Released on CD-ROM only for the PC Engine Duo (in Japan), and the TurboDuo (in North America), Syd Mead’s Terraforming is a side-scrolling, bullet hell shooter with graphics designed by the great futurist/industrial artist, Syd Mead.

If you don’t know who Syd Mead is: you really should, because Mead is one of the leading designers of futuristic environments and technology – both in real life, and also in the film-making business. His credits include: designing key elements of Blade Runner, TRON, Aliens, and Blade Runner 2049 (among others).

So you’d think that having Syd design some video game graphics would be a good thing… but… unfortunately… in my humble opinion… and I’m very sad to say this, but… Syd Mead’s Terraforming is a bit of a visual mess. As skilled as Mead is: he couldn’t prevent the game from looking waaaay too busy – way too crowded; and lacking the kind of subtlety that a game like this needs. For example: the backgrounds are so ‘in-your-face’ that they sometimes make it difficult to see what’s going on, on-screen. But that’s not really Syd‘s fault – it’s the fault of the game’s developer (a Japanese company called Right Stuff Corporation), for not really directing Syd properly, or not really using what they had in a more suitable manner.

The first level is okay – it has nice parallax-scrolling clouds and familiar attack wave patterns, but later levels are like playing chess on a pile of vomit… It’s difficult to make the edges of the chequerboard out…

Maybe I’m being a bit too harsh on it, but I was very disappointed with the game when I played it. I did read somewhere that it had “stellar production values”, but unfortunately it really doesn’t. Don’t believe the BS. Syd Mead’s Terraforming is unfortunately poor – even for a PC Engine shooter (and there are some great shooters on the PC Engine).