The Terminator: Future Shock is a first-person shooter

First-person shooter

First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

 computer game, based in the fictional Terminator

The Terminator

The Terminator is a 1984 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron, co-written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr., and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, and Linda Hamilton. The film was produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures, and filmed in Los...

 universe. It was released by Bethesda Softworks

Bethesda Softworks

Bethesda Softworks, LLC, is an American video game company. A subsidiary of ZeniMax Media, the company was originally based in Bethesda, Maryland and eventually moved to their current location in Rockville, Maryland...

 in 1995

1995 in video gaming

-Events:*May 11 – Introduction of trade magazine GameWeek *May 11-16 — The 1st annual Electronic Entertainment Expo is held in Los Angeles, California...

. It is notable for being one of the first games in the first-person shooter genre to feature true, fully texture-mapped 3D environments and enemies, and pioneered the use of mouse-look control, months before the release of Quake further popularized these conventions.

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 Gauss gun.

Single player

Future Shock is played in the first person perspective at all times. Each level 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 a HK fighter (an aerial combat robot).

Multiplayer

Future Shock had no multiplayer component. A multiplayer feature was finally available in the sequel, The Terminator: SkyNET

SkyNET

SkyNET, known as The Terminator: SkyNET in Europe, is a computer game based on the Terminator film series. It was originally an expansion, and became the sequel to The Terminator: Future Shock, also developed by Bethesda Softworks....

, which featured a deathmatch

Deathmatch (gaming)

Deathmatch or Player vs All is a widely-used gameplay mode integrated into many shooter and real-time strategy computer games...

mode.

Story

In The Terminator: Future Shock, the story begins in 2015 with the player's character escaping from an extermination camp with the help of the resistance. Once the player fully escapes during the first mission the character is introduced to John Connor, the leader of the resistance and a young Kyle Reese. After completing several missions for the resistance, the resistance HQ is infiltrated and attacked by T800 model Terminators. After assisting Connor and the rest of the leadership in relocating to a new HQ, the player begins to experience phenomenon in the form of enemies 'spawning' seemingly randomly on screen. It soon transpires that Skynet has perfected time displacement and as a result of the success of the player's endeavours, its future self is actively manipulating time by placing its forces in key strategic locations in an attempt to thwart successful resistance maneuvers. The resistance learn that Skynet is using time displacement to transmit information to itself in 1995 in an attempt to increase the speed at which it will become sentient. The player is ultimately sent on a mission to stop this process but must battle time as the resistance HQ is besieged and Kyle Reese and Connor himself are seriously wounded.

Contrary to the timeline specified in Terminator 2, "The Terminator: Future Shock" depicts 1995 as the beginning of the nuclear war, not 1997.

Throughout the game the player is surrounded by a post-apocalyptic environment. All around is death and decay, scattered with pockets of deadly fallout and the remnants of a shattered society.

External links

• Bethesda homepage
• GameFAQs