Mercs

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Mercs
Promotional arcade flyer
Developer(s)	Capcom
Publisher(s)	Capcom Sega (Genesis)
Platform(s)	Arcade, Mega Drive/Genesis
Release date	April 1990
Genre(s)	Run and gun
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Input methods	8-way joystick, 2 buttons
Cabinet	Upright
Arcade system	CPS-1
Display	Raster, standard resolution horizontal orientation

This article is about a video game called MERCS. For Mobile Emission Reduction Credits, see Mobile Emission Reduction Credit (MERC).

Mercs, released in Japan as Senjō no Ōkami II (戦場の狼Ⅱ, Senjō no Ōkami Tsū^?, Wolf of the Battlefield II), is a 1990 top-down run and gun arcade game developed and published by Capcom for the arcades. It is the successor of Commando and will have an official sequel, Commando 3 to be released in 2008 for the Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network.

[edit] Gameplay

The arcade version of the game had up to three players available for play. The players are members of a covert counter-terrorist team known the "Wolf Force". The aim of the game was to rescue the former President from rebels in the fictional African country of Zutulu, which bears resemblance to the apartheid regime in South Africa. The game has six main levels, plus the final level where your mission is to rescue the president from the Hercules Transport. The game's weapons include real-world machine guns, grenades, and flamethrowers as well as futuristic plasma launchers, and several missions have pilotable vehicles available.

The Mega Drive port of Mercs featured two modes, an arcade mode, which mirrored the arcade release of the game, where the player had one "Merc" (soldier) who could pick up a variety of different weapons throughout the game; and an "original" mode, which included multiple playable characters, each with their own unique weapon. In both modes, the aim was to fight through the levels, defeating each boss at the end of every level.

Although the game is officially the sequel to Commando, the storyline makes no connections to the game being a direct sequel and acts as if it's a whole new game.

Screenshot of Mercs.

[edit] Ports

Mercs was ported and published to the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1991 by Sega with Capcom's permission. This version lacks the multiplayer option of the arcade game, but adds an all new "Original Mode" in addition to the standard "Arcade Mode" that features new stages and characters created specifically for this version. Sega also released a version of Mercs for the Sega Master System in Europe and Brazil. The Mega Drive version is set for re-release at a future date on Virtual Console.

Ports of Mercs were also released for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum by U.S. Gold. These conversions of the game were handled by Tiertex.

Capcom ported the original arcade version of Mercs, along with Commando and Gun.Smoke, in the fourth volume of the Capcom Generation compilations released for the PlayStation and Saturn in 1998. This compilation was only released in Japan and in the PAL region.

The same version of the game would later be emulated as part of Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 1, released for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2005, and Capcom Classics Collection: Reloaded for the PlayStation Portable in 2006.