Mercs is a great shoot 'em up originally developed for the arcades and like most of the quality top down games of its genre it offers plenty of action packed levels! Due to its great success, the game was later converted to the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum home computers and the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive / Genesis consoles.
Review
STORY / GAMEPLAY
The original arcade version of the game has up to three available combatants to choose. They are members of a covert anti-terrorism team known as the "Wolf Force". The aim of the game is to choose the combatant of your taste and rescue the former President from the rebel forces that swarm the fictional African country of Zutula that bears resemblance to the Apartheid regime of South Africa. The game is divided into six main levels and the final level where your mission is to rescue the president from Hercules Transport. The game's weapons include machine guns, grenades and flamethrowers as well as futuristic plasma launchers! There are also ground and air machines to ride (i.e. the armored Jeep). Note that the game is the successor of the good old Commando game released in 1985 for both the 8 and 16 bit platforms.
GRAPHICS / SOUND The ZX Spectrum conversion has nicely animated sprites and beautifully drawn backgrounds though the color palette is limited. The game's scrolling is acceptable and makes it playable enough. The sound is pretty typical with gunfire sound effects only and no in-game music apart from a loop during the big boss battles! This conversion also includes the original music at the main menu.
GAMEPLAY SAMPLE VIDEO
On our video below you may watch the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Sega Master System, Atari ST and Sega Mega Drive versions of the game.
The ZX Spectrum version is at 00:20.
CPU: Z80 @ 3.5 MHz MEMORY: 16 KB / 48 KB / 128 KB GRAPHICS: Video output is through an RF modulator and was designed for use with contemporary portable television sets, for a simple colour graphic display. Features a palette of 15 shades: seven colours at two levels of brightness each, plus black. The image resolution is 256x192 with the same colour limitations. SOUND: Early models (48k) had sound output through a beeper on the machine itself. This is capable of producing one channel with 10 octaves. Late models (128k) fetured a three-channel audio via the AY-3-8912 chip, MIDI compatibility