A masterpiece and I actually rate overall Paul Woakes as the No.1 videogame programmer of all time. Just what he did with the basic hardware at the time and the design of the game. It was like magic at the time. RIP Paul Woakes (2017)
@istvangranicz5082
7 ай бұрын
Mercenary was a great game back in the days but Elite was better in every regard IMHO: kzitem.info/news/bejne/zXlqv4CDhZOjaH4
@Aalborg42
6 жыл бұрын
I was totally obsessed with this game.. and this was way before you could go "online" and find out what you actually had to do :)
@mikecronis
9 жыл бұрын
This game is made to look sooo easy, but it's pretty insane, just searching, finding odd items, not knowing what they do or how, and searching, and searching for weeks!
@scottbreon9448
5 жыл бұрын
Paul Woakes did an amazing job coding this. Especially considering that wireframe/vector graphics were not the C64's strongest suit
@istvangranicz5082
7 ай бұрын
yep... but Elite was much better IMHO: kzitem.info/news/bejne/zXlqv4CDhZOjaH4
@VulpeRenard
10 жыл бұрын
I love watching old games like this, where it's very clear that the programmers are super talented, but they have absolutely no clue about game design. This is an amazing engine for its time and the game premise seems to make perfect sense, then you get a concept like "If you pick up the kitchen sink, you can hold anything because 'everything but the kitchen sink' right?" It's like a child's logic and it's wonderful that someone was able to figure it out.
@NuntiusLegis
4 ай бұрын
The kitchen sink in combination with the cobweb triggers a cheat mode where all doors are unlocked, it is not regular gameplay. ;-)
@AchtungBaby77
3 ай бұрын
Good post, however I disagree about the developers having no clue about game design. They had such limited resources to begin with (64K RAM and 16 colours on an 8-bit system for crying out loud!) so they had to make do with what they had. This game is more than playable and a lot of fun, so in that respect, the developers were successful.
@exidy-yt
2 ай бұрын
Well friggin' done! I LOVED this game as a kid, infact my friends and I judged a 3d poly game from then on against how much it gave the 'mercenary on targ effect' of making you feel slightly dizzy when falling like this game did, as I constantly fell out of the orbiting space station above the first city since I couldn't tell a door from inside to outside, LOL. Well played, and damn obscure. The sequel Merc3 for the Amiga I only just discovered, and it looks amazing yet it's DNA is very clearly right here.
@titouille078
4 жыл бұрын
This game was some kind of an open world adventure with multiple endings. It took me a lot of time to understand what was the goal and how to play it (like, how to enter hangars), because I barely understood english at that time as a kid. So, there was a lot of mysteries to be solved. And even then... "The kitchen sink gives us the power to pick up all kind of items". How on earth are you supposed to guess that?? Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot!
@tamastabi3182
2 жыл бұрын
I could not finish this game as a kid. Now as an adult, I mapped all the hangars and it is quite a maze. There are seven keys to collect and with those you could finish the game by finding this secret hangar where the interstellar ship is located.
@NuntiusLegis
4 ай бұрын
Which is one way to finish the game, there are more. :-) But it is a pity that it can be finished anyway, because it is so great that it should have infinite gameplay like Elite. I don't know how that could have been done with this game concept though.
@_MrJA
5 жыл бұрын
Was noodling with Live's Operator and remembered this game :P Never had a clue what you were supposed to do in this but loved it anyway... sound design and the lack of music created so alien atmosphere
@DirtyHairy1
6 жыл бұрын
Wow I played this game days and nights without ever finishing it (on the 8bit Atari). I remember the "photon emitter" being the flashlight. and the Commodore logo being something evil you could destroy and get rewarded for it (it was reverse on the Commodore). Finally I remembered the name of this game and found this vid. Time to settle unfinished teenage desires.
@NuntiusLegis
4 ай бұрын
It has great parts II and III (Damocles and Dion Crisis), you can play them for free on a modern PC, google MDDClone.
@TheHighlander71
9 жыл бұрын
Good grief. I wandered around forever in this game not knowing what to do. Without any instruction I could have never figured out that you could descend into the hangars, let alone that you use a kitchen sink to pick up a cob web....Still, I guess all the locations you have to visit are visible when you crash. What a game....
@tamastabi3182
2 жыл бұрын
Today's discovery is that "essential supply 12939" is Pepsi :-D How many of these little secrets this game has?
@AudieHolland
3 жыл бұрын
Just before the impact, when system is switching back to manual control, try to pull up. You'll still crash but if my memory serves me correctly, the message will be: 'Nice Landing'
@DirtyHairy1
6 жыл бұрын
Was this the very first open world 3D game?
@kimegekjr5971
6 ай бұрын
No, not at all. Elite came out in 1984 (Mercenary in 1985) and Elite was also a better game in my point of view.
@NuntiusLegis
4 ай бұрын
It is one of the three great early 3D open world games, the other two being Cholo and Elite. My personal ranking of these is 1. Mercenary, 2. Cholo, 3. Elite (I liked it enough to become Elite in the game, but it is repetitive compared to the other two).
@DirtyHairy1
4 ай бұрын
@@NuntiusLegisOhh I never heard about Cholo! I have to check out some gameplay footage :)
@NuntiusLegis
4 ай бұрын
@@DirtyHairy1There is also a great remake of Cholo in Tron-like graphis by Ovine by Design.
@exidy-yt
2 ай бұрын
@@NuntiusLegis Oooh,. sounds interesting! Ima go digging now thanks!
@GmanMilli
9 жыл бұрын
Other than the box cover art 720p might be overkill for 320x200 C64 games. 320x240 is 240p, so perhaps just adding a 40 pixel black bar on the bottom or top would work. You could then add commentary on the black bar. 720p is 1280x720, 4x(320x200)= 1280x800 which doesn't quite fit. 3x(320x200)=660x600 is way small. While much clearer than 240p there's still a very slight blur, but not much. Well 720p is the minimum for 60fps on KZitem, and with increased emulation speeds it's possible to play c64 games at 60fps, although the sounds play faster.
@pop5678eye
6 жыл бұрын
Not really a true longplay when you shortcut a lot of the missions/mechanics by already knowing where certain key locations on the map are...
@Murgoh
Жыл бұрын
Was there another version of this game? In the one I remember the objective was simply to raise enough credits to rent an inerstellar ship by completing tasks like abducting the mechanoid leader and bringing him to the space station for a reward. In that version you also found an item called "sights" which gave you a sighting reticle in the center of the screen AND the ability to see in the dark rooms. And in the beginning you could either buy the ship or just steal it but if you stole it another ship would pursue you and you'd have to shoot it down.
@Murgoh
Жыл бұрын
Also I don't remember the "cheese" instead you found an item called "poweamp" which increased your original ship's (Dominion Dart) speed enough to be able to reach the space station. Also, there were ground cars and at least the Dominion Dart was armed with a gun of some kind.
@NuntiusLegis
4 ай бұрын
It is the same game. There are several ways to solve it - renting a ship is only one. The sights don't let you see in dark rooms, you need something else, which is a little joke in the game so I won't spoil it. :-)
@monsters_are_human
3 ай бұрын
I don't understand how they call that a 3d open world 😂. It's just a bunch of random lines.
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