Terra Nova is on gog.com! A fantastic game that, as I recall, sadly went largely un-noticed and was a commercial failure. It really deserved greater success. My writeup from the elder days of this site is here.

It’s a sci-fi tactical first person shooter that puts you in command of a squad of elite soldiers. It also puts you in a suit of Space-Marine style power armour, loaded with lasers, missile launchers, sensor drones and rocket boots. The controls, whilst a bit clumsy by modern standards, actually work quite well with the gadgetry to give the game a bit of a hybrid feel, between shooter and one of the old big-robot games like Mechwarrior.

It also had a graphics engine that was rather advanced for the time – for example huge expanses of textured terrain with no fogging. Also, while it predates the use of 3d models for characters, each is built out of several jointed sprites, which at least adds a bit of realism and flexibility to the animation.

I recall I used to go charging madly amongst enemies using the defensive force field and madly firing short-ranged lasers to try and cut them down. There are probably more clever tactics available, especially if you use your squad properly. Other fond memories include rampant use of the rocket boots whenever in serious trouble. Also there are even one or two sneaky-stealthy levels where you’re in a more lightweight suit of armour on a recon mission.

Between missions there are a bunch of FMV cutscenes featuring out-of-work actors. Something about a remote colony fending off an earth-based dictatorship, and casting you as Commander New Guy in charge of the squad. They’re rather amateurish, but move the story along at least. We’re talking early 90s, back in the days when lots of video seemed like a good idea to make use of all that space on the CD.

So, bad acting aside, if this sort of your game is your thing at all, this is an oldie I thoroughly recommend.