Do you like to fly around in a space fighter, and shoot things? Me too! That's why I like this game.
There are a couple drawbacks. Many levels are without much variety on the feel of the terrain. They attempt to mix it up by making worlds of lava, sand, rock, snow, and water, but it's really just a different bitmap, with no real sense of texture. If you enjoy an in depth story to drive you, it won't be here. The plot is uninspired, and although you get a detailed briefing at the beginning of each level, mission objectives are always the same: kill everything. These are minor issues to me, when I take the rest of the game into scope. A key plus is that the ship is just fun to fly! You're even offered multiple camera angles to do so with. You get a good sense of speed, particularly when you drag the crafts belly close to the ground and then pull up just before slamming into a mountain. The controls are smooth enough to allow for some clever maneuvering, and there's lots of real estate to fly over. The worlds are quite large, and designed like a world. That is to say, spherical. There are no barriers or invisible walls, or warnings that you're leaving the battlefield. If you fly in a straight line, you'll eventually end up back where you started. Mind you, your enemies and targets typically stay within the same radius of land.
And there's lots of enemies to fight. Each level is packed with a hefty loaf of baddies, and each world has enemy models specific to that world. And there are lots of world's to get through. When I played the game the first time, I remember thinking how it just seemed to keep going! In a good way of course. And at the end of each world, there is of course a boss battle. A big boss battle. The bosses in this game were large in scale. I don't recall having seen bosses in a game at that time that were that size. To take on all these adversaries, you'll need some heavy weaponry. and Terminal Velocity offered a fine selection of energy and projectile weapons.
Terminal Velocity provides a large game experience in a fast paced arcade style flight shooter. For a bundle of fun, and straight forward fire fights, pick it up.