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Games like Terra Nova

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
So I know this game bankrupted Looking Glass in the long run, and not everyone likes it because of the FMV, but I had a really good time playing this back in the day.

It's been 20 years ago, or thereabouts. There were a lot of games like this, Earthsiege 2, Mech Warrior, various helicopter and flight simulators. But Terra Nova was an exosuit simulation combat game with a campaign in the style of those old games, you know, with a nice bunk where you can look at your medals, and a cool campaign. Like the old Wing Commander games and similar.

So, anyone know any similar games?

Looking for a

  • Armored Combat Suit simulator (been watching The Expanse and it made me miss my Terra Nova memories)
Failing that

  • Something similar to Tie Fighter / Wing Commander / Terra Nova in the simulation/campaign departments. I want a decent story campaign that's fun to play, and a nice separate room where I can look at my medals and check my statistics. Something like that. If you played those old games you know what I mean.
Got any ideas, folks?
 

Ibbz

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You could try the Heavy Gear series - the suits in size are somewhere in between Terra Nova & Mechwarrior. Not sure if it has a medal room as such though:

 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
Ah, that looks good. I haven't heard about it before.
Though I am wondering if there are any newer or modern games in this style? I just really want to rekindle that magic from 20 years ago, play a nice campaign, learn to pilot a machine.
 

Dayyālu

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The entire genre died in the early 00ies.

Heavy Gear 2 is probably one of the top contenders, but it has both a simulative approach and it's complete ass to run on a modern system as far as I remember.

You can try to dig out Starsiege, if I remember right it never managed to get to Europe bar in a single collector's edition. It's pretty much Earthsiege, just better.
 

Dayyālu

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How can an entire genre die? This stuff was fun...

That's actually a good question. As usual, being a random on the Net, I have no clear idea, but on PC the genre pretty much died off in the mid 00ies. Hell, Terra Nova itself was quite mismanaged, with too much focus on useless FMVs because reasons and no MP support and quite a bit of cut content. No financial success means no follow-up or whatever.

Mechwarrior died a dog's death in the mid 00ies, I think the last "organic" sequels of the initial run where the MechAssault games, console games at it. Btech is sorta complex, as the tabletop game itself entered in a crisis. One only has to consider that the games managed to run "concurrently" to the plot of the tabletop game up until 2004, and then everything went to shit due mismanagement. After all, no market for it on PC, and on console you have Japanese mecha games. Same story for the clones, Earthsiege/Starsiege mutated into Tribes and all fan attempts to keep the mecha side up died (Starsiege 2845) up until the Tribes IP itself was hilariously squandered by HIREEEEEEEEZ. Can't think of other clones surviving (Heavy Gear is an example, or Shattered Steel or G-Nome).

Also, Wing Commander was never good. It was simply.... the right game at the right place. Like, "cinematic", it sorta followed the same model that Mass Effect got a decade later just for a far wider audience. Sum that with Dread Pirate Robert's delusions of grandeur and you have the Wing Commander movie.

Regarding hardcore sims, there's a billion of them but they are mostly hardcore as hell. The genre of light simulation all went to console games, mostly because that's were the market is (from Ace Combat light sims to terrible attemps like Over G Fighters).

Again, I repeat myself, but if you want to scratch that itch and you haven't played Starsiege, give it a go. It's a weird blend of 80ies sci-fi tropes, Wing Commander narrative and light Mechwarrior combat (far less simulative than MW 2-3, but actiony and fun).
 

DraQ

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This thread is relevant to my interests.
What I really liked in TN was how it simulated all of the suit's sensors and systems. If there is anything like it, where you are running around in a highly mobile suit of powered armor (and not a huge mecha) that's full of interesting features that can all fail in interesting ways after suffering enough damage, do point me that way.

P.S. I think what made TN fail was the trailer - not even mother could love this thing.
 

Dayyālu

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P.S. I think what made TN fail was the trailer - not even mother could love this thing.



Doesn't look that bad.

TN had the usual Origin flair, though, the setting lore was almost too detailed for such a game. Also better than the laughable plot the game itself had.
 

Old Hans

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Oct 10, 2011
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So I know this game bankrupted Looking Glass in the long run, and not everyone likes it because of the FMV, but I had a really good time playing this back in the day.

