Terracide

Terracide is a zero-G first person shooter developed by Simis and published by Eidos Interactive in 1997.

Story
(This story is written in the README file included with the game.)

Centuries ago, a group of humans left planet Earth to create a new civilization in space. Over time, they found new planets to colonize and start a new life on. However, most planets had extremely harsh conditions, which forced the humans to adapt in order to survive using advanced technology to augmentate their bodies, attach cybernetic implants, and completely remake themselves into living beings that suited in the deadly conditions.

It was known that for centuries there was no contact with the colonists. The humans still remaining on Earth hoped that one day, they would be able to contact with them again. The next day, sensors detected an unknown fleet entering the humans's solar system, which was found to be the colonists.

The humans had no idea that the colonists were forced to transform their bodies in such an intense and extreme way, they experienced side effects that resulted in dehumanfying results in their minds, which included a desperate intention to destroy the "non-enhanced, weak" humans and claim Earth as their own home planet. A war breaks out and the humans had no possible chance of winning an all-out battle against the cold, dehumanified enemy that once were their own relatives. The humans had only one hope, which it was to send a lone attack ship which could destroy the colonists.

The end of the README file has a line: "To survive, we must destroy their fleet craft by craft. It is our only option - we must prevent Terracide."

Gameplay
Terracide plays out in a six degrees of freedom style, much like Descent, in a similar way in which the player is cruising around levels until they find an enemy to attack. One thing that was found original of the game was that the main menu was completely rendered in 3D, with the camera placed in a room of a spaceship with rotating 3D texts including "New Game", "Save", and all basic menu options. The player can press the Alt key to use the traditional scroll menu and/or pause the game.

In the game, over time the player is given objectives on what to do to finish the level. At the beginning of the first level, the player has to destroy the ship's computers with gunfire to render the ship immobile. In the game demo featuring one level from the retail game, "Carrier", the player first has to fly through and destroy all sentry guns and enemy ships, destroy the immobile/not in use enemy vehicles, and if all objectives are followed, at the end of the level the glass of the ship's exit breaks, and the player's bike automatically escapes out of the ship, turning back to watch as it detonates completely, also acquiring a new weapon.

Reviews
Stephen Poole on CNET's Reviews section rates Terracide 3/5 as "Good", with its major flaws commented that Terracide is "an unabashed Descent clone coupled with a tired "save the earth from destruction by alien invaders" story", and it's biggest issue was the control in which "it was almost impossible to line up shots on a consistent basis because the ship wouldn't stop turning when I wanted it to". Terracide is still rated as a decent 3D shooter by GameSpot, proudly ending the review commenting that if you can get along the delayed controls, the game is a definite buy.