunter-Killer.Show more
Vote to bring this game to GOG and help preserve it.5 829
I still remember the day I ran over to my friend's house and my jaw fell towards the ground after seeing this game. Magical moments in one of the first true 3D engines, with an exceptional Terminator vibe, in every aspect - from the eerie sound effects of the robots moving, to the dystopic urban settings. Whenever I see this big box I still get the chills, and preserving this gem through GOG would be a dream come true, for sure.
I remember being blown away by this game, often literally - the giant HK robots were nightmarish enemies. Was this the first game to use WASD as default keybindings for movement? I don't remember for sure, but I have some vague memory that it changed the standard in some way. The game engine felt exactly like Daggerfall, jank included. I doubt it's aged well, but it was pretty groundbreaking all the same. I'd hate to see it lost forever.
It was 1996 when I received this game as a gift. Being a huge terminator fan all my life, this game was an indescribable experience. It felt that you actually were in the future war between people and machines, that you really met John Connor, Kyle Reese, these legendary characters, that you really played a part and made a difference in the resistance. The story is fantastic, and from a technical standpoint, the game was way ahead of its time, being the first game to feature true 3D models and mouse look (before Quake) and offering the sense of freedom of an open world game, you could explore any location you wanted, enter any building unrelated to your objective, although the structure of the missions is linear. To this day it remains the best terminator game I have ever experienced, and one of the best FPS games of all time. I still have the box on display in my bookcase. The visual atmosphere is unparalleled, the sound effects are superb for their time, even the artwork on the box and manual (with the manual itself being worth a read on its own), Terminator: Future Shock is an absolute masterpiece.
This game taught me how to play with mouse and keyboard and caused a revolution in terms of how a game should be interacted with. One of the very first. Other than that, it's a very good game. Not without its quirks though, but very good and atmospheric.
I had the demo before the game came out, and I must have played that one level over 100 times. This was the perfect game of the future war! It opened a whole new world for the franchise and gave the hardcore fans the way to experience the war for themselves in the ruins!
THIS MUST COME BACK!
I first came across the demo on a PC Mag CD, and I fell in love with the immersive environment and esp the creepy soundstage. Even with just 256 colours & low-res audio, this game drew you in. The story was very creative. I've been dying to revisit ever since Windows evolved away from it (I am just now holding the original install CD in my grubby paws, but Windows keeps saying (can't find INSTALL.EXE) even though it is sitting right there where I tried to click on it. (ultimately, after Santa* brought me this game one year, it contained the demo for Daggerfall, which ALSO drew me in to the point of obsession)
People must know of the majesty of this game!
FreelancerEight hundred years prior to the start of our story, bitter conflict divided all of mankind. A handful of colonists struck out on their own to begin anew - far away from the Earth and its turmoil. Several ships were launched with enough equipment and supplies to give the hundreds onboard a fighting chance - but since the area around far-off Sirius had never been surveyed, no one really knew what to expect. What they found was a new frontier of free-flowing natural resources, unexplored territories, great wonders and lurking dangers. Each ship, representing the clusters of people and their earthly place of origin, settled into different parts of the galaxy pre-selected by their ship-board computer to give them the best chance of survival.
Life was hard in the beginning, but over the 800 years the different colonies prospered and expanded their territories, claiming more and more systems for their own. Survival and propagation eventually led to growth and profit as each of the colonies developed specialties and fostered commerce. As the colonies grew and time passed their connections with their roots on Earth dwindled and they lost their memories of the conflicts of the past. Soon their attention was dominated by new, more immediate conflicts. Feelings of lost ancestral connection spurred anachronism in the look of the great cities, and created a somewhat distorted image of each colony's cultural heritage. In the ever-expanding outer edge of the territories, frontier lawlessness prevailed.
The Houses: Each shipboard colony that left Earth carried some memory of its origins in its name. The Liberty carried Americans, The Bretonia flew from The United Kingdom and surrounding territory, The Kusari from Asia, and the Rheinland launched with Germanic cargo.
As each ship settled and colonies began to expand, they knew little about each other and their advancing development. Finally, little by little, the individual colonies found each other and began to set up trade routes to link their systems for commerce and solidarity.
