Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: dwl10@juts.ccc.amdahl.com (David W. Lowrey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Hired Guns Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 14 Oct 1993 16:50:38 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 237 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <29k00u$p70@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: dwl10@juts.ccc.amdahl.com (David W. Lowrey) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, role-playing, adventure, multi-player, commercial PRODUCT NAME Hired Guns BRIEF DESCRIPTION An "adventure" game for 1-4 players, where each player controls one or more of the computer characters. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: DMA Design (distributed by Psygnosis) Address: 29 Saint Mary's Court Brookline, MA 02146 USA LIST PRICE I paid $44.95 (US) at a "full service" Amiga store. I don't know the list price. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE At least 1 Meg of memory. If you have a 2 meg Agnus chip, the program will use extra sound effects. It works on my 68020-based Amiga, so I would imagine that other processors are supported. Supports up to 4 floppy drives. A special parallel adapter can be bought, or made, that allows 2 additional joysticks to be used. The game also allows you to use a modified Sega "Joypad" in place of a joystick. SOFTWARE None mentioned in the manual. COPY PROTECTION Look up a word in the manual. The disks are copyable, and the game is hard disk installable. The "look up a word...." scheme isn't too bad as the game doesn't always ask you! I would rate the copy protection as acceptable. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2500 68020 processor board with 2 meg Fast RAM 2091 SCSI controller with 2 meg Fast RAM (total of 5 meg memory, of which one meg is Chip RAM) AmigaDos 2.1 INSTALLATION The program either runs off of floppies, or off of your hard drive. The hard disk version of the game does not take over the system. You can pause the game and switch to the Workbench. The game returns to the Workbench when you exit. The floppy version takes over the system, and you have to reboot when you are finished with the game. Floppys do not require any installation, other than the judicial practice of copying the originals and playing from the copies. To install the game on a hard drive, drag the Install icon into the drawer you wish to contain the HiredGuns directory. Then double-click the Install icon. 5 languages are supported. You have the choice of installing the complete game, including the extra music, or just a minimal configuration. The disk comes on 5 floppies, and takes about 1.5 meg of hard drive space. REVIEW NOTE: I have had the game for 24 hours now, so this is really a first impression. If my opinion changes, or if I have the facts wrong, I will send in an update. Hired Guns is somewhat like an RPG, or "adventure" game, where you have a party of "adventurers", and you go on a quest of some sort, solving puzzles and fighting bad guys along the way. You usually have a "window" that shows what the party sees. Hired Guns is like that, plus a whole lot more. Up to 4 players control 4 computer characters at the same time. The players can use up to two mice, the keyboard, or joysticks to control the computer players. Each input device can control one or more computer players. The program supports a parallel port joystick adapter. Other games, such as Gauntlet, use this same device. When there are only one or two players, they have to use a mouse. That means that for a two player game, you need two mice. Three or 4 players have the option to select the input device. Each computer character can also be told to "follow the leader", so you can move up to 4 characters at once. This "Auto Leader" mode will cause the computer characters that have the mode enabled to follow the currently moving character. Each computer character has its own view window, so each can be in a different place at the same time. If player 1 is standing in front of player 2, then player 2 sees player 1 in front of him. You have your choice of 12 different computer characters. You cannot edit their "stats" nor add your own characters. However, you CAN edit the graphics for each character using any Amiga paint program. Each character has an ILBM IFF file containing the different views of that character. You can edit the pictures, perhaps replacing them with your own picture, and use that in the game. The view windows are in "3D" style, so you get the illusion of depth. The graphics are relatively detailed, but they do not blow you away. The purpose of the game is for the players to eradicate the area of the various mutants that happen to be there. You are provided various weapons, and more are found that allow you to do this. You move your computer characters around the a landscape consisting of grass, trees, multi-level buildings, tunnels, and rocks. There are also water channels, sometimes multi-leveled, that you can (or have) to wander around in. There are devices available (you hope) that will allow humans to breathe, and keep robots sealed for a few minutes. There are stairs and elevators that move you up and down. There are big blocks that you push and pull around to allow you or another computer character to get across a chasm or water channel. There are force fields, teleport fields, and doors that need to be removed, accessed, or opened. Many of the puzzles require cooperation between computer characters to complete. And, of course, there are the "Bad Guys." There are many different ones, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. It is up to you to figure out the best defense and the appropriate weapons that are necessary to deal with each creature. Each character has an inventory of items, called a "store". Items can be picked up, dropped, and equipped, using each computer character's store window. If a computer player has the appropriate device, a map of where he or she has been is automatically kept, and is displayable. The game has several modes. There are "Training" missions, "Short Campaign" games, and the "Full Campaign" game. The training missions start out easy and get progressively harder. The "short campaign" games can usually be completed in one sitting. When there are more that one "human" playing the game, they can compete with each other to see which one completes the level first. The "Full Campaign" has about 20 different sites you have to visit, each with different puzzles and varying degrees of difficulty. Fortunately, you can save your "Full Campaign" game between playings on floppy, Hard Drive, or in RAM. DOCUMENTATION The program comes with 4 different manuals. However, I am not impressed with the contents. Much of the information you need is either spread out between the manuals, or not there at all. The manuals are: "Amiga Instructions", which tells you how to install and operate the game; "Game Manual", which describes the various games, and some of the objects in the game; and "The Luyten System, a Background" which describes the bad guys and weapons. It also describes and the local planetary system, which is for "color" only and not necessary to play the game. Finally, the "Countdown To Graveyard" manual gives a history to what is happening, and also describes the Good Guys. All of the apostrophes (') are missing in the manuals! None of the manuals describe any sort of strategy that might be of help. LIKES AND DISLIKES I really like having 4 independent characters to control. You have each character's view in front of you at all times. I also like the balance between fighting and problem solving. The problems are just as important as the fighting. They are also logical problems, such as "how the heck can I get down 4 stories without killing myself," as opposed to being randomly teleported somewhere for no apparent reason. I like the hard drive installability, and the relatively non-intrusive copy protection. I like the ability to play with 3 other players (which I haven't tried, yet). COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS There was a demo of this program released earlier this year. The play is basically the same, but items such as "group mode" work much better. BUGS None found, yet. CONCLUSIONS This is a much waited-for game, and it was well worth the wait! COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Starbound Enterprises. All rights reserved. --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews