Body Harvest

Body Harvest is a third person action adventure game developed by DMA Design and published by Midway Games & Gremlin Interactive in 1998.

In Body Harvest an alien race of insect-like creatures have repeatedly invaded Earth and harvested humans for food, bringing mankind to the brink of extinction. Humanity's last hope lies with a pair of genetically engineered super soldiers who ride an experimental time machine back in time to intercept and defeat the alien invaders at several key points in Earth's past, reversing the course of history and saving humanity in the process. You take on the role of Adam Drake, one of the surviving soldiers.

In Body Harvest you must travel around and explore different parts of the world at different points throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Each world has its own puzzles, locations and missions. As the player progresses through the game their main goal will be to defeat 'Harvester Waves', the alien race's human consuming ground forces. They must also find and destroy the alien processors (commanders) and shield generators, completely clearing the area of aliens and releasing the local area from the trapping alien shield. The player will automatically lose if too many human lives are lost in each area.

One of the most prominent features of Body Harvest is the use of vehicles, and the player can take control of and drive almost any vehicle they come across, including cars, bikes, ships, aeroplanes and many more. The vehicles have limited fuel and the player will have to choose when to refuel or abandon vehicles that run dry.

Body Harvest also has strong RPG elements, and the player will have to complete side quests and explore inside buildings for key items and information. The game has a sandbox style world, and although the player will often be compelled to advance the game they are free to utilise any vehicles and explore as they choose within the confines of the game's environment.

Originally sketched as a pure action game, Nintendo encouraged the addition of the RPG & exploration elements to make Body Harvest more appealing to Japanese gamers. It was originally intended as a launch title for the N64, but problems with development delayed the game for 3 years before it was finally released.

Body Harvest can be seen as a progenitor to the 3D Grand Theft Auto series. The developers DMA Design would later become Rockstar North and use Body Harvest's 3D design as a basis on which they produced Grand Theft Auto III, the first fully 3D instalment of the GTA series.