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Paul Woakes previous offering, in fact his first: Encounter, was a simple, but exceptional shoot em up which unfortunately failed to make any impact due to a distinct lack of coverage. Thankfully, Mercenary has been received with far greater interest and it certainly deserves the acclaim, since it is one of the most exciting releases ever to appear on the 64.

Mercenary is thoroughly enjoyable to both play and map (useful) and is incredibly easy to get into -- addiction is almost guaranteed. It has enough depth to maintain the initial interest, with three ways of finishing the game and the constant challenge of your final score. There is also plenty to explore and the many amusing and generally neat little touches throughout the game, make it all that more fun to play. The high quality of the graphics Is evident from the comments made by my colleagues, so I shan't say anything more on the matter other than they are brilliant (the graphics, not Sean and Julian) as is the game itself. .


On screen there's the head up display fed to the monitor from Benson. When the program boots up, the game has you sitting in space with a starfield in front of you. Benson activates the ship's Novadrive but after a few seconds thrusting, a malfunction develops. The Prestinium still has considerable forward momentum and when a planet looms into view even maximum reverse thrust isn't enough to stop the ship from crash landing. Once crashed you are given full manual control. Everything is shown in vector graphics, with the ground and sky filled in green and blue respectively. Along the screen's base is a control panel that shows your compass bearing plus elevation. A small window is also present for relaying any of Benson's comments to you Using the joystick it's possible to move around in the fundamental eight directions (the keyboard is used to quite a large extent as well). The outside view updates as you move in true perspective.





To steal the ship just walk over to it and press B for 'Board'. Once in control of a craft the joystick function changes considerably.Left and right rotate the craft around its centre while up and down tip or dip the ship's stern.

The keys one to zero along the top of the keyboard control the machine's engines with zero delivering the greatest thrust. Once inside an aircraft just thrust of in the direction you wish to travel then pull up. Landing requires a small angle of approach and a relatively slow velocity. Once on the ground and not moving, L for 'Leave' puts you back onto the ground to walk around once more. Pressing shift in conjunction with one of the thrust keys, a negative power boost is supplied.To steal the ship just walk over to it and press B for 'Board'. Once in control of a craft the joystick function changes considerably. Left and right rotate the craft around its centre while up and down tip or dip the ship's stern. The keys one to zero along the top of the keyboard control the machine's engines with zero delivering the greatest thrust. Once inside an aircraft just thrust of in the direction you wish to travel then pull up. Landing requires a small angle of approach and a relatively slow velocity. Once on the ground and not moving, L for 'Leave' puts you back onto the ground to walk around once more. Pressing shift in conjunction with one of the thrust keys, a negative power boost is supplied.
On the bottom control panel is also a grid counter showing your position on the planet. The first message received instructs you to make your way to location 9,6 and then get to the conference room. At 9,6 there's a hanger (these allow you to enter the subterranean city through an elevator contained in them). The whole ship can be brought through the elevator, all you have to do is position yourself in the middle of the hangar and press E to activate the lift ('Elevator')?



Once inside the city it's necessary to walk about rather than use the ship. From the main hangar a number of corridors branch off into the metropolis. Each corridor has a door at either end and to walk through one just walk headfirst into it. Most doors are oblongs but a few are differently shaped. Trying to bump your way through one of those doors results in the message LOCKED flipping across your scanner. A key takes the form of a large three dimensional object in the same basic shape as the door it opens. When collecting a key P is used to pick up and D for dropping. This applies to all the objects that may be found around the place. Mind you, only ten objects can be carried at once.

Once you get to the conference room a message from the Palyars is relayed via Benson. They say that the delivery of certain Mechanoid items to the Palyar colony craft will result in a hefty cash reward from them. Also they say that a 'very special gratitude' will be awarded if all traces of Mechanoid occupation is removed from the planet.

Getting up to the colony craft isn't that easy as most of the craft found on the surface aren't powerful enough to reach the Palyar's fortress in the sky. The ship that can reach it is carefully hidden. An alternative route to the city is by finding some way of boosting your own ship's power with the correct piece of equipment. Getting to the colony craft is only half the problem since a key is also needed to enter. Various items when placed in certain rooms result in financial gain. The most rewarding act is to deliver the leader of the Mechanoids to the Palyar debriefing room. If enough credits are accumulated then a Novadrive ship can be hired from Hertz spaceship hire but it's still a case of being in the right place at the right time. This isn't the only way of completing Mercenary, there are three in total, but the other two are a bit of a mystery.

