Wild Metal Country - Public Demo -------------------------------- PAT KERR 04/03/99. 1. Requirements --------------- Base Machine: P166, 32Meg RAM Recommended : P200, 64Meg RAM, 3D accelerator card 2. Installation --------------- The program installs via InstallShield, and can be installed in any directory. The first time the game is run, it will automatically execute our Hardware Detect program. This allows you to select an appropriate rendering configuration for your system. 3. Execution ------------ The program should only be run from one of its entries in the Windows 95 start menu e.g. Start->Programs-> Wild Metal Country->Public Demo->Play 4. Objective ------------ Collect and store one power core of each colour to complete the level. Sounds easy? Just try it. In a multiplayer power core game each player owns a power core of their colour and the only way to collect it is to kill them and collect it from the debris. In the multiplayer power core game there are second hand power core fragments available too. If you collect three of these you have the equivalent of a full core. There are also frag multiplayer games and team games where the objective is to gain as many kills as possible. To store your tokens (single player game) drive under one of the hovering stores such as the one at your start point. 5. Keys ------- The in-game controls are as follows: Use the numeric key pad to control the tank. "5" and "2" control the left tank track, "6" and "3" control the right. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it provides a high degree of control when you master it. Use "+" on the number pad to get an afterburn boost in multiplayer games (your health will suffer). Use "Enter" on the number pad for a handbrake. Use "A" and "S" to turn your turret left and right. The camera follows the turret, not the tank, so these controls allow skilful players to look in one direction while driving in another. Use "SPACE" to raise the turret, firing is automatic on release. Use "LEFT CONTROL" to drop mines. The keys along the top row of the keyboard starting from '1' select weapons. "R" will call a helicopter to come and pick you up, replenish your health and put you down again right way up, unless you have annoyed them recently by shooting them or asking for rescues too often. If you are driving away from chinhooks then they won't respond. Pressing "R" again cancels the request. Helicopters also drop ammo for your weapons. "Right Shift" toggles your scanner display on and off. "Escape" toggles the options screen. "Q" and "W" provide extra camera control for looking up and down. 6. Infobar Lights ----------------- The green light means that you are currently requesting a rescue. If it is flashing then no helicopters are currently responding. The red light means that a homing weapon is in your vicinity. The middle light indicates that you are aiming towards a power core. If it is half lit it means that you are aiming towards something which might be carrying a power core. 7. Weapons ---------- The projectile weapons are as follows: 1: Standard Shell: Useful, unlimited ammo. 2: Bouncer: Bounces along the terrain after contact. 3: Sprinkler: Fires many times in rapid succession. 4: Drifter: (not in demo) Splits up into nasty fragments if fired over someone's head at medium to long range. 5: Sniffer: A simple homing missile (can be evaded). 6: Big Bang: (not in demo) A big powerful ballistic shell. 7: Magnatron: Is magnetically attractive to just about everything (fire it over people's heads). 8: Teleporter: (not in demo) If it hits someone (something?) you swap places. The mine weapons are as follows: 9: Roller: A barrel-like mine which rolls over ground. 0: Magnetic: (not in demo) Magnetically attracts nearby objects. -: Jumping Jack: If an object gets within range, these will jump towards them and explode on impact. +: Beacon: Allows you to "mark" parts of the terrain. 8. Scanner ---------- The overlaid scanner shows the positions of enemies relative to your tank. Imagine it as a top down view with your own tank at the centre. Coloured circles represent tanks, triangles represent statics. Hourglass shapes represent power cores. Smaller versions of the symbols represent objects which are not currently detected by your scanner, they represent the last known position of the object and will disappear after a short while. Your scanner can detect anything close to you, and things further away which are in a cone around the line of sight of your turret, so sweeping your turret around is likely to give you more scanner data. Anything which is picked up by your scanner but is off the main part of the display is shown as a small symbol at the perimeter with a stalk attached. The longer the stalk the further away it is. 9. Tips ------- If your vehicle turns over, try using your turret to lever yourself back up. Shooting at the ground will also do the trick but is likely to cause damage. Turn one track backwards and the other forwards to get a tight turn. If you drive under the hovering stores you can see the positions of all power cores on you scanner. Use beacons to mark areas of interest and to orientate yourself to help avoid getting lost. If power cores are in awkward or inaccessible places, shoot them somewhere else. Choose your ground carefully - if your tank is on uneven ground or tilting upwards it might be difficult to hit targets, especially at close range. Ramming can be very effective especially in multiplayer games (try using the boost). Remember to use the helicopters if your tank gets stuck. To become expert at the game you need to be able to turn your turret while driving. Press both turret keys together to realign turret. Different weapons are effective at different ranges and under different situations. Experiment with all the weapons - all of them can be very useful. If your keyboard beeps when using combinations of important keys try redefining some of them. The acceptable key configurations vary from keyboard to keyboard. 10. Known Problems ------------------ IMPORTANT INFO ---- PLEASE READ. This program requires DirectX 6 or above; DirectX 6 is provided on the CD. If you have any graphical problems, ensure that you are using the latest drivers for your card, especially for "S3" and "ATI" models. If you encounter any compatibility problems other than those listed below, please fill out the form provided in "feedback.txt" (on the CD) and send it to us. COMPATIBILITY ISSUES The program has no major compatibility problems that we know of (at least, not on "typical" machines) but the following issues should be noted. ..Graphical You may experience some problems with the Matrox Millennium 2. If huge "holes" appear in the terrain with this card, try switching the Texture Detail to HIGH (under Options/Video Options/Performance)! This version will not display certain special effects (e.g. explosions and weapon trails) on cards which do not support additive alpha effects. Alternative effects for cards of this type will be made available in the final version. You may also have problems running in 32-bit modes on TNT cards (and cards which use the TNT chipset). If the front-end is visible but the game-world seems blank, try putting Windows into a 16-bit mode before running the program. This appears to be a driver- related problem, which we hope to solve shortly. The program may fail when attempting to run with 3DFX Voodoo1 cards under our D3D renderer. This appears to be another driver problem, but it is easily avoided by only running 3DFX cards under the Glide renderer, which has better performance in any case. Some users have reported problems when running in a window on motherboard-mounted ATI Rage Pro Turbo (4 Meg) cards. We hope to investigate this further, but suspect that it is also a driver problem. ..Aural Some users have reported a possible conflict between Voodoo2 graphics cards, SBLive audio cards and Windows98. This appears to be a fairly rare problem but, if performance is very poor when using SBLive sound, just select software audio instead. ..General Finally, this demo will not work on machines which use some of the older Cyrix processors (which do not support the RDTSC instruction). We hope to rectify this problem in the final version. PERFORMANCE ISSUES Performance may be unsatisfactory on some poorly specified 3d cards. If this is the case, try selecting a lower screen resolution. Be sure to use a 16-bit screen mode if you can, and set the Texture Detail to LOW. If performance remains poor, try running the "Hardware Detect" program and selecting our Software Render --- this may actually be faster than some 3d cards! PRODUCT INFO (for reference) Wild Metal Country Public Demo Product Code: WHW1U2ZR3PS2