Subject: REVIEW: Hired Guns
From: [email-masked] (Bill Bennett)
Date: 22 Oct 1993 21:53:10 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews

PRODUCT NAME

	Hired Guns  (Version 39.25)

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

	A "Dungeon Master" style science-fiction role-playing game, with a
strong element of armed combat strategy.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

	Name:           DMA Design (distributed by Psygnosis)
	Address:        29 Saint Mary's Court
			Brookline, MA 02146
			USA

LIST PRICE

	29.99 UK pounds.  Usual reductions for mail-order, I paid 22.49.
Price in US will be roughly equivalent, perhaps slightly higher.

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

	HARDWARE

		Requires 1MB RAM.
		Requires 1MB Chip RAM to run from a hard disk.

		If you have 1.5MB memory or greater, and at least 1MB is
		Chip RAM, the game will feature greatly enhanced sound
		effects.

		If you have 1.5MB memory or greater you can save and load
		the game from RAM - recommended, as you will die a lot!

		Works with an A1200 - no restrictions on Amiga type are
		listed on the box, although the memory requirements are
		clearly marked, so I assume it works with a 68030 as well.
		The demo said the game would work with ANY Amiga.  Perhaps
		someone can confirm this.

		Can work with a Sega Megadrive joypad (requires slight
		internal modification to joypad - detailed in manual).

		A second floppy drive is recommended if running from floppy,
		but not essential.

	SOFTWARE

		Runs under Kickstart 1.3 or higher.

COPY PROTECTION

	The game comes on 5 AmigaDOS floppies with no on-disk copy
protection.  Uses manual protection:  numerical entry from a printed table
is occasionally required during load/save position in the game.  I find it
acceptable -- I played the game for two days before I had to use the table.
Game saves are written to a non-game floppy.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

	PAL A1000, 7MHz 68000
	Kickstart 2.04 in ROM - also tested under 1.3
	512KB Chip RAM
	4MB Fast RAM
	1 external floppy drive
	72MB SCSI hard disk (but see below, as this is not relevant!)

INSTALLATION

	It uses a custom hard disk installation program, which worked well
and installed about 3.5MB of files.  Unfortunately, as noted above, the game
will not run from hard disk on a machine with only 512KB Chip RAM.

REVIEW

	"Hired Guns" is basically a Dungeon-Master clone:  first-person
perspective, moving a party of four heavily-armed mercenaries through a
series of "dungeons".  The main difference from a classical fantasy RPG such
as "Eye Of The Beholder" is that the setting is science-fictional, and the
characters use high-tech weaponry and psionic devices rather than swords and
spells.

	The other major difference is that each of the four characters can be
controlled independently, and there are many problems in the game which
require the cooperation of multiple characters at different locations.  This
also makes the game particularly well-suited for more than one player; and
although the game plays very well with just one controller, it gets better
with more.  Some of the more intense fire-fights with multiple attacks from
different directions can be difficult for a single person to handle.

	The story is, as usual, irrelevant, but the scene-setting novella is,
speaking as a dedicated SF fan, actually not bad.  The scenario is that your
team of mercenaries are landed by drop-ship on the planet "Graveyard".  A
rather beautiful fractally-rendered map gives the location of 19 target
sites, and by moving a cursor to a site, you can read off some useful
information - particularly the "Threat Level".  The sites have been overrun
by genetically engineered bioweapons, and four of them contain a fusion
core.  Your mission is to explore and clear the sites, retrieve the four
cores and take them to the spaceport (Threat Level 15 -arrggghhhh!), where
you set them to explode and "waste half the planet".  To quote from  the
manual:  "Team extraction impossible after mission time expires.  Ground
Support: NONE;  Air Support: NONE; Orbital Support: NONE".

	Prior to taking on this full campaign, you can enjoy a series of short,
sharp training missions.  The weapon familiarisation missions are easy, but
the combat scenarios tend to be lethal.  These missions are optimised for
one, two, three or four players - four missions for each category - but if
you're a schizoid ambidextrous genius with catlike reflexes you can play a
four-player mission on your own.