Throughout the game there are a number of amusing aspects including a Commodore sign and an Atari one. A congratulatory message appears on shooting the Atari sign but Benson calls you a traitor for knocking out the Commodore sign. Also in the city is a huge billboard with Encounter written on it: 'You have just destroyed.. .the authors advert...from now on ... things will be... even tougher', you are informed on its destruction. Mercenary does seem to include everything, even a kitchen sink, which can be found in the colony craft.

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Presentation 95%
No options as such, but features such as Benson and the excellent, atmospheric title sequence that gets you straight into the game -- literally, make up amply for this apparent difficulty.
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Graphics 98%
Fast effective, 3D vector graphics.
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Sound 67%
Some very good sound effects but little else.

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Lastability 99%
Lots to explore, three ways off completing the game and the ever present urge to improve that final score.
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Value for Money 97%
Just under ten pounds for an alternative way of life.
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Overall 97%
A classic.

Elite never really spawned that many look-alikes because its reputation was so hard to match. However, Novagen have managed to release a game based on a similar approach, yet have introduced so many original elements that the resulting game surpasses its successful predecessor in terms of excitement and playability. The plot is well handled and the graphics are faster than any others of this type. It's easy to get into but hard to play well classic game formula. The detail and rapid pace lend a tense atmosphere that sets it apart from the rest. Mercenary is a game that will get you hooked quickly ~ and keep you interested for a long time to come. I have absolutely no criticism to make of it.
After many news stories, previews and much press hype, a copy of the legendary and until now mythical Mercenary has wended it's way onto the ZZAP! office desk. The delay was due to a few complications in getting the program off an Atari and into a Commodore along with certain code modifications to increase and enhance the general speed of the program. Now all that's done it's just up to us to review it, well here we go:


The main play area of Mercenary is centred on the planet Targ, a world containing two races at war. The original inhabitants of Targ were the Palyars, a peaceful sentient species who led a contented existence until the arrival of the Mechanoids. Mechanoids are strange creatures in that they are not organically based and are an alien race of robots. Because of their warlike nature, the Mechanoids soon defeated the Palyars and are currently the dominant race on Targ.

Most of the planet is a barren wasteland, the only major centre of population being a huge metropolis that at first appearance looks very sparse indeed. There are highways and roads linking the odd interesting structures but most of the actual city is housed underground forming a complicated subterranean complex of tunnels and caverns. This city is now in Mechanoid control.
The Palyars are not completely defeated though. The Palyar War Council and the majority of their population live in a colony craft that hovers high above the city. Though a few pockets of resistance still exist on the planet they are easily controlled by the Mechanoids.

You enter the scenario when, through a mechanical fault, your ship Prestinium crashes on Targ. The role to be played is that of a 21st century soldier of fortune, a mercenary through and through. Since the Prestinium is damaged beyond repair a new ship powerful enough to leave Targ must be found. The trouble is acquiring such a transport -- ships like that cost money and your pockets aren't exactly jingling. What you do have though is Benson, a ninth generation personal computer. He acts as your interface with the outside world, providing a 3D vector interpretation of the scene around you plus navigational information. Once on Targ, Benson relays the minimal amount of information in his data banks.


AnoMercenary has certainly taken its time in appearing on the 64, but it's definitely been worth the wait. Seldom has a game kept everyone at ZZAP! glued to a monitor for so long, but Mercenary deserves every second devoted to it. The game has incredible depth, and even if it is solved it is always possible to return to Targ and escape with even more credits and better equipment (remember the saved data disk tape).. ( The graphics are exceptional, the vectors make Elite seem like a BASIC program and Starion like, well Starion! The depth of the game is incredible -- Mercenary has massive potential which is only realised ~ through playing it. It's relatively easy to solve, but there is still an immense game waiting beyond that point, it'll certainly take a long, long time before anyone escapes Targ with the maximum credits and equipment if there is one game which is worth buying then it is this Mercenary is about the best computer game ever to be written.




