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Future Shock box back

Future Shock box back.

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 has left most of humanity dead. All around is death and decay, scattered with remnants of a past society shattered.

The game was followed by a sequel named SkyNET which is more in-line with an updated re-release on an enhanced engine as it includes Future Shock due to needing its assets to work.

Plot[]

The story commences in 2015 when the player's character escapes from a Los Angeles death camp with the aid of the Resistance. Following the successful escape in the initial mission, the player encounters John Connor, leader of the Resistance, his second-in-command Kathryn Parker, doctor Bill Hannover, and a young Kyle Reese. As the player completes various missions for the Resistance, their headquarters faces infiltration and assault by new T-800 Terminators, created using the DNA of Resistance traitor Milton Bishop. Upon helping Connor and the leadership relocate to a new headquarters in Santa Monica, the player starts witnessing unexpected appearances of enemies on-screen. Doctor Hannover discovers that Skynet has created a Time Data Transmitting System: due to the player's successful actions, Skynet's future self is actively manipulating time, subtly changing history, and deploying its forces strategically to obstruct Connor's efforts. The Resistance discovers that Skynet is also employing the TDTS to send information to itself in 1995, aiming to accelerate its evolution to sentience. After killing Milton Bishop, the player is tasked with a mission to hijack this process, having to assault Skynet's facility alone as the Resistance headquarters is under siege, and Hannover, Reese, and even Connor are killed. The player manages to send a virus back in time, resulting in Skynet sending corrupted data to its past self and never gaining sentience. This results in an alternate future in which Judgment Day never happened, with only the player and few others remembering the dark future they avoided.

Gameplay[]

Single Player[]

The Terminator- Future Shock4

Shooting an enemy

Future Shock is played in the first person perspective at all times. Each of the 17 levels 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.

Multiplayer[]

Future Shock had no multiplayer component. A multiplayer feature was made available in the sequel, The Terminator: SkyNET, which featured a deathmatch mode.

Features[]

Future Shock is driven by Bethsoft's Xngine, which was one of the first game engines to have the following features:

  • A full 3D perspective.
  • Real-time light sources
  • Full texturing

While the majority of the game used textured polygons to display levels and structures, many of the items, weapons, and level decorations were still shown using sprites.

Graphics[]

Future Shock was one of the first computer games to use full 3D graphics and totally free mouselook in a first-person shooter .[1]

Weapons[]

Future Shock weapons list
Primary weapons
  • Pipe
  • Tracker
  • Uzi
  • Assault Rifle
  • Machine Gun
  • Shotgun
  • Grenade Launcher
  • Rocket Launcher
  • Laser Rifle
  • Laser Cannon
  • Phased Plasma Pistol
  • Phased Plasma Rifle
  • Phased Plasma Cannon
Explosives
  • Molotov
  • Pipe bomb
  • Grenade
  • Canister bomb
  • Satchel charge

Characters[]

Future Shock - Terminator
Future Shock - Terminators
Future Shock T-800s

T-800 Terminators attacking the player (SkyNET SVGA mode).

Future Shock Goliath

Fighting a Goliath in mission 7 (SkyNET SVGA mode).

Skynet T-Rex and Spiderbot

Facing a T-Rex and a Spiderbot (SkyNET SVGA mode).

Humans
Machines

Notes[]

  • Mouselook allows players to aim at and continually shoot the moon in the sky on the levels that take place outside. The game will display the word 'ow!' in red a few times, then the moon will fall from the sky.
  • Along with the usual information and credits, the game manual comes with many illustrations, including an artist's image of the game design team dressed corresponding to some of their personality traits and pet projects, such as designer Robert Stoll sporting his prototype railgun.

References[]

  1. Logan Booker, The Genesis of a Genre, Atomic: Maximum Power Computing issue 46, November 2004, p.47

External links[]

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