	The campaign sites are quite varied in character - each has a different
style of graphics, which are detailed and stunning.  My main criticism is
that, as with Dungeon Master, it can be quite difficult to figure out where
you are if you lose track, since the walls all look similar.  However,
auto-mapping usually solves this problem, assuming you can spare the time to
call up the Digital Terrain Scanner screen.  This is not always convenient
when running frantically in the general direction of "away" from a large,
slavering bio-engineered creature.

	I've only been through the first six sites, but they were all quite
varied in appearance, layout, opponents and "feel".  The "feel" of the game
is what makes it stand out - even on a humble 512KB Chip RAM machine, the
atmosphere is electric.  The wind moans through the rocks at the
labyrinthine cave system, power lines hum balefully at the fusion reactor,
vast machines chug in the background at the mining depot.  On top of this,
doors whine, bushes rustle, and a squelchy cracking sound means that
somewhere nearby a giant egg has hatched another bioweapon....  The fusion
reactor site was stocked with deadly combat robots and humming machinery,
the abandoned test-lab site was crawling with lethal worm creatures, and the
decor was an odd combination of chequered floors and rough-hewn rock walls
with coloured veins of minerals running through.  And so on and so forth....

	(My) gameplay tends to be in "short, controlled bursts" - you arrive
at a site, send a character out to explore rapidly and get a feel for the
layout of the site (movement is the standard Dungeon Master flick-forward in
squares, but faster), and then die.  Horribly.  Send out the next character
and start sussing out the puzzles and items.  Primary consideration is to
find where the exit teleport is for the site.  This is often locked, and the
secondary consideration then becomes finding the key.  Tertiary objective is
to locate all the useful items, and having done all this, you can then start
to assemble a strategy for getting through the area without being terminated.
This is where the RAMsave comes in extremely useful - a game position reload
from floppy takes perhaps 40 seconds, so if you only have 1MB of RAM, I'd
strongly advise you try this game before you buy, and decide whether you can
live with the added aggravation.

	It's annoying that the monsters are totally silent, but this is due to
lack of Chip RAM on my machine.  If you have 1MB or 2MB Chip RAM, an extra
410KB of sound effects are heard, including (according to the manual),
monster noises, thunder in the distance and a much wider variety of weapon
noises.  Even on my machine, the weapons sound good, but, for example, a
mini-gun sounds exactly the same as a light assault rifle.  More bizarrely,
a huge metallic cyborg makes exactly the same, rather effeminate, grunt of
pain when hit as a female character does.

	Even more annoying is the fact that this game absolutely will not
run from the hard disk on a 512K Chip RAM machine - even with buckets of
Fast RAM.  Counterbalancing that is the knowledge that this game is pushing
my Amiga to the limits, graphically and sonically, so I shouldn't complain.
Running from floppy is surprisingly good - DMA have put a lot of work into
making this as painless as possible, and there are no disk accesses during a
site mission.  With 1.5MB of RAM, it is also possible to save and restore
the game position to and from RAM, and this works extremely quickly and well.
Overall, I would say that the game works quickly enough from floppy to
satisfy most users.  The sites take several hours each to complete, and if
you can RAMsave, you won't have any disk accesses during this time.  Another
nice touch is that the loading screens tell you which disk the game will
require next, and since it takes several seconds to decompress loaded data,
there's usually plenty of time to change disks, without hitting the dreaded
"Cannot find Disk number X" syndrome.

	This game has had a long gestation period since the release of the
remarkable playable demo (still available from Aminet ftp sites) many,
many months ago.  At least part of the delay has to be due to the fact that
Scott Johnston, the main Hired Guns author for DMA, specifically asked for
feedback from people who played the demo disk.  Would that more games writers
would do the same.  As I recall from discussions on Usenet, people that
played the demo wanted:

   Step sideways while facing forwards, as in Dungeon Master	(IMPLEMENTED)
   Move using cursor keys as well as mouse		    (NOT IMPLEMENTED)
   Serial link for multi-player games			    (NOT IMPLEMENTED)

	Although having no cursor key movement is disappointing (except for
3rd and 4th players during 3/4-player games), the mouse movement system is
intuitive and good, although the difference between side-stepping and
turning left or right is rather fine, and has caused me a few problems in
the heat of battle.

