CDMAG REVIEW


Review by David Ryan Hurt

Checking the scanners as you arrive in sector, a cluster of four
blue blips catches your eye a distant trio of merchant freighters,
flying in formation with only a single mercenary escort. Your cargo
holds are empty and you have a full rack of torpedoes. It is a good
day tobe a pirate.  And thus the addiction began.

Years later, people still speak fondly of the ancient space sim Elite
and the slightly more recent Privateer. It's a rare treat indeed to
come across a space sim offering that nearly complete sense of freedom
and self-determination. Fans of those games have long awaited the
arrival of a worthy heir to the throne. Vicarious Visions believes t
hat it has finally come up with the answer: Terminus. 

Terminus is set approximately two centuries in the future. After
the discovery of alien artifacts on the Jovian moon Callisto, human
technology took a giant leap forward and a new metropolis of space
stations was born. That's well and good, but you wouldn't have
much of a game if something horrible didn't happen, right? As a
lowly pilot, you know nothing of the events of the past. The only
thing you do know is that you must decide where your allegiance
lies-with the United Earth League (UEL), the Mars Consortium, the
Marauder Pirates, or yourself (as a mercenary). Relations between
the three main factions are strained at best, and the emergence
of a fourth group only serves to spark the volatile situation.
Although the UEL is officially in control of just about everything,
a discontented Mars Consortium seeks to separate itself from the UEL.
Of course, the Marauders take the opportunity to increase their raids
on shipping lanes.

Whatever side you choose, the plot is laced with politics, and news reports
and conversations with the few characters you meet will inform you of any
progress. The story itself is interesting but somewhat short of
spectacular-expect your standard escalating conflict scenario. Some
aspects of the story are actually quite poor, such as a final
resolution that seems to come out of nowhere and which does not
really involve your character.

Despite this, Terminus takes a step ahead of its competitors in
allowing a more dynamic plot progression. This game is no Wing
Commander-it does not require that you win every mission. In fact,
it's entirely possible to get yourself blown to bits on a regular basis
as long as you don't allow your reputation to sink too low. It's a breath
of fresh air for players who are tired of getting stuck on a difficult
mission and eventually giving up on a game. 

Time for a coffee break:

Although all four career paths are playable, enlisting in the military
(either with the UEL or with the Mars Consortium) is a choice that you
will ultimately regret. Two of the more interesting motivations for
playing the game are nullified when you join the service- you don't get
paid, and you don't get to choose your ships. All four of the careers
followthe same mission structure, which consists of a selection of
random (non-story-related) missions interspersed with scripted story
missions (the game informs you when one of the latter is available).
Your opportunities are time sensitive and are based on the constantly
ticking game clock. Every so often a new mission will become available
and you have thirty seconds to respond. 

Between plot events you can fly an assortment of generic, randomly
generated missions. Imagine this scenario: after completing a military
story-based mission, you decide to take a patrol (one of the random,
generic missions). You're piloting a fast, maneuverable Bee.
A few minutes after launching you return to base, having completed
your patrol without firing a single shot. A bit disappointed, you decide
to try another patrol to see if it's more eventful. Once again, nothing
happens. And then a third time, and a fourth. Each generic mission
becomes increasingly dull, as they are almost always uneventful. By the
late stages of the game, most players will either abandon the
military career track e ntirely, or leave their computer sitting unused
so that the clock continues to count up until the game generates a
real (story-based) mission. If they had simply cut out the
generic missions for military pilots (or, ideally, made them more
interesting), these campaigns would be worth playing. Instead, two of
the four campaigns feel like a complete waste of time.

A wonderful selection of doohickies:

The real action lies with the Marauders and mercenaries, since
they get to buy their own ships and components. Although these career
tracks are intended for experienced players, they are also the only
two story modes worth playing. In these careers you get paid for
completing generic missions ("contracts"), which also tend to be
far more eventful than military missions. After playing a military
campaign, it's extraordinarily refreshing to fly a patrol
in which you actually encounter multiple hostile ships. Contracts
vary in pay from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand, depending
on their demands. Spy and hijacking contracts tend to be especially
valuable. As you could expect, you start off flying a virtual tugboat,
capable of neither combat nor trade, with a handful of cash. You
can either use your grubstake to upgrade your current ship, or you
could save it to help pay for your next vessel. Either way, this
is where Terminus really shines-getting money, buying new things and
designing your ship. 

All it takes is a single look through the ship manager to realize
that this game is incredibly deep in a mechanical sense. Ship hulls
are divided into a variety of bays. Some are specifically designed
for weapons, others for propulsion, and so on. Unless you
want to purchase a pre-configured ship, you have to start with an
empty hull and outfit your ship from the get-go. There are a total
of thirteen basic components: computers, scanners, detail scanners,
devices, engines, thrusters, fuel systems (and fuel pumps), energy systems,
weapons, surge cells, cargo, ammo (unlike most space sims, every weapon
requires ammo) and armor. Additionally, there are dozens of peripheral
components available for most slots.