It's been 20 years ago, or thereabouts. There were a lot of games like this, Earthsiege 2, Mech Warrior, various helicopter and flight simulators. But Terra Nova was an exosuit simulation combat game with a campaign in the style of those old games, you know, with a nice bunk where you can look at your medals, and a cool campaign. Like the old Wing Commander games and similar.

So, anyone know any similar games?

Looking for a

  • Armored Combat Suit simulator (been watching The Expanse and it made me miss my Terra Nova memories)
Failing that

  • Something similar to Tie Fighter / Wing Commander / Terra Nova in the simulation/campaign departments. I want a decent story campaign that's fun to play, and a nice separate room where I can look at my medals and check my statistics. Something like that. If you played those old games you know what I mean.
Got any ideas, folks?
doesnt mechwarrior fit this bill?
 

lightbane

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Dec 27, 2008
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10,158
It's a shame that power armors simulator games will never be done, not even by indies.
There's no interest, as mentioned. The Battletech had potential, but it was infected by the SJW virus, and the game is not very good to boot (neither is the latest Mechwarrior game by the way). For your question, the closest thing left after Terra Nova is Wrath of Earth. I actually posted about this years ago.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/wrath-of-earth

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...gotten-except-by-us.98735/page-3#post-3905059

It's obviously abandonware as hell, and I recommend downloading a patch mentioned in the above thread's last page since it allegedly fixes a critical bug.
 

Dayyālu

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There's no interest, as mentioned. The Battletech had potential, but it was infected by the SJW virus, and the game is not very good to boot (neither is the latest Mechwarrior game by the way).

Btech isn't popular as a tabletop game or game setting, it's simple as that. Compared to Warhams, that managed through cruelty and sheer corporate mass to survive and thrive, Btech lost popularity and market shares. It doesn't help the mess of lawsuits and takeovers it had during the early 00ies (would you believe that a furry tried an hostile takeover of the Btech franchise through a lawsuit to canonize one of his self-inserts? Shit is bonkers.).

Hell, in my area Heavy Gear is a more popular game than tabletop Btech, mostly because tabletop Btech has a ruleset that is incredibly dated (it's not badly designed as a game, but the basic ruleset is straight out the 80ies and it shows). Sum that a weird fanbase that I never completely got and you have what you have.

And honestly, it puzzles me why people even bother with the official products like the Harebrained game or MW5 when you have fanmade stuff like Megamek or Living Legends that gives you superior options for no cost.
 

warpig

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Something similar to Tie Fighter / Wing Commander / Terra Nova in the simulation/campaign departments. I want a decent story campaign that's fun to play, and a nice separate room where I can look at my medals and check my statistics. Something like that. If you played those old games you know what I mean.
From space games you can maybe try Independence War - it's on GOG, a bit more realistic game than Tie Fighter, Freespace etc. type games. There's also Klingon Academy - kind of like Freespace etc. like game but with bigger ships, unfortunately it's a bitch to run on modern computers.

(would you believe that a furry tried an hostile takeover of the Btech franchise through a lawsuit to canonize one of his self-inserts? Shit is bonkers.).
Fucking LOL can you post some details on it?
 
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Dayyālu

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Fucking LOL can you post some details on it?

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Eridani_Light_Horse_lawsuit

TLDR: Insane furry writes on a semi-ufficial site. Insane furry wants to be considered Canon Writer and his fursona Official Btech Canon. Puts up insane lawsuit trying to claim co-ownership of Btech because he wrote a wikia article that was copy-pasted on an official site.

(Apparently there's a Kiwifarms page on the guy, but, hey, Kiwifarms)

Loses suit because insane furry and the entire unit he was a fan (and wrote fanfiction of) gets nuked because insane furry. Btech is king of retarded lawsuits, the Unseen thing is stuff of legends.
 

Nutmeg

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Terranova evolved into Tribes.

Tribes takes all the potential Terranova has as a game, and realizes it. By accident too, but it happened.

Now if you don't care for that and are more interested in larping elements like DraQ idk.

Terranova itself is massively flawed because you just need to walk backwards and click on things. You can ignore all the other aspects unless you are larping.

Edit:

Another answer is HIGH-MACS simulator. 2017 doujin freeware.

