Its name is Body Harvest, an action-adventure game that came out in late '98 only for the Nintendo 64.
In the game I assumed the role of a genetically engineered soldier by the name of Adam Drake, my purpose was to find and exterminate the alien attack forces that returned once every 25 years to "harvest" organic material from human kind on planet Earth. With the help of a time travel device, I had to battle the enemy force in different locations and periods of time, the first was World War I Greece, next came Java in the 40s, USA in the 60s, Siberia in the 90s, and then near present time.
About the gameplay I can say that after my first half hour of playing I realize that it was so different and still so interesting compared to any game I've ever played till then, easily charmed I just couldn't play something else until I've finished it. Finishing the game was a real challenge even if almost a decade past since I was playing on my console I remember well how I've passed the levels completing missions and exploring the map( which was surprisingly big) across towns where the enemy spawn different kinds of aliens in their shield area(that covered the level) attacking the civilians or spontaneously teleport in even from air or sea trying to take me out. Some missions were meant to make me reach certain places, but some others were very difficult and contained complex puzzles that put my brain into overdrive. Time and skill was essential, if the "Harvester" alien managed to kill 8 civilians in a single raid, a dangerous "Mutant" was created who had one single target, and that target was me. Without "friendly-fire" I had to carefully avoid killing civilians while saving them, constantly checking the casualties bar under the health meter, if too many were killed, the area was destroyed by the aliens failing the mission. Some of the failed rescue missions didn't stop the progress of the game but the number of the casualties was important.
The game include such a wide variety of usable vehicles that it spanned the whole imagination my teenage brain could come up with.
The use of the vehicles was necessary, being able to travel much faster and protecting me from the enemies attack, taking damage independently I had the possibility to repair them by collecting health left from dead big aliens . While inside the vehicles I could use most of my weapons or run them over, but some of them had there own powerful weapons, the thing I found interesting was that each of them had specific mix of armor, speed and fuel autonomy.My favorite was Alpha I the one that I used to travel through time and in boss battles, it was a compact but strong hovercraft equip with powerful weapons. Sometimes reaching a destination wasn't possible without using a boat or flying planes and helicopters traveling over lakes and rivers.
The objective of the game was to pass each level by destroying an alien shield generator. To do this I had to destroy several processors place around the map placed behind varied puzzles and using all sorts of weapons ranging from a pistol, a shotgun, a submachine gun or a rocket launcher to eliminate the enemies guarding them. Upon reaching each processor, there would be a sub-boss that had to be defeated. Accomplishing this would open a gate that could be used to travel to the next area, also saving the game. After all these processors destroyed, and after the elimination of the main objective, the shield generator, the local map and time would have been saved, and I would go to the next time and place in which the game took place.
The game was very similar to Rockstar's smash hit Grand Theft Auto III, in fact it was developed bu DMA Design, the studio that would later be rebranded as Rockstar North. Just as GTA III was a great achievement in the new millenium, so was this game that came before it, in my opinion. I loved the expansive worlds and multitude of tools at my disposal. If you'd like a blast from the past and own an N64, I recommend trying it out!