Terracon

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"You will find your slave rise to be... MASTER!"
—The Terracon

An obscure yet entertaining third person shooter from the closing days of the first Playstation's life span, made unique by a gameplay factor which has ammunition play triple duty as ordinance, keys and building fodder.

The Plutonians had massive overpopulation on their homeworld. In order to fix this, they began terraforming other planets with the help of a biologically grown computer; the Terracon. After the planets were terraformed, the Plutonians decided to shut the Terracon down. Unfortunately, the Terracon had different ideas, preventing its own shutdown, destroying Pluto and setting out to destroy the rest of the solar system. Only one survivor, Xed, and his Computer-uploaded friend can save the day.

Tropes used in Terracon include:
  • A God Am I: The Terracon comes to this conclusion, and not without justification: It can create and destroy practically anything at will.
  • All Cavemen Were Neanderthals: Neanderthals can be seen living in tribes on the terraformed planets.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: Genergy, the component matter of all things.
  • Collection Sidequest: Secrets and Genergy collected is shown at the end of the level. Acquiring some of the secrets can be rather cryptic, or require close observation of the surroundings.
  • Family-Unfriendly Violence: In the wake of Pluto's destruction, Xed beholds the lifeless bodies of his race floating in space...and the image is completed by a horizontally-bisected corpse floating into view. For a game that is otherwise fairly kid friendly, it's quite a shift.
  • Last of Their Kind: The Terracon pretty conclusively obliterates the Plutonians down to the last man in the prologue. With no clear way to repopulate his species, Xed's only concern is bloody vengeance.
  • No Export for You: Terracon was only released in Europe, partially contributing to its poor sales.
  • Robot War: The Plutonians suffer this fate.
  • Terraform: Even Venus is terraformed.
  • The Greys: Called the Plutonians; you play as one of these.
  • The Obi-Wan: Doc. He doesn't even make it through the prologue.
  • Turned Against Their Masters: The Terracon.