Welcome to the Read This! file for the demo version for Damage Incorporated. The game places you as a Sergeant commanding a team of Marines in a real-time 3D environment, wherein you try to issue them orders while keeping yourself alive. Though experienced players of other 3D games (such as a wee game known as Marathon, from which this game derives its "engine") may be able to blow through some of the early levels without the help of their team, the levels get hard enough later on that most will be doomed without strategically using their squad.
This demo features four levels, three single player and one network, from the final game. The first two single player levels are the actual first two from the full game, and as such aren't too hard. The third, however, is from near the end of the game, and as such is rather difficult. Though the Shocktroopers have been toned down for this Demo somewhat, don't be embarrassed if you get your posterior handed to you on this third level quite a bit.
The demo version only includes 8 bit sound and graphics, limits network games to five-minute two-player combat, offers you only 4 marines to take with you on your missions, and drastically reduces squad-member conversation.
In the final game you'll get
- More than 30 levels of unrelenting warfare.
- Brilliant 16 bit graphics and sound.
- Up to 8 players in intense network combat.
- Fifteen enemies to neutralize with extreme prejudice, plus hostages that rely on you to keep them alive.
- Seven authentic U.S. Marine Corps weapons plus one reality-based weapon of mass destruction. Most weapons feature multiple ammunition types, such as Armor Piercing, Incendiary, and Acid rounds, not to mention target-tracking Stinger missiles.
- Eleven marines plus two specialists to take with you on missions, each with his own distinct personality, strengths & weaknesses, and detailed dossier.
- Over 125 megabytes of digitized speech including squad member "Chit Chat", fleshing out the personalities of your teammates. In addition, Colonel Gray (your commander) provides interesting audio commentary during the mission briefings.
- Gorgeous chapter paintings by internationally-famous artists such as Derek Riggs and Glenn Fabry.
How to Purchase
Damage Incorporated will be available from finer retail establishments and mail order businesses everywhere. Or you may order directly from MacSoft:
1-800-229-2714
(1-612-559-5301)
FAX: 612-577-0631
MacSoft
The WizardWorks Group
2300 Berkshire Lane
Minneapolis, MN 55441
Call for a catalog of other fine MacSoft computer software products (such as a wonderful little RPG called Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis), or you might care to peruse the MacSoft internet World Wide Web site at http://www.wizworks.com/macsoft
System Requirements
- 68040 or PowerPC Macintosh (33 MHz or faster strongly recommended)
- 4.6 MB free RAM
- 256 color monitor, 13" or larger
- CD-ROM Drive
- System 7 or higher
Beginning a Game
Once you've run the Damage Incorporated application (if you have trouble doing this, see the Getting the Game to Run on an 8MB Machine section below), you'll be able to select New Game from the main menu to start a new game. First you'll encounter a Mission Briefing which fills you in on the objectives at hand. (Use the Up and Down arrow keys to scroll through the pages, Escape to end the briefing; or use your mouse to click on the purple buttons for similar effects.) Once finished with the briefing, you can select your teammates for this mission (though there are few to choose from in this Demo Version). That completed you'll be thrust into the 3D game world.
Controlling Your Character
The following are the default key settings for Damage Incorporated, quite similar to the key settings for the Marathon games. You can reset these to whatever you like in the Configure Keys section of the Preferences (see below).
Forward, Backward: KeyPad 8, KP 5
Turn Left, Turn Right: KP 4, KP 6
Sidestep (Dodge) Left, Sidestep Right: Z, X
Jump: KP 0
Crouch: Enter
Run: Control
Look Up, Down: D,C
Look Ahead: V
Fire Weapon (Main Trigger): Space
Fire Weapon (Secondary Trigger): Option
Previous Weapon, Next Weapon: KP 7, KP 9
Change Main Trigger Ammunition: KP /
Change Second Trigger Ammunition: Clear
Move yourself around using these keys. If you're a 3D game novice it may take a second to get your bearings, but keep with it; we have confidence in your abilities. If you're not a novice, why are you even reading this part?
You may care to take a look at the Overhead Map with the Automap key (default M). On some levels FITICA Intelligence has provided you with semi-complete maps of the areas you're sent to. On later levels they have nothing, however, and you'll only be able to see the areas you or a teammate has been to.
The Action key (default Tab) will do lots of fun stuff, like flipping switches and opening doors.
During the game you can always access the following commands:
For any given mission you're on, you can Radio In to your commander (using the Radio In key, default R) and he'll tell you what you still need to do to accomplish the level. When you're all done, you should head to the Extraction Zone (which shows up Red in the Overhead Map). Once there, if you've completed your objectives for this level, you'll be moved to the next engagement.
Command-Q: Quit (the whole application, not just your current game)
Command-W: Close the current game
Command-R: Revert to the beginning/where you last saved.
Command-P: Pause
Command-S: Save the game. You can do this anywhere, unless you're playing on the upper two difficulty levels, in which case you'll need to head to a Radio Zone in order to save the game(they show up purple in the Overhead Map).
Commanding Your Squad
From the main menu, select Boot Camp for a fast-yet-thorough explanation of how to control the 2 to 4 teammates you're in command of on any given mission. Keep in mind that you can configure all of your squad-command keys in the lower-half of the Configure Keys preference dialog. Click on Preferences from the main menu to get to the Configure Keys dialog.
Preferences
Clicking on the Preferences button from the Main Menu brings up the options which allow you to modify how you play Damage Incorporated, as well as getting it to perform optimally on your machine (see Performance below). Clicking on the Configure Keyboard button from here will let you set the keys you control the game with to be whatever you like, as well as allowing you to use keys similar to those in other games you may be used to (a popup menu of layouts is provided).
WARNING: The "fill screen" option, when activated, will maliciously rearrange some of the icons you may have on your desktop. Though this is a shame, that's how it is. People with lots of carefully-placed icons on their desktop will probably wish to avoid this option.
Performance
If you find that Damage Incorporated runs too slowly on your computer, you're encouraged to go to the Preferences to mess about with some of the game's settings.
- Low Resolution mode is pretty much necessary for the game to run on 68040 Macintoshes. Really slow PowerMac owners who want a really zippy frame-rate may want to turn this on as well.
- Ambient sounds are a big speed hit, you might try turning them off first.
- Smaller window sizes help dramatically; even lowering your window size to 80% can make a dramatic improvement, without reducing what you see all that much.
- Having the game use only 256 colors instead of Thousands will speed things up somewhat.
- The more sound channels you use, the slower the game will run. Furthermore, turning on Stereo effectively doubles the number of sound channels the game uses, hence slowing it down as well. If you don't have stereo speakers or headphones hooked up to your computer, Stereo sound will actually sound worse than Mono anyway, so turn it off.
- You'll want to make sure you quit all other applications before running Damage Incorporated, as they can slow up the game significantly as well. Especially turn off Virtual Memory and/or RamDoubler (unless you need them to have enough free memory to run the game).
Getting the Game to Run on an 8MB Machine
Damage Incorporated requires 4.6 MB of free RAM. If you only have 8MB of RAM and your System is taking up more than 3.4 MB (as newer systems are likely to do), then you may need to fiddle around a bit to get the game to run. First off, try restarting your machine with extensions turned off (hold down the Shift key while restarting) and make sure there are no other applications running. If this still doesn't work, you'll need to turn on Virtual Memory: consult the manuals that came with your Macintosh to see how to do this.
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And finally, in the spirit of Nate's recipe for Orange-Rosemary Chicken, I give you
Richard's Twelve Movies You Should See That You Probably Haven't
