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Mercenary

JohnnyJmanJohnnyJman
edited November 2011 in Games
I spent HOURS playing this game. Wire frame graphics, Palyar Commanders Son in Law, the Cheese, and escaping Targ in every way.

Wireframe was the ONLY way to go with the speccy when creating a 3D environment, who cares about slow Freescape! ;)
Post edited by JohnnyJman on

Comments

  • fogfog
    edited November 2011
    well in emulation free scape is a lot nicer :)

    did you play the atari 8 bit version or the 16 bit ones ?
  • JohnnyJmanJohnnyJman
    edited November 2011
    Driller on the Spectrum :D
  • ZnorXmanZnorXman
    edited November 2011
    Virus ... no wait, slightly different 3D but worked well iIrc.
  • Rebelstar without a causeRebelstar without a cause
    edited November 2011
    I never got into Mercenary. I thought it looked interesting though. I remember it came in a huge box so it must have been good! :D

    Never really liked the freescape games. They usually went something like this:

    Wander around (very slowly)
    Try to line yourself up with door (could take forever)
    Enter new location
    After a minute the screen flashes - something's shooting at me but can't see what
    Movement speed is almost non existant
    Still can't see what's shooting at me
    Give up and play Laser Squad instead
  • ZnorXmanZnorXman
    edited November 2011
    Rebelstar without a cause wrote: »
    ...Never really liked the freescape games. They usually went something like this:

    [snip]

    Wellll ... Castle Master was pretty good ... in my opinion. The pyramid one (don't remember the name) was a bit of a let down though because it wasn't as obvious (imo) what you were supposed to do/accomplish.
  • JohnnyJmanJohnnyJman
    edited November 2011
    Yeah, it was dull, but ambitious at the time. It had some decent puzzles too. Dark Side was similar. I never played Total Eclipse and Castle Master (just on demos)

    Mercenary was good I thought, with different ways to escape from Targ (or whatever it was called) and it had some good humour. Another good wireframe game was Star Wars, and Empire Strikes Back. Starion and Elite anyone?
  • Rebelstar without a causeRebelstar without a cause
    edited November 2011
    ZnorXman wrote: »
    Wellll ... Castle Master was pretty good ... in my opinion. The pyramid one (don't remember the name) was a bit of a let down though because it wasn't as obvious (imo) what you were supposed to do/accomplish.

    Total Eclipse?

    I wanted to like them but I just kept being shot at by something I couldn't see. The screen flashing really didn't help matters either!

    I quite liked 3D Construction kit on the Amiga though.
  • Rebelstar without a causeRebelstar without a cause
    edited November 2011
    JohnnyJman wrote: »
    Yeah, it was dull, but ambitious at the time. It had some decent puzzles too. Dark Side was similar. I never played Total Eclipse and Castle Master (just on demos)

    Mercenary was good I thought, with different ways to escape from Targ (or whatever it was called) and it had some good humour. Another good wireframe game was Star Wars, and Empire Strikes Back. Starion and Elite anyone?

    Am I right in thinking you could fly to the moon on a piece of cheese?
    I'm sure I did that once (unless i dreamed it!). That's about all I managed to achieve in the game.
  • JohnnyJmanJohnnyJman
    edited November 2011
    The Cheese was a hidden ship you could get that would get you to the Palyar sky base (i think the only other way was by teleport or fitting a new engine to the Dart).

    I managed to get all of the missions completed apart from the one where you have to destroy all of one factions buildings in the city. Fixing your spacecraft was the main goal, but if you explored enough, you could keep all your cash and escape for free :smile:
  • The StargliderThe Starglider
    edited November 2011
    I spent ages too on Mercenary, carefully mapping it and finally completing it. And for the Freescape games, I didn't think much of Driller, but I loved Dark Side (I provided the walkthrough on the RZX archive - best viewed at a faster speed on emulation though!).
  • JohnnyJmanJohnnyJman
    edited November 2011
    I was fortunate enough to get the double pack, which came with the semi sequel which put you on the dark side of the planet, and came with a handy map for the original. I was disappointed when the sequel didn't arrive for the speccy.
  • DarenDaren
    edited November 2011
    Mercenary's great. Love the Easter egg at about 3:45

  • ArjunArjun
    edited November 2011
    JohnnyJman wrote: »
    Wireframe was the ONLY way to go with the speccy when creating a 3D environment, who cares about slow Freescape! ;)

    Well there's soft-shading in Ant Attack and a very atmospheric 3d shaded environment in Tau Ceti.
    Zero - A modern Spectrum emulator for Windows.
    Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
  • zx1zx1
    edited November 2011
    Never really got into Mercenary but i did like the Freescape games. Castle Master was my favourite.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • ewgfewgf
    edited November 2011
    I never really took to the Freescape games, but I loved Mercenary on the Spectrum, and Damocles (Mercenary 2) on the Atari ST. I don't remember much about Mercenary 3 (ST), though I'm sure i bought it. I didn't even know about Mercenary: The Second City for the Spectrum until the emulation years.

    But Mercenary was fantastic, and was all the more impressive for being on an 8 bit machine. That Paul Woakes (who wrote the all three Mercenary games, but not the Spectrum port) was both a very clever programmer and a great games desiner.

    What happened to him, BTW? And what did he write other than Mercenary 1 to 3? I remember a sort of first person hovercraft (?) shooter on the ST, where you had to shoot alien eyes, which I'm 99% sure was by him.
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