[electronic music]
[typing]
Look at this box art.
Just look at it!
Sometimes I don't even care what the game is or if it's any good.
I'll buy it just for the amazing box art alone.
Terrorpods is one of those games,
designed and programmed by Ian Hetherington
for Psygnosis Ltd. in 1987 for the Commodore Amiga
and Atari ST, and later ported to the Commodore 64,
Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and MSX.
"Are you good enough?...Can you survive?..."
"The Terrorpods!!!" With several exclamation points.
You know what, I don't care if I can or not,
because this box art is fantastic!
In case you're not aware, Psygnosis often employed Roger Dean to do their box art,
the same guy who did all sorts of awesome 1970s sci-fi concept art
as well as album covers for rock bands like Yes, Gentle Giant and Asia.
The art continues inside the box with this awesome poster
showing several Terrorpods molesting an iceberg.
Although this is Roger Dean art,
it's worth noting that the art on *this* poster and box
was actually painted by Tim White
using Roger Dean's designs and drawings,
which partially originated from some unused concepts
for Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds.
Oddly enough, *that* became its own game some years later,
but that's a review for another day.
Other than the poster, inside the box you get the game
on a floppy disk or two, as well as the manual,
which is entirely too cumbersome for its own good.
Seriously, what was wrong with a bound manual?
Or even staples and folded paper?
This thing makes threading a needle wearing mittens
seem like a more convenient activity.
Terrorpods begins with a digitized pod of terror,
followed by a short animation of a pilot of the Empire,
terrifyingly entering a Terrorpod's pod of terror.
Who *is* the Empire, you may ask?
Well, with a name like that, you might guess they're the evil douches of the galaxy,
and you'd be correct.
The game takes place on Colian,
the most mineral-rich asteroid in the universe.
Of course, everyone wants a piece of the action,
and the Empire has sent in a giant mothership filled with Terrorpods to the asteroid
to cause terror...to the asteroid.
In response, the Federation...has sent YOU–
some random nameless guy– to sabotage their operations.
You're then greeted with a screen
allowing you to choose the language of the game's text,
and finally you're dropped into the cockpit of your Defense Strategy Vehicle, or DSV.
And... [sigh]
Wow, what the nuts is going on?
After playing around with it for about 15 minutes,
I still had no freaking clue.
Yep, this is one of those games you're gonna have to consult the manual frequently
until you get past the learning curve.
And, yeah, that's unfortunate because the manual is such a pain to use.
Not only is it a rather unintuitive game that makes you feel clueless at first,
it's got a unique mixture of things going on that you may not expect.
Terrorpods is a shooter, management and resource trading game all rolled into one,
with a little bit of strategy thrown in there as well.
Because, why not, it's the '80s!
Let's throw everything in the pot and see what happens.
Yes, Terrorpods is a bit of an unruly beast at first,
but it's not one that can't be tamed.
The first thing you'll want to do is employ your remote control drover vehicle.
This is important for two reasons.
One: resources are scarce and moving your DSV uses lots of fuel,
but the drover does not.
Two: the drover acts as an intermediary
between the buildings collecting resources and your DSV.
So the goal of the game is to produce and collect all the parts of a Terrorpod
and use them to roll your own hunchback chicken machine.
In order to do this, you'll have to mine for resources,
collect them, trade them with the appropriate manufacturing plants,
have them build the parts, and then grab the parts from them.
Of course, this being an old school 16-bit game,
everything wants to kill you until you're dead!
So you've got the mothership in the sky shooting random missiles at you,
Spoilers going around ruining your resources,
and Terrorpods wandering around zapping your buildings.
Although they look a *little* less terrifying at this scale.
Aww, wook at the wittle guy!
Yeah, who's an evil Terrorpod?
Good boy!
[laser fire, explosion]
Seriously, these guys suck.
You have a phaser weapon and an energy beam.
But the former only destroys smaller things,
and the latter is actually used for repairing destroyed buildings.
Terrorpods actually need a missile in order to take them out.
And until you do so, they'll go around destroying your precious mines,
resource centers and production facilities.
But in order to use a missile, you have to prime it using precious "detonite."
If you hit it, it's out of commission.
Otherwise, you've just wasted some seriously valuable resources.
And, really, that's what the game comes down to.
Mining, trading for, and collecting those scarce resources.
This may be the most mineral-rich asteroid in the known universe,
but that doesn't mean the stuff is going to come easy.
When you first set off, all the buildings are just sitting there doing their thing
and you can start going around with the drover and trading some stuff
for some other stuff.
The problem is that before long, all hell breaks loose
and you're constantly playing catch up with the mess the Empire creates.
Not only are you doing a lot of clean up of the damage
and trading for other resources in the meantime,
but you're also just trying to stay alive
because that omnipresent mothership is constantly shooting crap at your face.
There's hardly a moment's rest,
but thankfully the game pauses when you're trading.
And that's good, because it's one of the most vital things to a successful game.
You need to go around finding out which colony needs what resources the most,
and then exploiting supply and demand
in order to get the resources you need at a good price.
You may need "aluma" to build Terrorpod parts,
but you'll also need all the other resources to run your DSV,
take out enemies, repair buildings, and so on.
It's daunting at first,
but I came to appreciate the balance of resources after a while.
Granted, I still never got very good at it,
but when it clicked in my brain, it was pretty satisfying.
So, is Terrorpods a good game?
Yes, it's...good.
It's not great, but it's good.
Completely passable.
See, it isn't a very involved shooter,
and it isn't a very involved resource trading game
so it kind of left me wanting more in both areas.
And it just gets insanely repetitive and overwhelming after a while,
Like, I knew I *could* finish the game eventually,
I just didn't feel particularly driven to do so.
And when a game makes you feel nonchalant about finishing it,
that's not necessarily a good thing.
But that's just Terrorpods on the Amiga and Atari ST.
You've also got the game on the Commodore 64 and other 8-bit systems,
and that's an entirely different thing.
There's no trading at all in this one.
All you have to do is collect some resources
and use them to destroy all the Terrorpods on the map.
Yeah, this is going too far in the direction of simplicity,
and you end up with a game that's even less memorable and less fun.
In comparison, the normal game seems downright awesome,
but you know, it still just comes down to being relatively passable.
There's a reason I went out of my way to get Terrorpods,
and it was not the gameplay.
It's that freakin' awesome box art,
and the fact that it's a Psygnosis game that I didn't have.
And for me as a collector, that's more than reason enough.
[electronic music]
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