Hired Guns
Encyclopedia
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...
produced by DMA Design (distributed by Psygnosis) for the Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
and the PC
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
in 1993
1993 in video gaming
-Events:*March — In Sweden, the Swedish video game magazine Super PLAY starts. The original name is Super Power.*Midway Games embroiled in controversy for its game Mortal Kombat from 1992 when the game is launched for video game consoles in 1993....
.
The game is set in the year 2712, in which the player controls four mercenaries selected from a pool of twelve. One of the features of the game is that all four characters are on screen simultaneously, each in their own window.
Plot
The plot is that a hostage rescue mission on the planet Graveyard proves to be illusory and that they have actually been lured into a weapons proving ground, in order to pit genetically engineered creatures against them to see how they fare.Gameplay
The game uses a system of four simultaneous Dungeon Master-style first-person perspective viewpoints in the world. Each character is individually controllable and occupies their own square, unlike Dungeon Master, in which the entire party occupies the same square. Each character can be made to follow another character, simplifying large group movements when only one player is controlling the party.The gameplay was advanced for its time, allowing up to four players to play simultaneously, using mouse, keyboard or (modified) Sega Mega Drive
Sega Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis is a fourth-generation video game console developed and produced by Sega. It was originally released in Japan in 1988 as , then in North America in 1989 as Sega Genesis, and in Europe, Australia and other PAL regions in 1990 as Mega Drive. The reason for the two names is that...
joypad, with a parallel port adaptor allowing four joypads/joysticks to be used at once.
The game area is in real 3D, and monster/enemy AI have free movement around each level environment. This is unlike other games of its time, in which enemies cannot pursue characters up stairs. An array of heavy weapons (including a robot sentry, similar to that seen in Aliens
Aliens (film)
Aliens is a 1986 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and starring Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, William Hope, and Bill Paxton...
Special Edition), incendiary devices and mines can be used to take out the enemy (or friends!) either on the same level as the player or below.
Players have to manage their inventory, too, as the amount of items to carry is limited.
Also included are devices called "Psionic Amps" that can be used to create strange effects on the player or on the world around them — e.g. a Psionic Amp can be used underwater to create an area of air so the player can breathe.
Amiga Power
The British Amiga games magazine Amiga PowerAmiga Power
Amiga Power was a monthly magazine about Amiga computer games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and ran for 65 issues, from May 1991 to September 1996....
(AP) had a long running gag
Running gag
A running gag, or running joke, is a literary device that takes the form of an amusing joke or a comical reference and appears repeatedly throughout a work of literature or other form of storytelling....
about Hired Guns. Nearly all games magazines, AP included, have a Next Month page, which offers a brief insight into the contents of next month's issue. However, for AP's first 30 issues or so, they had a thin strip on the back cover upon which they wrote a few lines on next month's issue, and included a very small screenshot of an upcoming game.
This enabled them to have a running joke for several months regarding Hired Guns. For several months, the game failed to arrive for review, as the publishers kept moving the release date back. In response, Amiga Power put the same screenshot of the game on their Next Month Strip every month for about six months, with repeated humble reassurances to the reader that they might, possibly, have it by next month.
When the game did finally arrive, the screen remained in the Next Month strip along with a line of text jokingly suggesting that it was stuck there and nobody knew how to remove it.