It wasn't recreation. It was reconnaissance. They have visited our planet many times before and all we've been asking ourselves is: do they exist?
Fact is: They know we're here. Now they're returning... with the intention of staying. To make all this their own... our land, our lives, our air.
Fact is: They know we're here. Now they're returning... with the intention of staying. To make all this their own... our land, our lives, our air.
— The first lines of the game's manual.
Incoming - being given a subtitle of The Final Conflict in some territories - is an arcade-influenced vehicular combat game in an Alien Invasion getup developed by Rage Software and released for the PC in 1998, with a Dreamcast port following the next year. The player is tasked with thwarting the alien invasion with a variety of vehicles that include turrets, tanks, choppers, jets and variations of each.
It was one of the earliest PC games to be programmed with early hardware 3D accelerators in mind, and was even bundled with some of the then-new graphics cards.
The game would later be followed with a stand-alone expansion pack titled Incoming Subversion in 1998 and a sequel titled Incoming Forces exclusively for the PC in 2002, which pits the player as a race of aliens (different from the invaders in the original game) defending themselves from a human invasion.
Has nothing to do with the Marvel one-shot comic.
Follow waypoint trope:
- Absurdly Short Level: The last four scenarios of the campaign that has you nullify the virus bomb attack of the aliens are contained in a single phase each, contrasting the previous scenarios that are comprised of ten phases each.
- Ancient Astronauts: The invading aliens are implied to be this, as the structures on the alien planet from the sixth scenario have Egyptian motifs, complete with pyramids.
- BFG: The Designator is sort of this, see Kill Sat below.
- Book Ends: The campaign's first scenario is based on Africa, and is also home to the last virus annihilation mission.
- Bottomless Magazines: The primary weapons typically have infinite ammo.
- Critical Annoyance: If your vehicle's health goes below two squares you'd hear a constant deep beeping that does not stop until the end of the phase or when you'd heal up through a powerup, the latter which only happens in the arcade mode.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: You'd better get used to controls of each of the four vehicle types as they control differently. By default, with the helicopter you move forward/backward with up/down and Q/A controls the altitude. For an aircraft, up/down controls the pitch (and ajdusts the altitude when the vehicle is hovering at the lowest speed) while Q/A accelerates/deccelerates.
- Earth Is a Battlefield: The campaign starts in Africa and takes you through The Arctic, The North Atlantic and California before taking you to the moon and the alien planet.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The final debriefing screen is set to the image of the Alien planet getting blown up.
- Escort Mission: There are a handful of phases that task you with defending a structure or an allied craft.
- Energy Weapons: A lot of aircraft from both sides of the conflict use lasers.
- Endless Game: The game's arcade mode is this.
- Excuse Plot: Aliens invade earth. Go kick their ass.
- Flying Saucer: Tee Aliens' light bomber craft has this design.
- Genre Shift: Some phases of the game's Campaign Tactics mode turns the game into a sort of a Real-Time Strategy game. Rage Software would later refine their hybrid RTS formula through Hostile Waters.
- Hitscan: The lightning bolt secondary weapon is capable of zapping out any locked-in craft in range.
- Homing Projectile: You can collect SAM upgrades, many which can home in on aerial enemies when locked on.
- Incoming!: Well, it's in the title. Expect to hear this callout whenever more alien craft spawns in too.
- Interface Screw: Getting a radar building damaged/destroyed temporarirly screws with your HUD's radar display.
- In Working Order: One of the aircraft you'd get to use is partially reverse engineered from alien technology.
- Kill Sat: Some phases lend you a vehicle with The Designator as the secondary weapon, which launches an unguided rocket that on impact calls a satellite to fire a Wave-Motion Gun at whatever the rocket connected with.
- Kill It with Water: One phase in the California has you put out fires off the space shuttle stations.
- Hold the Line: Pretty much every phase that puts you in a defense emplacement.
- Homing Projectile: Most of the missile-type secondary missions are this.
- Meaningless Lives: The game's campaign modes let you save in a middle of the mission.
- Mercy Kill: Sort of. After the aliens drop the virus bombs in the aftermath of the sixth scenario, you get to blow up the humans' own bases to prevent the spread of the virus.
- The Mothership: You'd get to blast one at the end of the North Atlantic scenario, serving as that scenario's boss. The Aliens also have smaller but similar Command ships.
- The Night That Never Ends: The moon based scenario is fought in near darkness.
- No Campaign for the Wicked: Even if you pick an Alien craft for the arcade mode, you'd still fight aliens. Incoming Forces exists to provide an opportunity to play as the aliens, defending themselves from the human payback.
- Respawning Enemies: Some of the phases have alien craft continously spawn in until you'd get to complete the phase's objective, from which you'd then be tasked with eliminating the remaining threat.
- Split Screen: The game comes with such mode in addition to networked modes.
- Storming the Castle: The sixth scenario is fought on the Aliens' home base.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Yes, it's that kind of game.
- Taking You with Me: So, by sixth scenario you'd get to shut down the Aliens' portal, but not before they got to send four virus bombs as the one last ditch. Such attack won't stick as you blow away the infected facilities to stop the spread of the virus.
- Tank Goodness: There are two types of traditional track-based tanks the player gets to control in few phases, as well as three types of Hover Tanks.
- Tech-Demo Game: To the point the game used to be bundled with some of the Voodoo2 and other graphics cards.
- Trip to the Moon Plot: The campaign's fifth scenario is an assault on the alien moon base and is the last stop before getting to attack on the aliens' home turf.
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Released in 1998, the game is set in 2009.
- Underground Level: Two of the phases in the sixth scenario has you fly inside a maze under a pyramid-like structure, in a matter slightly reminiscent of Descent with less verticality.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Destroying allied buildings slightly lowers your score, if not outright fails the phase when the structure happens to be mission critical one. Stops applying in the last four scenarios that has you tasked with destroying the infected allied buildings.
- Zeppelins from Another World: Yes, the Aliens have blimps, encountered in the campaign's sixth scenario.