The main appeal of Mercenary is that there are various ways of achieving the end goal. The most obvious is to act as a freelance fighter for either Mechanoid or Palyar. Reaping the rewards of such a role it should be quite simple to get enough money for a ship to take you off planet. If this is the role you want to play then you'll need a craft of some sort to get around the planet. Such a ship is located close to the crash site. Benson relays a message asking if you'd like to buy the ship. Mercenary plays just like the real world and instead of buying the ship you may choose to steal it, risking any retaliation from the vendor.

By Tony Coles Published 15/06/2014

Trace a line back from today's open-world 3D games and you run through the likes of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Morrowind, via Ultima Underworld, to end up at Elite. However, there's one stop-off that's too commonly ignored.

Mercenary was first released in 1985 for the Atari 800 and the Commodore 64 and it rendered an explorable city in wire-frame vector graphics on 8-bit machines. Granted, the frame-rate was a blistering 5fps, but Mercenary combined flight simulation and true exploration in an open and interactive world. It had vehicles, objects and puzzles. There had never been a game like it - so much so that it doesn't really sound like a game from the 1980s at all.

You have crash-landed amidst a civil war on the planet Targ. It's up to you which side to support, but you need to find a way off the planet. Targ features an overground city on a simple grid, with a building at nearly every intersection, and you have a personal computer called Benson, who gives you information and serves as a navigation display. You crash at a small airport, where you can buy a sleek craft, the Dominion Dart, and then you're given a job offer and a grid location to visit. From then on, you're free. I remember getting into the Dart and moving off at speed, then lifting up and taking into the air. It was a revelation. After some flyby sightseeing and the surprise of some aerial combat, I flew to 09-06, landed and coasted into a low wire-frame cage. Looking at the instructions, I wondered if it was an elevator. I pressed 'E' and, boom, my head exploded.

I was lowered down into a large underground hangar. Doors led off to fill out a complex that I could explore at will, with objects in certain rooms that I could pick up, Benson giving me their names. I stumbled around, marvelling at being a person in a world rather than the spaceship in a (pretty samey) universe that I'd been in Elite. When I picked up an object named "Sights", a HUD appeared in my view and it was badass.

I walked through a door marked with a cross and the screen went crazy, suggesting a teleport. I exited and found I was locked in a room with funny-shaped doors. Freaking out, I teleported back the way I came and made a beeline to the hangar. The door to it opened and there's my Dominion Dart waiting for me to hop in, return to the surface and see if I could find any more hangars to explore. It was virtual reality on a home computer and it was amazing. It was also a fundamental shift in my realisation of what games could be, and certainly the reason why I'm such a fiend for Bethesda open-worlders today.

As Mercenary unfolds, the game reveals a thread of subtle cleverness and quirky humour that runs throughout. Oddly shaped doors are opened by picking up identically shaped keys. There are objects with secret abilities; a kitchen sink lets you pick up any object and a cobweb functions as a skeleton key. A box named "essential 12939 supply" turns out to be Pepsi when you view the model from behind (making the most of the engine's lack of hidden line removal). You can pick up the leader of one of the game's factions, with Benson reporting that he insists you put him down.

Most famously, there's an unusually large segment of cheese that also happens to be the fastest ship in the game. Then there's the torrid tale of the Palyar Commander's brother-in-law, a man destined to be your nemesis, should you choose to make him so. Weirdly, it's also impossible to die. You can fling yourself off the Colony Craft without fear, and get shot down by angered drones with little to worry about besides losing your ship.

All of this is uncovered as you roam Targ's complexes and work out your route to escape. The first time I got off the planet was by discovering an unpowered interstellar craft and uniting it with a Novadrive. This involved going through just about every corridor and room in the game, including trips to the Colony Craft and two complexes far off in the wilderness. As I boarded the completed ship, it felt like a shame to be leaving.

