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/ Genres / Action / Codename: Tenka

Codename: Tenka

Windows - 1998

A decent FPS game from Psygnosis that was more successful on the Playstation than PC.

The mundane storyline is as follows: the year is 2096 and Earth is polluted and war torn. The remaining colonists have only one wish, to leave the barren planet Earth and rebuild their lives on Extrevius 328, an off world colony that is rumored to be the promised land. You are Joseph B. Tenka from Extrevius 328, a corporate conglomerate manufacturing plant for deadly warriors, known only as Bionoids. Tenka has been listed for transformation into a Bionoid, which is a half man - half droid, and that prospect does not please you at all. So you don a warfare suit and go off on a one-man quest to destroy corporate plans.

The story is explained by some rather nice FMV cut scenes throughout the game (unfortunately missing from this CD-rip version). The gameplay will be familiar to anyone who has played DOOM and countless clones. Set over 20 stages, each level in the game is mission-based, and your mission is given in a nice briefing accompanied by a graphical display of your objectives. The game includes the usual array of high-tech weapons and a variety of Bionoids and other creatures to kill. Level design is average, but the creepy atmosphere is evoked pretty well through sound cues and surprise attacks.

All in all, Lifeforce Tenka is an enjoyable and atmospheric shooter that starts out like a DOOM clone, but makes you feel like an episode from Aliens. Worth a look if you are an action fan, but not a Top Dog.

Review By HOTUD

Comments and reviews

Sihot 29 Oct. 2025

THEREAREBETTERGAMES

-1
ThereAreBetterGames 10 Nov. 2023

The only advantage of PC version is the mouse look, otherwise this is a heavily downgraded port. No more color lighting and proper transparencies, instead you will see dithered mesh effect typical for Sega Saturn games, also there's no more dolby surround sound and the game runs way too fast on modern PCs, thus it requires framerate lock to about 30 or enemies will be moving and shooting like crazy. Also FMV playback requires Intel Indeo codec, but it may not work anyway even if it's already present in your system. They even removed water ripple effect from the main menu, which looked pretty cool on PS1 back in the day. And last, CD audio playback issues, as always in old games.

So if some of you are desperate to check this game, then better play PS1 version on an emulator, but even then the game is quite bad due to very ugly and repetitive level design.

1
koijotito 05 Jul. 2020

Hard Reset is the closest to a spiritual successor / remake that this game really needs.

1
Gerhalt 25 Jun. 2020

Although I'm running ripped version, it works just fine even under Win7x64, and yes: it's got sounds.
However, I must warn anyone who'll try to PLAY (not just run to see if it works) the bloody game: supposedly it wasnt meant to be played @60fps because some enemies move way too fast, thus the pc version appears to be a lot harder, than its console brethren. Tenka works best with totally outdated mice, or at least with those devices that support very low dpi values like 100-200 (optimal) up to 400-800 (worse). If you think the game will let you frag lightning fast headshots by means of your super-duper-ultra-modern mouse, I assure: you're WRONG! It simply doesnt work that way: the faster you'll try to scroll the less responsive Tenka's aiming will be. It'll need some tinkering with sens settings within the game's options screen. If everything's been done right, you'll get awesome free mouselook controls.

P.S. in order to hear the (outstanding) game music, one will have to mount an image into the FIRST cd drive alphabetically. If you own a real cd/dvd drive AND its drive letter goes before your virtual cd drive, then you'll need to swap those letters. To do this simply type: drvmgmt.msc within the RUN dialog box.
Of course, there are other ways of returning the music like ripping it off the image and playing it back thru your fave audioplayer, or using certain third-party utilities (like CDAProxy) enabling the native audio playback.

0
CraKaJAK 25 Nov. 2019

the game has absolutely no sound whatsoever.
help?

0
digo.neves 03 Nov. 2019

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I'm running it under Windows XP!

-2
digo.neves 03 Nov. 2019

The game works fluidly, but I hear no music during gameplay. Is there any fix to get it working?

-2

No comment nor review for this game at the moment.

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Downloads

Windows version
ISO Version
United Kingdom English
668 MB

Extras

Manual Manual 1
Extra file
Windows 4 MB English English

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