DOCS FOR DEFENDER II ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GAME OPTIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are six options available from the main title screen. Each option is represented by a box on screen; Use the mouse to move the pointer and click in the box representing your choice. (if the music is playing, press SPACE to get the pointer). Selecting any of the Begin Game options will lead you to a further screen, at which you can choose to begin a one - two player game. In Two-player games, players take alternate turns, play passing whenever a player's ship is destroyed. If you click on the illuminated pyramid, you can enter a Sector Code, allowing experienced to begin play at an advanced level. DEFENDER ~~~~~~~~ You control a small but agile spaceship which flies at will through a horizontally-scrolling. At the bottom of the gamespace appear a variety of hostile enemies. Your priorty targets are the Landers. These ships are fairly slow-moving and at first not unduly aggressive, but they must be dealt with urgently, as their mission is to cruse above the mountains looking out for Humanoids yo abduct. With increasing frequency, Landers will swoop down and grab hold of one of your Humanoids, causing him to emit a frightened squeal. This is your cue to streak to the rescue. The Lander tries to drag your Humanoid up to the top of the screen. If you can get there and blow away the Lander, the Humanoid will drop off and fall back to the planet surface. The Humanoid can survive falls of a short distance, but if he falls too far, he will die. The only neat thing to do is catch the falling Humanoid by running into him with your ship. Once you've got him, you can take him anyware; unless you put him back down on the planet, he'll just dangle there taking in the view. He cannot be shot while you've got him. You can carry any number of Humanoids underneath your ship. When you decide to replace your Humanoids on the planet surface, you get a bonus for each one. Of course, you are far from defencelles in the face of all this naughtiness. You have a rapid-fire sheet-laser cannon in your ship which never runs out of ammunition or energy (it also slits Humanoids up a treat, so watch it). And you have limited stocks of the most powerful weapon in video history, the Smart Bomb. Trigger a smart bomb and every enemy on the screen is instantly transformed into tiny pieces. You also have a further tactical aid at your disposial: your scanner. This is a small radar screen located above the main display. The scanner maps the whole of gamespace, displaying the position of each occupant, hostile or friendly, as a coloured blip. Use the scanner to grasp in an instant the situation as it evolves and plan an effective response. STAR GATE ~~~~~~~~~ Williams followed up the original Defender arcade game with the sequel STARGATE. This new game introduced extra enemies and a couple of twists to the gameplay and increased the overall game difficulty. Stargate gave the player one extra weapon, called Inviso. This weapon permits the player to cause his ship to become invincible and invisible, whilst leaving all the weapons fully opertioal. With inviso on, the player can kill enemies by ramming and cannot be shot (very useful for tricky Humanoid rescues). The main game feature was the eponymous stargate. This portal hovers above the planetoid and the player can fly in at any time. Usually, the stargate will warp the player instantly to the other side of the gamespace. The stargate also has two more important functions: if you fly in while a Humanoid abduction is taking place anywhere on the planetoid, the stargate will warp you straight there, ready to exact retribution. And if you gather up four or more Humanoids and enter, you can warp ahead by three levels, copping a fat bonus for so doing. GATE STRUCTURE - DEFENDER AND STARGATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Defender consists of a single mission - protecting your Humanoids - repeated endlessly, with more and nastier versions of the enemies on each successive level. If you lose your planet, it is restored, with a full complement of Humanoids, at each fifth level - so, if you lost your planet on level eight, you'd get it back with ten new Humanoids at level ten. Stargate has a similar structure, but with two new missions added. The new missions are the Yllabian Dodfight, which takes place in free space on Level Five, and the Firebomber Showdown, which occurs over the usual planetoid but with no Landers, at Level Ten. Your Humanoids and planetoid are restored after each of these special missions. The missions alternate at every five levels, so you get the Yllabian Dogfight again at 15, Showdown at 20 etc. DEFENDER II: GAME STRUCTURE AND OVERVIEW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Defender II retains many of the gameplay elements from Defender and Stargate whilst adding a variety of different missions and enemies. The game is structured as a series of 4-wave zones. Each zone consists of a Mission or Theme Wave followed by three Defender waves played out over the usuall planetoid. There are eight distinct Missions Waves, during which the player is required to achieve some objective specified at the start of the wave; and eight Theme Waves, in which a plague of a particular enemy species is encountered. The player is equipped with the usual laser and Smart Bombs, plus the following items of extra ordnance: TOOTHPASTE LASER - A fat, powerful weapon, useful for destroying targets which might otherwise require a lot of shots from