Build: 3.70
Date: Wed May 10 08:41:58 2000
This document is called "readme.txt" and can be
found in the Hired Guns directory when the game is
installed.
====
Hired Guns
Copyright 1998-2000 VR-1 / Psygnosis.
This is a pre-production test version of Hired
Guns - it is confidential and should not be
distributed outside of VR-1, Psygnosis or
legitimate parties.
This version includes all levels from the full
game.
Please completely read this file before installing
Hired Guns. If you are upgrading from an earlier
pre-production version of this game, please see
the section below entitled "installation
instructions".
Please contact one of the following if you have
problems with this version:
Brett Close (Producer) - [email protected]
Kate Gilbreath (Production Assistant) -
[email protected]
David McCloskey (Executive Producer) -
[email protected]
====
-- Revision Notes --
Internal testers, see
\\VR1_BOULDER_5\HG-BUILD\INDEX.HTML for additional
notes.
This version should function correctly on Windows
95/98/2000. It does not operate on Windows NT 4
due to outdated DirectX support (at least
DirectDraw version 5 is required, NT 4 provides
only DirectDraw version 3).
The minimum system specification is a Pentium
2/233 with 64MB RAM, with a 3dfx Voodoo card or
Direct3D hardware acceleration. The recommended
video accelerators are: 3dfx Voodoo3, 3dfx
Voodoo2, NVIDIA Riva TNT / TNT 2 or GeForce 256.
The recommended system is a Pentium 3/500 with
128MB RAM and 3dfx Voodoo3 and an NVIDIA Riva
TNT2.
====
-- Installation Instructions --
Before you install this version of Hired Guns, you
should completely remove any old versions to
ensure that the game is installed correctly. To be
absolutely safe, you may wish to manually delete
the old Hired Guns directory to make sure.
The default installation folder is: "C:\Program
Files\VR-1\Hired Guns"
To begin installation, run the program "menu.exe".
If this fails (it might on certain Windows NT
configurations), go into the "setup" directory and
run "setup.exe".
If something goes wrong and you need to reinstall.
You MUST first remove the previous installation.
If you are unable to reinstall or uninstall, try
deleting the directory that you installed Hired
Guns to and try again.
====
-- Configuration Tips --
WARNING! Your desktop may need to be set to 16-bit
color depth for Direct3D mode to function
correctly.
When you run Hired Guns, the game launcher will be
displayed before the game starts. The first time
it is run, it will attempt to automatically detect
the best video configuration for the game. Details
can be viewed by selecting the "video" options
tab. The following video APIs are supported, and
will be detected in this order:
3dfx GLIDE - best performance on Voodoo-class
graphics accelerators.
Direct3D - best performance for all other hardware
Software - if the machine does not have Direct3D
video hardware
OpenGL - will be used if no other hardware
acceleration can be found
Please note: Direct3D and OpenGL modes will not be
available if there is no hardware acceleration.
You may wish to contact your hardware manufacturer
for updated video hardware drivers for optimal
Hired Guns performance.
Hired Guns OpenGL support is currently
sub-optimal, and should only be used if GLIDE or
Direct3D support is not available. Depending on
the class of your hardware configuration, software
rendering is most likely to be faster than OpenGL
support.
If you have saved games, the "Load" tab will be
shown. This allows you to quickly load a saved
game. Switch to this tab, select a saved game and
click on the "Load Saved Game!" button.
====
-- Playing the game --
Let's play! For full effect, you should insert the
audio CD for in-game music (this is a separate
CD).
On first starting Hired Guns, you will be shown
the launcher screen, as detailed in the
"Configuration Tips" section above. Once you are
ready to start, hit the "Play!" button to begin.
After a brief loading pause, an introduction flyby
sequence will play. When this has finished (or has
been cancelled by pressing escape), you will be in
Kircher's command center.
At this point you can begin the game by walking up
to one of the computer consoles - options, single
player and multiplayer. The game options menu can
also be accessed by pressing escape at any time in
the game. Now would probably be a good time to
review or change your movement controls. The
default controls are listed below, but you may
wish to set your own configuration.
Once you have selected the "campaign" computer
console, you can choose a mission to play. After
viewing the mission briefing and reading the
directions, hit "accept" to continue.
After loading the mission, you should find
yourself in the game, with a view of two or more
characters in the split-screen. The most important
command that you should know about is the tilde
key in the top-left of the keyboard. Pressing this
brings down the menu that can be used to issue
commands to your team by selecting the number keys
1 to 9.
Note that if you tell your team members to "hard
follow" (command 2), they will ignore enemies and
stay as close to you as they can. If you use the
regular "follow" command (command 1), your team
will break off and attack any enemies that they
see, and resume following you when they have
finished the battle.