 
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Dayyālu

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Terranova evolved into Tribes.

Not exactly by accident. I remember reading some postmortems about Tribes 1 (and I even own the original Tribes 1 disk!) and the plan for Tribes was a deliberate, very tactical game. Tribes simplifies a lot the minutiae of Terra Nova (particularly the ambience about armour) but it has a staggering depth of gameplay options (electronic warfare, deployables, vehicles, flying structures.... then the skiing bug came and the game evolved in a completely bonkers direction.

And then it died.


Another answer is HIGH-MACS simulator. 2017 doujin freeware.

High-MACS Simulator...you just have to know japanese, no big deal xDD

It has clearly console origins from spawn management, but..... thank ye for the suggestion. Never heard of it, but if a man manages to build a game where I am having fun blowing up Su-25s with guided missiles without understanding a thing (there's a English manual on the site, at least) he should give lessons to MW5's developers.


Outwars - mechasuit against insects

I completely forgot about Outwars!
 

Siveon

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Jul 13, 2013
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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
I think the underlying problem about mechs not being really a thing anymore is that mechs just aren't popular in general. Like, people enjoy the concept but they rarely ever consume mech-based media for one reason or another. There used to be a lot of mech anime but now it's niche, and it's really just made for people into mechs more often than not (as in writing-wise, they don't bother to try to get people interested in the mechs they just show off the cool robot and keep going). There were two big mech releases this year and nobody cared (Daemon x Machnia and Mechwarrior 5), granted the games weren't received that well and came out at a bad time but I just can't help but feel it's just not a concept that can sell to people.

Especially something more simulationist, which is just a niche of a niche. You can barely sell something as arcadey as Armored Core good luck going full mechsim.
 

lightbane

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Messages
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Are you a wizard psychic.

No, I just observe current trends. From AAA companies? Forget it, we won't get power armor simulators unless someone pays a lot for it. From indies? Maybe, but unlikely, seeing most are stuck at the "hipster pixel graphics" phase, and that a simulator akin to Terra Nova would require a lot of work compared to making a souless platformer/Metroidvania/walking simulator, it is unlikely to happen. Nevermind diversity hires with no skills that want to add strong women everywhere and little else.

Who knows, a man can dream. The Ghost Ship is a cyberpunk rpg made by a codexer where you play in a Zaku/janky mech, so it's something.

erranova evolved into Tribes.
Tribes takes all the potential Terranova has as a game, and realizes it. By accident too, but it happened.

Isn't Tribes mostly focused on multiplayer though?

Outwars - mechasuit against insects

Thats' more an arcade title, but it's the closest thing to a proper Starship Troopers (the novel) game.

Especially something more simulationist, which is just a niche of a niche. You can barely sell something as arcadey as Armored Core good luck going full mechsim.

Yeah, this. From Software have tried pushing for a new AC game, but no dice so far.
 

Destroid

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erranova evolved into Tribes.
Tribes takes all the potential Terranova has as a game, and realizes it. By accident too, but it happened.

Isn't Tribes mostly focused on multiplayer though?

Yeah, there's a singleplayer campaign in Tribes 2 and Tribes Vengeance though.

It's sad that tribes is more or less gone, but I guess it had a pretty good run with 3 solid games (T1, T2, TV), and Tribes Ascend to cap it off in 2012 was decent if not as good as the others. 14ish years run isn't bad for a sub-genre held together by a single game series.
 

sser

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Kind of a dead genre as others have mentioned.


I parsed Steam for Mech/Singleplayer/FPS and found these (not all released):


https://store.steampowered.com/app/342200/MechWarrior_Online_Solaris_7/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1163870/Mecha_Knights_Nightmare/


Maybe it's just nostalgia, but I miss those FMVs as well. I mostly played Crusader and Wing Commander which were both full of FMVs, and in both instances they really added a ton of life to the "between" mission phases.


If you don't mind RTS games...

Managing power armor is a pretty significant part of the 2nd half of the Starship Troopers RTS game. It also has the kill counters, medals awarded, etc. that you mentioned. See here (timestamp) for an example of the between-missions management of medals/kills, and kitting out the squad:



There's also Metal Fatigue which came out in that era. Its gimmick is that you can kit your mechs with the busted parts of felled enemies.
 

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