Body Harvest (Nintendo 64)

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Description

The year is 2016. Humanity has been reduced to a few survivors inhabiting the orbital space station Omega. Over the course of the history, aliens visited the Earth every twenty-five years, "harvesting" humans as an organic material. Eventually, they launch an assault on the last remnants of the human race. But Adam Drake, a genetically engineered soldier, comes into possession of a time-traveling device. He uses it to travel to the time periods of human history when aliens performed their deadly attacks. The fate of humanity is in his hands.

Body Harvest is an action and driving game with a mission-based structure. The protagonist travels to various locations and eras (e.g. Greece during World War II, Siberia in the 1990s, etc.) with the goal of stopping alien invasions. Missions can be accessed by traveling to specified areas on the map. Adam can move on foot and use his weapons to kill aliens; however, vehicles usually prove to be a more reliable way of tackling most missions. Adam can use most of his weapons while in a vehicle; in addition, some vehicles are outfitted with their own weapons.

Each vehicle has its own speed, armor, and fuel capacity attributes. Controllable vehicles range from armored cars and tanks to boats, helicopters, planes, and even a space ship during a few missions. Buildings scattered around levels may contain useful items, ammunition, and fuel. The player has to avoid killing innocent people; too many casualties result in a premature end of the game. Typically, the main goals in each area are to destroy the alien Shield Generator, defeat a boss enemy, and proceed to the next stage.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Part of the Following Group

• Genre: Open world / Free-roaming / Sandbox action and driving

User Reviews

An utterly sublime gameplay experience.	AkibaTechno (254)
Grand Theft Auto: 2016	Scott G (793)

Critic Reviews

Mega Fun	Nov, 1998	83 out of 100	83
64 Power / big.N / N Games	Nov, 1998	83 out of 100	83
Nintendo Power Magazine	Nov, 1998	8.1 out of 10	81
Edge	Dec, 1998	8 out of 10	80
Meristation	Nov 20, 1998	8 out of 10	80
Power Unlimited	Dec, 1998	8 out of 10	80
HappyPuppy	Nov 06, 1998	7 out of 10	70
Retroage	May 03, 2011	7 out of 10	70
GameSpot UK	Oct 30, 1998	7 out of 10	70
Gamestyle	Mar 15, 2009	7 out of 10	70

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Open-world action and driving?	3	雷堂嬢太朗 -raido.jotaro- (60708) Dec 31, 2011

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Body Harvest appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

German version

The game offers three gore options: "full" (humans and aliens bleed), "aliens" (aliens bleed) and "off". When playing the PAL version with German language settings, the "full" option is not available.

Grand Theft Auto

Body Harvest can be seen as a precursor to the Grand Theft Auto series. It was developed by DMA Design, who later became Rockstar North, and the games share many features including the free-roaming aspect, ability to switch between travelling on foot and in vehicles and the ability to enter buildings. The onscreen objective indicator and mini-map are also very similar.

In GTA: San Andreas, there is a mission called 'Body Harvest' in which you have to steal a combine harvester.

Publishing

This game was originally supposed to be published by Nintendo, as part of DMA originally supposed to be a second-party developer for Nintendo 64. However after Nintendo forced them to change their content in order to appeal to Japanese gamers, eventually Nintendo withdrew their offer to publish the game, and Gremlin picked up the option.

References

• The first four bosses (Leviathan, Cerberus, Moloch and Beelzebub) are all named after mythological creatures. The last boss, Tomegatherion, is a reference to the Beast in the Book of Revelations in the bible, as To Mega Therion is Greek for "The Great Beast".
• In the first time period, one of the settlements is called Trumptonas Town. It has a fire-station with two fire-engines parked outside. This is a reference to classic British kids' TV show, Trumpton (1967) and its iconic fire brigade.

Information also contributed by hydra9 and Mark Ennis

Related Web Sites

• IGCD Internet Game Cars Database (Game page on IGCD, a database that tries to archive vehicles found in video games.)
• Wikipedia: Body Harvest (Information about Body Harvest at Wikipedia)