Millennium Soldier: Expendable
Encyclopedia
Millennium Soldier: Expendable (known as Expendable in the U.S.A. and Seitai Heiki Expendable in Japan) is the title of a shoot 'em up
video game that was released by British developer Rage Software
for Microsoft Windows
in 1998, the Sega
Dreamcast in 1999, and the PlayStation in 2000. It is in the format of a modern arcade game. The player starts with 7 "credits" and can continue until running out of credits. A second player can join the game at any time by pressing start.
Like most top-down run and gun videogames, it has collectable upgrades and weapons, and features common aspects like bosses and levels, familiar with most games of this type.
Millennium Soldier: Expendable supports Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping
, a DirectX
6 feature first supported by the Matrox Millennium G400.http://www.womengamers.com/hardware/matrox.php
, where most of the galaxy was conquered by a hostile alien race. To combat the aliens, scientists had developed a "Millennium Soldier" project (hence the title) through cloning two super-soldiers (hence, Player 1 and Player 2) to battle the aliens.
Shoot 'em up
Shoot 'em up is a subgenre of shooter video games. In a shoot 'em up, the player controls a lone character, often in a spacecraft or aircraft, shooting large numbers of enemies while dodging their attacks. The genre in turn encompasses various types or subgenres and critics differ on exactly what...
video game that was released by British developer Rage Software
Rage Software
Rage Software or Rage Games was a British video game developer. Formed in Liverpool in 1992, its games were marked by an emphasis on graphical effects with arcade gameplay....
for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
in 1998, the Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
Dreamcast in 1999, and the PlayStation in 2000. It is in the format of a modern arcade game. The player starts with 7 "credits" and can continue until running out of credits. A second player can join the game at any time by pressing start.
Like most top-down run and gun videogames, it has collectable upgrades and weapons, and features common aspects like bosses and levels, familiar with most games of this type.
Millennium Soldier: Expendable supports Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping
Bump mapping
Bump mapping is a technique in computer graphics for simulating bumps and wrinkles on the surface of an object. This is achieved by perturbing the surface normals of the object and using the perturbed normal during lighting calculations. The result is an apparently bumpy surface rather than a...
, a DirectX
DirectX
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
6 feature first supported by the Matrox Millennium G400.http://www.womengamers.com/hardware/matrox.php
Weapons available
- BlasterRaygunRayguns are a type of fictional directed-energy weapon. They have various alternate names: ray gun, death ray, beam gun, blaster, laser gun, phaser, etc. They are a well-known feature of science fiction; for such stories they typically have the general function of guns...
(defaultDefault (computer science)A default, in computer science, refers to a setting or value automatically assigned to a software application, computer program or device, outside of user intervention. Such settings are also called presets, especially for electronic devices...
)-a gun with infinite ammunition, but slow firing rate. - Machine gunMachine gunA machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
-fires several bursts of bullets in a few short seconds. - BombBombA bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
-thrown ahead by pressing R2, causing considerable damage. Weak on range. - Pulse shot-a shining green blast with a short range, but deals more damage than default blaster.
- Spread shot-fires a number of shots spread out in a wide range, but consumes a lot of ammunition if spreading range is high. Range depends on ammunition count of weapon.
- Rainbow-coloured laserLaserA laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
- - FlamethrowerFlamethrowerA flamethrower is a mechanical device designed to project a long controllable stream of fire.Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid; some project a long gas flame. Most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and...
- - HomingHomingHoming is the process of determining the location of something, sometimes the source of a transmission, and going to it.More specifically, it may refer to:*Infrared homing*Semi-active radar homing*Active radar homing*Acoustic homing*Homing...
MissileMissileThough a missile may be any thrown or launched object, it colloquially almost always refers to a self-propelled guided weapon system.-Etymology:The word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning "to send"... - Rocket-
- ShotgunShotgunA shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
Plot
Millennium Soldier takes place sometime in the futureFuture
The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...
, where most of the galaxy was conquered by a hostile alien race. To combat the aliens, scientists had developed a "Millennium Soldier" project (hence the title) through cloning two super-soldiers (hence, Player 1 and Player 2) to battle the aliens.
Reception
External links
Millennium Soldier: Expendable on MobyGamesMobyGames
-Platforms not yet included:- Further reading :* Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson, High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media; 2 edition , ISBN 0-07-223172-6...