It's entirely possible to get wrapped up in building a ship and spend
an hour tinkering with the design, adjusting and tweaking to get
everything just right. Of course, if it's your first time, you're likely
to find you've created a barely functional Frankenstein of futuristic
technology. 

On the flipside, the sheer level of detail can be overwhelming at first.
There are no pictures of the components, and many names are obscure
combinations of capital letters and numbers. Pictures or icons would
have been useful to help you remember what is what; as it stands, it
will take you a while to get familiar with the various weapons and gizmos.
Even so, collecting funds and building a fleet is a lot of fun, and there
is always a reason to fly more missions and earn a few more credits.
And since it's possible to own multiple ships, you can work on building
up that bulky transport/mining ship even though you may already have a
super-fighter. This is why games like Elite and Privateer are remembered to
this day-the sheer amount of fun that you can have in a dynamic universe. 

"Oops, I'm flying sideways again"

Wing Commander-style flight sims all tend to use the same basic flight
model-that is, one in which you can loop circles around your opponents
and stop in an instant. Turn off your engines and you bleed off speed,
even though there is no wind resistance in space. Newtonian physics are
nonexistent in most space games; Terminus is one of the few exceptions.
If you spend ten seconds accelerating to reach a certain velocity, for
example, you must allow yourself another ten seconds to come to a stop.
Fuel can become a consideration in particularly long missions, and each
time you trigger a thruster a small amount is consumed. In these cases,
you will learn to ration out your fuel and spend most of your time
coasting, saving thrust for combat maneuvers.

With a Newtonian physics model, you will continue to travel in the same
direction no matter which way you turn your ship (unless you use thrust
to alter your vector). Head-on charges are a whole different ball of
wax here, and using them effectively is a crucial part of any combat
mission. Should you choose to fly at maximum speed towards your target,
you will simply zip by him and find yourself way beyond the range of
your weapons. Speaking of which, your weapons are also affected by
your speed. So, if you are right next to a hostile ship but
flying in the opposite direction, he will likely be out of range
because your shots will never catch him. 

Inertial compensators are fitted on every ship to help you cope with
the complex physics model. Basically, these components help ships fly
in the direction they are facing by automatically applying the lateral
thrusters. Even the most skilled pilots can take advantage
of the inertial compensators, but sometimes it's best to disable them
and control the ship manually-this allows you to perform some of the
more elaborate maneuvers such as torpedo evasion. 

Of course the computer tends to benefit far more from the complex physics
model than most human players could be expected to. As a general rule,
you are always outnumbered, thus it wouldn't be too helpful to fly
backwards to fire upon your pursuer. On the other hand, for the computer
(who only has to deal with a single aggressor), this is an
effective tactic. Wing Commander fans can probably recall a fight in
which they were severely damaged, and they were only able to survive
by tailing the last ship so that there would be no possibility of hostile
fire. Simply put, the player can learn to fly backwards to shoot
the computer, but it's no easy feat and thus it may be better to fly
in a more traditional manner.

Finally, Terminus further differentiates itself from the standard space
sim by eliminating shield generators. The only thing standing between
you and your opponents' Proton Particle Bolts is the hull of your ship.
Every possible scratch must be avoided, because you can't simply keep
your shields up and recharge them by evading the enemy.

Dueling the masses

Amongst the more appealing features of Terminus is the multiplayer
support. Just about everything available in the solo game is also present
in multiplayer. You can play through the campaign story, of course; there
is also a melee mode (deathmatch), a unique zero-g hockey game, and free
mode (like campaign mode, but minus the plot). The campaign mode
eventually turns into free mode once the story has run its course
(you can continue playing indefinitely).

In both campaign mode and free mode you must choose a career path,
making both a little less "free" than they could have been.
Changing careers mid-game is possible but extremely difficult, and
often times you severely damage your reputation in the process. Changing
from a military career to either a mercenary or pirate career is
essentially the same as starting the game over (since you don't earn
money in the military). The bottom line is that there is never a
compelling reason to switch careers. A more truly free environment
would have made for an incredible multiplayer experience. 

When everything is said and done, Terminus comes out looking-and
feeling-good. While the detailed ship design and physics model won't
appeal to everyone, the ability to purchase ships and dumb-down the
physics give the game more widespread appeal. For those of you who are
interested in the meat of Terminus, there's only one thing to say-ignore
the military campaigns and dive right into the good stuff...
you'll have a ball.