Today, with each colony firmly rooted in its respective corner of the galaxy, the colonies rely heavily on each other for trade and industry but also compete for resources and new territories in the Border Worlds. The colonies mandate member governments in "The New Alliance" within the Sirius sector. To control conflicts, each colony has forged alliances and treaties with others as they have grown. Competition remains fierce, however. Struggles rage for supremacy in business, commerce, resources, power and control. There can be tenuous peace between colonies' political agendas, but the grabs for holdings constantly unsettle the volatile frontier.Our Pick Top Trending Science fiction Sandbox
Max PayneMax Payne is a man with nothing to lose in the violent, cold urban night. A fugitive undercover cop framed for murder, hunted by cops and the mob, Max is a man with his back against the wall, fighting a battle he cannot hope to win. Max Payne is a relentless story-driven game about a man on the edge, fighting to clear his name while struggling to uncover the truth about his slain family amongst a myriad of plot-twists and twisted thugs in the gritty bowels of New York during the century's worst blizzard.
The groundbreaking original cinematic action-shooter, Max Payne introduced the concept of Bullet Time in videogames. Through its stylish slow-motion gunplay combined with a dark and twisted story, Max Payne redefined the action-shooter genre.Top Trending Action Thriller
The Operative: No One Lives ForeverNo One Lives Forever is to be a fast-paced, story-driven first-person shooter that delivers over-the-top action, outrageous villains, and wry humor in the tradition of the great 1960's Bond films. You play Cate Archer an undercover operative for MI-Zero. Your mission is to arrange for the defection of a prominent East German biophysicist that goes by the name of Otto Dentz. However things go wrong when a terrorist group known as the HARM abducts Dentz during a flight to England.
Assume the role of Cate Archer, an operative working for UNITY, a secret organization fighting to free the world from the clutches of H.A.R.M.. From tense subterfuge to in-your-face combat, No One Lives Forever ups the ante with 1960's-influenced spy action, vivid international locates, and deadly arch villains.Top Action Comedy Stealth
No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s WayA year after the first No One Lives Forever, tensions are rising between United States and Soviet Union over the tiny, but strategic Isle of Khios. Jones, now the sole Commander of U.N.I.T.Y. (after Smithy was discovered to be a H.A.R.M. spy in the first No One Lives Forever), is taking a vacation and leaves Temporary Director Lawrie in charge.
The sequel to the award-winning No One Lives Forever returns you to a world of espionage, intrigue, and dry humor. In her second adventure, British UNITY operative Cate Archer must investigate a super-secret Soviet project that, if successful, could bring about the third world war.Top Action Fantasy Historical Comedy Stealth
Resident Evil Code: Veronica XExperience another terrifying chapter in the Resident Evil series with Resident Evil: Code Veronica X. After narrowly surviving the horrific onslaught in Raccoon City, Claire Redfield now seeks clues in search of her missing brother, Chris. Join Claire as she uncovers the insidious activities of the Umbrella Corporation. Avoid or eliminate flesh-eating zombies and horrific beasts. Use a variety weapons, items, and clues scattered around Raccoon City to help you survive the nightmare and make sure the virus doesn't spread any farther.Top Trending Action Horror Survival
PreyPrey tells the story of Tommy, a Cherokee garage mechanic stuck on a reservation going nowhere. Abducted along with his people to a menacing mothership orbiting Earth, he sets out to save himself and his girlfriend and eventually his planet.Our Pick Top Action Science fiction
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max PayneMax Payne 2 is a third-person shooter, in which the player assumes the role of Max Payne, but also plays as Mona Sax in a few levels. Initially, the player's weapon is a 9mm pistol. As they progress, players access other weapons including other handguns, shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, and hand-thrown weapons. To move the game along, the player is told what the next objective is through Max's internal monologue, in which Max iterates what his next steps should be.Top Action Thriller
OniAn intense action anime thriller comes to life in Oni. As an elite member of the tech crimes task force, Konoko is an agent on a mission to fight the evil Syndicate. But things are not always as they seem... Konoko is haunted by unknown demons of her past, and the truth threatens to send her over the edge.Action Science fiction
Aliens versus Predator 2The sequel to one of the most frightening games ever made, Aliens vs. Predator 2 takes you to Planet LV1201, where three diverse and bloodthirsty species battle for survival. The story-driven plot weaves together the fates of all three races, while the action is as heart-stopping as the blockbuster films on which it is based. Choose to play as Alien, Predator, or Marine as you use your physical prowess, killer instincts, or superior firepower to stay alive.Action Horror Science fiction Stealth Survival
Halo: Combat EvolvedBent on Humankind's extermination, a powerful fellowship of alien races known as the Covenant is wiping out Earth's fledgling interstellar empire. Climb into the boots of Master Chief, a biologically altered super-soldier, as you and the other surviving defenders of a devastated colony-world make a desperate attempt to lure the alien fleet away from earth. Shot down and marooned on the ancient ring-world Halo, you begin a guerilla-war against the Covenant. Fight for humanity against an alien onslaught as you race to uncover the mysteries of Halo.Action Warfare Science fiction