TNL Game Club Round #3: Mercenary

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Originally Posted by bbobb

I really want to get into this game, the concept is so cool, but my god the learning curve is killing me. The controls are just so much, and man, I don't know. Going to keep trying. I never thought I'd have these kinds of troubles, as this game seems like something I should enjoy.

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Those of you having trouble, try using a walkthrough for part of the game to get a feel for how to progress, and then try again not following that same walkthrough (there are several completely different solutions).

And download maps, because it's really too much work to make your own and it's impossible without any kind of map.

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

Indeed. That Cyber1 network is pretty awesome, though, a glimpse into hardcore high-tech gaming in the '70s.

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Yeah, they're mind blowingly ahead of their time in some ways, but sometimes in a "cart before the horse" sort of way, particularly when it comes to basic controls and such. "Press Shift-LAB to recharge your thrusters" What?

It's a rough game mostly because of the controls. Discovering stuff and dicking around is fun, even though the wireframes mess with me pretty bad. I never really liked wireframe 3D, gives me all kinds of spatial issues.

throw mouselook in this bitch imo

The controls are really easy, but they're mnemonic rather than according to any present convention so you have to read the readme. It's not a hard game to control at all.

I found this annotated walkthrough on Youtube, and it's great because it's so different from how I played the game. Make sure the comments are on. Spoliers, obv.

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

The controls are really easy, but they're mnemonic rather than according to any present convention so you have to read the readme.

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Someone else's, not mine. I had a hard time because I would remember entering a vehicle was a key of the first letter of a word that meant that, but I wouldn't always remember which word. I don't normally think to "board" a car and that would occasionally confuse me for a moment.

You could use joy2key to map the controls how you want on a controller.

I only ever do that for platformers so I didn't think of joy2key, but you're right.

Also: I didn't remember space was stop. When I was first driving around I would go to the lowest speed and was hitting like everything else, guessing S for stop or H for halt and such, and eventually just jumped out of the car which does make it stop. That's how I the stopped the car every time and just thought the game didn't have an actual stop command.

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Originally Posted by MechDeus

Someone else's, not mine. I had a hard time because I would remember entering a vehicle was a key of the first letter of a word that meant that, but I wouldn't always remember which word. I don't normally think to "board" a car and that would occasionally confuse me for a moment.

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Yeah, and having a different key to exit a vehicle is silly too (same for run/walk)... but at the end of the day, there's like 6 buttons you need to know, so you get over it quick.