You can swap between your team members by using
the "Z", "X" and "C" keys. If desired, you can
maximize your current view window using the "R"
key.
If any of your team members die, your mission will
be a failure. Thinking about your team is
important, as you must ensure their safety.
====
-- Your Team --
- Kircher - The team's leader. His regenerative
healing helps him to shrug off battlefield wounds.
- Myriel - Cyborg. Her cyborg body can squeeze
into places too small for a human.
- Osverger - Tough ex-junkie mercenary. He's
really big and strong.
- Rorian - Mercenary and rogue. His night-vision
is invaluable finding his way around in the dark.
If you played the original Hired Guns game, these
names may be familiar to you...
====
-- Known bugs / workarounds - Video cards
* All video cards - Occasionally the quad view
borders will start flashing black every other
frame. If this happens, press the "R" key
(maximize) twice to refresh the screen.
* 3dfx - When trying to start the game, a blank
dialog box may be displayed on screen. A corrupt
installation of 3dfx GLIDE drivers can cause this
problem. If you recently changed or removed a 3dfx
GLIDE compatible video card from your machine, you
should uninstall the old video drivers, and
install the latest video drivers for the video
cards that you still have.
* RIVA TNT - A severe lag of up to three seconds
between a mouse or keyboard input producing an
effect on screen has been experienced on some
systems with RIVA TNT video cards. Upgrading to
the latest video drivers solved the problem -
contact your hardware vendor for more details.
* RIVA TNT-2 - The automatic video detection has
been known to fail on RIVA TNT-2 based video cards
- if this happens to you, please let us know!
* RIVA TNT-2 - Problem: Distorted text. If your
menu text is distorted, this due to the texel
alignment setting on your TNT2 card being set to a
value of 3. To correct this problem for Hired
Guns, perform the following steps:
1. Right click on your desktop and select the
properties tab.
2. Open up the settings tab and click on Advanced.
3. Open up the RIVA TNT2 tab and select additional
properties.
4. Open up the Direct 3d Settings and select More
Direct3d.
5. Move the texel alignment slider to the far
left, so the texel alignment value shown is now 7.
6. Click close.
7. Click apply.
Your fonts should now be legible with no
discernable distortion.
====
-- Control Summary --
[ NOTE: These may be remapped from the
configuration menu ]
== Movement ==
Move Forward: Up arrow / W
Move Backward: Down arrow / S
Sidestep Left: A
Sidestep Right: D
Jump / Up: Space
Crouch / Down: V
Walk: Shift
Strafe: M
== Looking ==
Turn Left: Left Arrow / Mouse
Turn Right: Right Arrow / Mouse
Look Up: Page Up / Mouse
Look Down: Page Down / Mouse
Center View: Home
Mouse Look (hold): End
== Weapons ==
Fire (Mode 1): CTRL / Mouse 1
Fire (Mode 2): ALT / Mouse 2
Drop Weapon: Backspace
Next Weapon: Period (.)
Previous Weapon: Comma (,)
Select Next Weapon: Singlequote (')
Select Prev Weapon: Semicolon (;)
== Items ==
Activate Item: Backslash
Drop Item: [not assigned]
Next Item: Rightbracket (])
Prev Item: Leftbracket ([)
== Team ==
Use Special Abiltity: F
Show Mission Objectives: O
Toggle Quad mode: R
Swap View 2 and 1: Z
Swap View 3 and 1: X
Swap View 4 and 1: C
== System controls ==
ESC - Display menu / Exit flyby movies
F10 - Abort mission
F11 - Screen brightness
F12 - Toggles hardware / software mode (should
leave in hardware)
See the in-game keyboard configuration menus for
more (press escape to access these).
The recommended control method is this: use the
mouse to turn left / right and to look up / down,
and the keyboard to move. By default, the
"mouselook" option is turned off in the game
options to help menu when you are comfortable with
the controls.
Vehicle / turret notes: There are several
controllable vehicles and gun emplacements in the
game. To take control of one, walk into them.
Vehicles can be steered using the look and the
strafe controls. To exit a vehicle or a turret,
press escape or the secondary fire button.
====
-- Cheats / Console commands --
During the game, press TAB, and then type any of
the following at the prompt.
hggod - Invulnerability for the current character
quadgod 1 - Invulnerability for the entire team
hgghost - "Ghost" mode
hgfly - Fly mode
hginvisible - Invisibility mode
hgbehindview - Chasecam view
hgslomo - Slow down the passage of time
stat fps - Show rendering times
exit - Leave the game
select - Return to the mission select screen
intro - Return to the user interface level
playersonly - Freeze time - only players can move
====
End of file.