Luckily, Mercenary got a remix of the darkly fiendish kind with an expansion pack called The Second City. It expanded further in 1990 with the Damocles series for Amiga and Atari ST, giving players an entire solar system to explore, but the lineage ended there. Those wishing to explore Mercenary and its sequels should visit The Mercenary Site, for even more spoilers than I've already given and a whole lot of excellent background info, including profiles of the entire Novagen team and some insights into Mercenary's author.

Mercenary and its sequels are the work of one man: Paul Woakes. He's one of the great 80s British gaming geniuses; fit to stand alongside Braben and Bell, Mike Singleton, Matthew Smith, Jeff Minter, et al. In Mercenary, Woakes trod a fabulous line with that aforementioned quirky humour to complement his technical excellence. His earlier work included a turbo-paced Battlezone update called Encounter!, which features in Mercenary as a billboard at 02-03. Shooting this advert isn't advisable, as the game refuses to let you leave the planet unless you fix it.

Aside from the japes and the delivery of a true open-world 3D engine in 1985, Woakes also had a wonderful grasp on clean and efficient design. This can be seen in the bare-bones rules of Encounter! and the deliciously crisp graphics of its 16-bit sequel, Backlash. However Mercenary has deeper examples of Woakes' finely pitched taste. Playing on the excellent PC remake, MDDClone, from the excellent Mercenary Site, it's a relief that the navigation system is still excellently intuitive. Things like ship speed being assigned to the number keys are cleverly simple. Besides the wire-frames, animations like a strip of brown moving up the screen as you use a hangar lift is brilliantly illustrative of going underground.

As an interesting aside, the box art is directly representative of the game - an airbrushed vector cityscape as viewed from a cockpit. This goes against the convention of the time, which was gloriously grandiose fantasy and sci-fi paintings, supposedly intended to fill the gaps in imagination left by rudimentary 8-bit graphics. With modern eyes, Mercenary's gameplay itself is obviously primitive but there's definitely a pull to retrace 29-year-old steps, especially with MDDClone's perfectly smooth frame-rate. It's worth mentioning that MDDClone also includes the Second City and both Damocles titles, making it a very tidy little package (around 1.2MB in size) that contains an awful lot of gameplay.

I have to wonder what a modern reboot of Mercenary would be like. The Central City would finally be a thriving metropolis. The lack of lethal consequences and a goal of escape (rather than vanquishing some enemy or other) would be almost subversive in the context of a modern open-world RPG. One meanders around thoughts of deeper and more complex routes to escape, richer factional politics and millions of hidden locations to track down and explore at your leisure.

The point, perhaps, is more about Mercenary's philosophy, which seems to be operating on a higher plain to its contemporaries. A game that's a world to explore and then leave behind, with no killing or emphasis on acquisition. No points awarded, no high-scores, no rewards other than your freedom. It genuinely sounds radical, and if released today would probably sit in the rarefied atmosphere of esoteric art games.

In its day, Mercenary sat with Elite and The Sentinel as 3D games that set a bar far, far beyond the traditional norms, but it lacks recognition and respect. It's always a concern when retrogaming discussion defaults to an offensively simplistic monoculture, where 8-bit UK gaming means Elite and Manic Miner, dodgy arcade conversions and licence tie-ins, and the rest being a load of crap that's not worth looking at today. This is commonly the case in the modern dialogue, save the odd title that stands out by some isolated virtue. Skool Daze was naughty and like real school, Spindizzy was an open-world Marble Madness and so on. Even so, they're seen as islands of genius in a miasma of mediocrity, with little relevance to the modern day.

Mercenary proves this misconception wrong. It's a lost milestone that occupies a spot in a grand, ongoing lineage that still pushes the boundaries of what games can be. If Mercenary proves anything of value to modern games, it's that even in gaming's early days, there were talented designers who weren't afraid to try and build an entire world - one that defiantly went against the grain and broke the rules to produce something eternally special.

As for Paul Woakes, he seemingly disappeared in the 1990s, refusing to fall into old-man roles as the UK games industry steadily consolidated into the monolith that was Eidos. The makers of the upcoming documentary Bedrooms to Billions shot out a tantalising tweet that it had made contact with someone who fits Woakes' bill, so we'll have to hang on a little longer to see if the man behind Mercenary has anything to say. I can only wish I had the opportunity to ask him some questions. The least I can do is salute his game.