the usual laser. BOMB POD - Allows the player to shoot a stream of bombs at ground-based targets. UPSHOOTER - Covers the player with shots which issue on an upward diagonal. AL DRONE - The most useful all-round weapon, and the defult issue. The drone accompanies your ship, looking for and aiming at enemies, and despatching them with a powerful beam laser. The player has a limited supply of power for these weapons; when that power is gone, they cannot be fired. New power is given out at every 10,000 points, along with an extra ship and Smart Bomb. The most awesome weapon in the new armoury is the SMART LASER. When triggered, the Smart Laser lashes out in the form of lightning bolts all round your ship, destroying all enemies within range. Like the other weapons, Smart Laser draws power from your supply and cannot be activated when that power is drained. The ship's laser, Smart Bombs and Smart Laser, plus one of the special weapons, are available at any one time. You can select any of the special weapons at any time; there is no restriction as long as you have the power to fire them! There is a Star Gate, which may be used for Humanoid rescues and Warping just like its predecessor. The gameplay progresses through 16 distinct 4-wave sectors, with new enemies being introduced each sector. In all, you may expect to encounter some sixty alien types, armed with eighteen different kinds of weapon, on your journey through the game! Some missions require the use of the ship's tractor beam, which drains all the power usually reserved for the weapons systems... Humanoids and planetoid are restored after each Mission/Theme wave. When your game is over, you are given a Sector Code. On subsequent games, you can enter this code and begin play at the start of that sector, copping a positively obese Start Bonus for surviving the initial wave of the sector. DEFENDER II CONTROLS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The recommended and defult control method for Defender II uses a combination of mouse and keyboard controls. Ship flight controls are assigned to mouse, weapon systems to keyboard. With practise, the mouse provides an intuitive, fast and accurate flight control, and all weapons are easily activated without having to move your hand around the keyboard. MOUSE UP/DOWN: Move ship vertically LEFT MOUSE: THRUST (Accelerate ship in direction it is pointing) RIGHT MOUSE: REVERSE (Turn ship around) LEFT SHIFT: FIRE (Hold down for continuous rapid fire) CONTROL: Smart Bomb (Press once to trigger a Bomb) ALTERNATE: Inviso/Smart Laser (Hold down for as long as you require Inviso of Smart Laser) SPACEBAR: Weapon Select (Press once to select next special weapon in Defender II) There is an alternate keyboard control method available for those who can't handel the mouse controls. Use the Options screen to select keyboard controls. The keys are deployed as follows: CONTROL: UP LEFT SHIFT: DOWN ALTERNATE: REVERSE RETURN: THRUST #: FIRE RIGHT SHIFT:SMART BOMB CAPS LOCK: INVISO/SMART LASER TAB: WEAPON SELECT To help you learn the Mouse controls, use the Trainer option from the title screen. This gives you a free hand to take a pop at a few baddies and try out the starbuggy before going into battle. HIGH SCORES ~~~~~~~~~~~ If you make it into the top Ten scores on any of the games, you will be asked to enter three initials for the highscore lists. When asked to enter the initials, use left/right mouse motions to select the correct letter, and press the left button to enter your selection. The score table is displayed with your entry added after you have entered the last letter. The three score tables (for Defender, Startgate and Def II) are displayed in rotation during games Attract Mode. You can check the scores at any time by clicking on the appropriate Game Start icon with the Right Mouse button on the main title screen. Hold down the right RIGHT mouse button while the table is displayed to hold it for as long as you require. If you complete a game and you forgot to check your score while Game Over was happening, you can just leave the controls alone and watch the Attract Mode. The last player one/player two scores are displayed when the game is demonstrated. USING SECTOR CODES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the start of a game of Defender II, you can click on the illminated pyramid to enter a valid Sector Code and gain access to higher levels of the game. The current Sector Code is displayed beneath the pyramid. Clicking on the pyramid replaces the code with dashes, allowing you to enter a valid code. Use the same mouse motions as for highscore initial entry. If the code is accepted, the new starting is displayed at the bottom left of the screen, along with the Starting Bonus for that level. Play now begins at that level, and when the first wave is successfully completed, the Starting Bonus will be added to your score. Clicking the RIGHT Mouse button on the pyramid will rest the game to the Start Sector. CONVENIENCE CONTROLS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Usually just the lock on the door, the seat and the flush handel. Seriously though, these controls are available during a game for the convenience of the player. The following keys do the following funky stuff: P Pause Game (press u for unpause to resume the action) X Exit/Restart quits the current game and goes back to the title screen S Samples On/Off allows you to turn off the in-game sound effects. This is fine if you are the sort of dude who plays their Defender in a darkened room with loud rock blasting. End............