	I haven't tried it, but the game does support a Sega Megadrive
joypad.  This needs slight modifications (swap two wires over), but the
three extra buttons are assigned specific functions, which sounds as if it
might be a good way to play the game.

	The gameplay itself has a strong strategic element to it - rather
like a cross between Dungeon Master and Laser Squad, with the atmosphere of
"Aliens".  Although exploration and puzzle-solving are featured heavily, the
puzzles are not as tough as those in Dungeon Master, and the combat side of
the game is very much to the fore.  With a vast array of weapons and psionic
devices to counter the speed and ferocity of the monsters, careful planning
and tactics can save the day.  The monsters are MUCH tougher than you may be
used to from fantasy RPGs, and in many cases, if they're close enough to
melee, you're probably dead!  Judicious use of RAMsave is the order of the
day, and if you find yourself getting ripped to pieces within seconds of
engagement, back off and think carefully.  There is probably a tactical way
of killing the enemy that you haven't thought of.

	The monsters are well-drawn and animated, and range from cute little
puppies (yes, really!) through enormous regenerating worms, up to
devastating walking battle-robots, similar to ED-209 in "RoboCop".  The
weapons, fortunately, range up to the suitably devastating as well.

DOCUMENTATION

	Four rather thin, A5-sized manuals:

	o	Amiga installation and game controls.

	o	Hired Guns game manual - listing the various short missions,
		details of the campaign, and details of equipment and
		weapons.

	o	Luyten System manual - some rather irrelevant details on the
		solar system, details on some of the bio-weapons and a
		weapons and vehicles glossary.

	o	Countdown To Graveyard - introductory novella and details of
		the twelve characters, from which you choose a team of four.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

	Good - atmosphere, graphics, sound, gameplay, copy protection.
	Bad - no HD install on my machine, control system not perfect.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

	As an RPG, it lacks the strong puzzle element of something as
difficult as "Chaos Strikes Back", but more than compensates for this by
adding a brutal mix of armed combat and strategy.  The graphics are better
than any I have ever seen in an RPG - including "Black Crypt".  The sound is
without compare.

BUGS

	The look-up table didn't give me the correct number on one occasion:
I had to reset and reload the entire game to load a game position.  Luckily,
it wasn't a save after a major triumph.

	A game-save refused to restore correctly - it led the software to
prompt me for "Gamedisk #0".  Since this doesn't actually exist, I reckon
that the save/restore mechanism isn't entirely debugged yet.  I've not yet
had a problem with RAMsaves, however, so perhaps the safest thing to do is
to make two separate floppy saves for crucial positions.

	If you die underwater, complete with swirling "underwater" noises,
when you reload the game, the water noises continue aboveground!  This sound
bug is probably related to the one which occasionally switches on the "door
opening" sound for long periods of time.  Annoying but not serious.

	Sending objects down unaccompanied on lifts can lead to interesting
effects - attempts to pick them up on the delivered lift platform can lead to
either the object disappearing, being transformed into another item, or, as
reported on the Net, spectacular visual crashes, swiftly followed by Gurus.
Psi-Amps, in particular, can often transform into another type - this can
actually be quite fun.

VENDOR SUPPORT

	There is a Psygnosis "Hired Guns Competition and Helpline" - the game
comes with a card (in the UK) giving the phone numbers and cost (exorbitant)
per minute.

WARRANTY

	Comes with a standard Psygnosis registration card - no warranty
detailed, but I assume normal conditions apply: i.e., send back faulty master
disks for replacement at a small cost.

CONCLUSIONS

	Overall, I find "Hired Guns" compulsive and atmospheric.  The short
missions are ideal for a quick blast with a friend or two, and the full
campaign will keep you going for a long time.  The graphics and sound are
fabulous, and it almost makes me rush out and buy an A1200 to hear what the
full sound effects are like.  I'd give the game a solid 8 out of 10, and it
would probably get a 9 if I was running it from hard disk on a machine with
more Chip RAM.  I highly recommend that if you're not sure, and you have ftp
access, you download the demo and give it a try, and if you can't ftp, that
you get the demo from a PD library.

Bill Bennett
CRC Growth Factors Group
[email-masked]

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