Mercenary (game series)
| Mercenary | |
|---|---|
| developer | Novagen |
| Publisher |
Datasoft Novagen |
| First title | Mercenary: Escape from Targ (1986) |
| Last title | Mercenary III: The Dion Crisis (1992) |
| Platform (s) | Amiga , Amstrad CPC , Atari 8-bit , Atari ST , C16 (+ 64K) , C64 , Plus / 4 , ZX Spectrum |
| Genre (s) | Adventure |
Mercenary is a series of computer games published by Novagen that can be classified as part of the adventure game genre . Mercenary I was one of the first 3D games. All three parts of the series simulate a spacious, freely explorable environment and have a non-linear, open gameplay, similar to the pioneer Elite at about the same time . The games were highly praised in the press. In 2008 there is a porting project, a website and a small community. A new implementation in a modern graphics engine is being planned (status October 2007).
Mercenary: Escape from Targ
The first part of the series, Escape from Targ , was released in 1986. After losing his own spaceship through the collision with the planet Targ, the protagonist, who was on the way to an assignment, has to find a way to leave the planet again.
You explore the planet with various gliders and ground vehicles, there are also underground hangars with branched rooms that you can search for technical equipment, useful objects and keys. Teleporters can be found in the subterranean systems, with which locations that are far apart can be reached without delay.
The buildings and objects in the game are rendered in wireframe vector graphics for a fluid display on 8-bit computers. This abstraction has its own aesthetic appeal, for example the more complex buildings are reminiscent of glass sculptures due to their transparency.
The game contains numerous humorous elements. Examples: During the crash landing at the beginning of the game, the ship's computer gives the pilot "manual control" after a terrifying dive, about half a second before the inevitable impact. The shooting of signs with the Atari symbol placed in the landscape was praised in the Commodore version, as was the shooting of Commodore signs in the Atari version. A mysterious "Essential 12939-Supply" turns out to be a box with the name-giving number stamped on it, which forms the words "PEPSI" through the transparent vector graphics on the back. On the orbital station there is a door with a skull symbol; if you step through, you realize that it was a pointless outer door, while you tumble staggering for minutes to the surface of the planet.
Mercenary: The Second City
In the same year a mission disk was released in which the protagonist is still on Targ, but everything is much more complicated than in the actual game.
Mercenary II: Damocles
Four years after Mercenary, 1990, Novagen released the long-awaited successor Damocles . It ties in with The Escape from Targ . The protagonist has finally reached his assignment location, a solar system with several planets. The reason for its presence: The planet Eris is threatened by the impact of a comet. With the collision with Targ and the efforts to get a new spaceship, time is running out.
As in the first part, the gameplay is non-linear with different possibilities to reach the goal (here: averting the comet's impact).
For flights between the planets of the system, the time dilation resulting from the theory of relativity is taken into account, so that the travel time is shortened near the speed of light, but this must be carefully considered in view of the time limit until the comet impact.
In contrast to the first part, the objects and buildings at Damocles - we are in the 16-bit era - have walls. As a nice reminiscence, there is a Targ open-air museum on the moon of a planet, in which some of the wire mesh objects from the first part of the game are exhibited.
There is an option to start Damocles with a saved game from Mercenary. However, this does not give the player any particular advantage.
Damocles Mission Discs
The Mission Discs are modified saved games for Damocles. You load them into the main game and thus get a slightly different environment and new tasks, some of which are much more difficult than those in the original Damocles game. For example, you have to get the Novabomb off the roof of a building or you have much less time to save Eris, the main planet, from the threat of Comet Damocles.
Mercenary III: The Dion Crisis
In 1992 the third part appeared. It begins in the Timewarp prison on Metis, where the protagonist has been locked up to wait for his next assignment.
Right at the beginning of the game, the player is informed that a certain “Mr. PC Bil “(again an insider gag: in the first part there was an annoying opponent of the" Palyars' Commander's Brother-In-Law ") tries to usurp the presidency via the gamma system and mine pulvin ore on Dion. This would destroy the entire Dion ecosystem. So it is the player's job to prevent PC Bil's intentions. As in Damocles, there are again different ways to play through the game. For example, the character can run for the presidential election or destroy all of the antagonist's battle ships.
The scene is the same as in Damocles, only there is now an additional public transport system - buses, taxis, commercial inter-city flights or even flight connections between different planets and moons. Vehicles can also be rented and bought.
Parts two and three appeared only for the 16-bit computers Atari-ST and Amiga. A PC implementation, of which there are screenshots with textured graphics, was almost complete, but was never released due to the marketing decisions of the Sony and Psygnosis companies involved.
Web links
- Mercenary series at MobyGames (English)
- The Mercenary Site
- Mercenary Review in Commodore Horizons 1986
- Mercenary Review in Computer Contact 12 / 86-1 / 87