Terminal Velocity

About Terminal Velocity

Terminal Velocity (1995) is Terminal Reality's fast, inertia-free flight shooter, likened to "Descent outdoors", in which the TV-202 starfighter fights an alien alliance that has turned on Earth.

Terminal Velocity in Depth

In 2704 the Alliance of Space-Faring Alien Races, of which Earth is a member, suddenly turns on the planet and its fleet ravages it. Flying the powerful TV-202 starfighter, the player undertakes missions to defeat the enemy, learning in the third episode that a supercomputer called the Xenocidic Initiative on Proxima Seven is behind the war. A hidden mission in the CD-ROM version investigates the strange transformation of a nearby planet and reveals that the force behind it drove a man named Sy Wickens insane, his persona having been "accidentally" digitised by the supercomputer.

An action flight combat game with simpler controls and physics than flight simulators, it gives the craft no inertia, so it can change course instantly and fly slowly without falling. Seven weapons range from guns, blasters and rockets to homing missiles and a rare secret weapon, and powerful afterburners provide escapes at very high speed at the cost of being unable to fire. The ship can survive some hits and even collisions with terrain and tunnels. Each of the 27 missions has objectives such as enemies to destroy, tunnels, checkpoints and an extraction point, and every planet ends with a boss. Edge called it "the most convincing sensation of high-speed, low-level flight yet on the PC" and its eight-player mode "probably the best network game since Doom".

Making Terminal Velocity

Terminal Reality developed it, and 3D Realms published it for MS-DOS and Windows 95 in 1995, with MacSoft releasing the Mac version. It has three episodes of three worlds each, apart from the two-stage Proxima Seven. It received generally favourable reviews, critics typically comparing it to Descent: GameSpot praised its immersive sense of speed as a "proverbial quick fix", and Computer Games Strategy Plus called it "Descent outdoors" with "impeccable" execution, though it felt point-to-point levels limited exploration, and some reviewers found the play lacking in depth.