Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri

Cancelled Add-on

A multiplayer add-on was planned ("Terra Nova Multi-Player Pack Coming." was written in the middle of the back of the CD booklet), although never released.

Demos

Two demos were released for Terra Nova. An early 1-mission demo with lots of missing features and a full-featured 3-mission demo later on. Interestingly enough, the 4 missions themselves do not appear in the full game and are exclusive for the demos.

Development

The development team was known as "Team Schmitty."

Ending

Upon completion of the campaign, you're shown some interesting statistics: the repair cost for your armor suit (i.e. how much damage you sustained), and the number of trees you destroyed.

Legacy

Reportedly what Looking Glass (technologies at the time) wanted to do with this game was to create an outdoors engine to complement System Shock's indoor engine and, hopefully, merge them on a third game. Was that game to be Thief: The Dark Project? Who knows...

Origin

Terra Nova apparently started out as an adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's classic sci-fi novel, Starship Troopers. However, Looking Glass were unable to get the license, so came up with their own story and intricate universe, instead. The year after Terra Nova's release, Paul Verhoeven's film version of Starship Troopers hit the cinemas.

Practical Tips

The readme file suggests (just as the bartender in the FMV does) that "mixing alcaps and water makes a great imitation martini."

Sales

Although critically acclaimed, Terra Nova was a huge commercial flop. This (together with the equally unsuccessful project of 1997, British Open Championship Golf) plunged Looking Glass in a financial crisis from which the company never recovered. Ultimately, Looking Glass had to close its doors in June 2000. (That, and Eidos was dumping $25 million into Ion Storm at the time --Ed.)

Technology

• While the game didn't officially support VR headsets, the option was available anyway. If you had a pair of Virtual IO i-glasses!, a Forte VFX1 Headgear, or a VictorMaxx CyberMaxx, you could use it to do rudimentary head tracking.
• It is one of the few games that supported the 320x400 alternate resolution mode. The terrain looks MUCH better in this mode.

Tom Downey

Tom Downey, the actor of Nikola ap Io, seems to stay loyal to his acting-style and had only little roles in several less know Movies like Dracula's Curse, Frankenstein Reborn and Shapeshifter but has also small appearances in That 70's Show and the computer game Code Blue.

Awards

• Gamespot
• One of "The top ten games you never played"

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Boston George, nullnullnull, Kasey Chang, Roedie, Sam Jeffreys and Zovni