What is Terminal Velocity?

Does peppering elusive bogeys with plasma cannons sound like your idea of fun? Perhaps you’d enjoy exploring the texture-mapped terrain of nine alien worlds, locating interesting landmarks and unusual aircraft... then blowing them all up. If that’s what you’re into, pal, then Terminal Velocity is for you.

At its core, Terminal Velocity offers bloodless combat in a realm freed from Newtonian physics. Annoying things such as gravity and momentum don’t really apply, and when you shoot stuff you’ll see plenty of flame and shrapnel, but no carnage. It’s not the most original: Zip around, evade enemy fire, grab power-ups, hose your opponents, and try not to crash. But within this prosaic context are some nifty touches...

If you’re on an Ethernet or AppleTalk network you can play against “friends,” which is a enjoyable way to inject a little abuse into the business day. The Remote Ridicule™ feature purportedly “allows players to send digitized voice messages to other players during multiplayer games,” but unfortunately, this seems to be limited to text messages and some canned sounds, triggered from the keypad — real-time verbal harassment is not supported.

Terminal Velocity has another one of those incomprehensible scenarios. There’s something about futuristic defense computers gone awry, resulting in hordes of aliens overrunning our peace-loving planetary alliance, and only the noble fighter pilot can save the universe. Well, it’s not Dostoyevksy, but it’s good enough for shooting down planes.

The sound effects themselves are pretty good (though the ad line about “fully digital sound” is a canard — all computer sound is digital) and truly enhance the gaming experience. The music, unfortunately, is as generic as it comes. Hit the M key to turn off the music, and crank your own tunes.

Souvignier, Todd. (December 1996). Terminal Velocity. MacAddict. (pgs. 88-89).

Download Terminal Velocity for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

Compatibility notes

• PowerPC processor
• 8 MB RAM
• 40 MB hard disk space available (117 MB for full install)
• CD-ROM drive

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II