GEMINI WING ----------- "Die Mutant Alien Scum" ----------------------- Not the most friendly of newspaper headlines you must agree, especially when it comes to promoting intergalactic relations, but then there has always been a so-called 'gutter element' to holo journalism. (Not that anyone can remember what a gutter, these days, but the general feeling is that it was something rather unpleasant, if vaguely useful.) And it was that heading "Die Mutant Alien Scum" that caused all the bother when it appeared in a space-wide holo-edition of the SoonDay Spirit. After several centuries of reading "little green men turned me into a potato" stories invented by SoonDay Spirit journalists, aliens throughout space were beginning to get just a little bit fed up with humanity. Naturally, human diplomats did their best to repair the damage, but your average little green man reading the SoonDay Spirit on the top of a Venusian omnibus wasn't swayed. As time went on, he got more and more fed up with being slandered and vilified in the holo-outpourings of a small and insignificant bipedal race that lived on a dirty little planet in the Sol system. When the crazed SoonDay Spirit healine writer finally flipped his xenophobic lid and came up with DIE MUTANT ALIEN SCUM as a front-page lead story for the early edition one Tuesday, the clamour of outrage coming from the top of the omnibuses throughout the galaxy could be heard on Earth. Alien anger continued to mount, and by the middle of Wednesday morning political leaders on every civilised world in the galaxy realised there was only one course of action open to them if they wanted to get re-elected by their people: declare war on Earth. So by lunchtime that Wednesday every civilised race in the galaxy had declared war on Earth, the human race, and in particular all journalists working for the SoonDay Spirit. Expecting an easy victory in the game 'Earth V The Rest of God's Creations', alien hordes set out for the time-space adjacent to Earth and prepared to do battle with humanity's feeble space fleets. But they hadn't reckoned on the ingenuity of Earth's weapons scientists; they didn't realise that the Gemini Wing fighter project was already complete. And their spies had spent too much time on Earth chasing girlies and turning them into potatoes to report back on the development of awesome weapon systems such as the Windscreen Wiper of Death... What at first seemed to be an easy victory for alien forces turned into a bitterly-fought conlict, a space-war that is still raging in several dimension. Which is about where you come in, as the pilot of a Gemini Wing fighter. Pausing only to shout the battle cry of the crack GW regiment you beling to - "Die Mutant Alien Scum" - yoiu leap into the control seat of your craft, warp to a vertically-scrolling etherworld and start fighting the good fight... Killing Mutant Alien Scum ------------------------- Simple really - as the Gemini Wing pilot training manual says, it's just like playing an arcade game. Press the fire button and deal out laser death. But there's more. A strange paradox in the fabric of reality causes additional weapon systems in yur fighter to materialise when you blast certain aliens. Small clawed creatures cause a single gunball to materialise when they turn up their claws and cough their last, while porky fat clawed aliens - known as 'Bringers' - can yield as many as eight gunballs in their death warps. "Collect up gunballs whenever possible and then use them by pressing and holding fire to help you do the job of dealing death to the mutant alien scum" is what it says in the Gemini Wing pilot training manual, and the guy who wrote it got it right. (There is a third, undocumented method of acquiring gunballs that he doesn't mention, but that involves stealing them from a colleague on a two-man mission and is far too underhand to mention here.) A Gumby's Guide to Gunballs --------------------------- All you need now is a run-down on what those gunball jobbies do for you, and it's off into space for a spot of killing. So here's an extract form the Gemini Wing pilot training manual. Pictures of Gunballs: THREE WAY FIRE BALL A circle with three arrows inside pointing up-left, up, and up-right. 2,000 POINTS A circle with a large '2' in the centre. 5,000 POINTS A circle with a large '5' in the centre. 10,000 POINTS A circle with a large '10' in the centre. ALIEN SEEKING MISSILES A circle with a picture of a rocket inside it. FIRE WALL A circle with a four-pointed star in the centre. SPEED-UP A circle with a large letter 'S' in the centre. SPIRALLING CIRCLE OF DEATH A circle with a four-pointed spiral in the centre. WINDSCREEN WIPER OF DEATH A circle with an indescribable blobby mass in the centre. EXTRA LIFE A heart-shape with a large letter 'E' in the centre. The above weapons (gunballs) are picked up in three ways: first is by shooting a small, relatively harmless, clawed alien. These carry one extra weapon and so should always be shot. These take only one hit to destroy. Second is by shooting what is known as a 'Bringer'. This is a larger clawed alien which usually carries approx. eight gunballs, and shooting it causes the gunballs to cycle through the different weapons. The third method of collecting gunballs causes the most interplayer hatred ever seen in arcade games. This is the ability to steal the other player's gunball tail, thus depriving him of his extra weapons. Tail stealing can only take place if the victim has more than three gunballs. LOADING ------- Hold down SHIFT key and press RUN/STOP. Press PLAY on tape. Program will load and run. CONTROLS: 1 player, Joystick in port 2 KEYBOARD: Up = Q LEFT = O RIGHT = P DOWN = A Press Space Bar to shoot. Hold down Space Bar to fire gunball. G aborts game. H pauses game. © TECMO 1988 ® 1989 Virgin Games Ltd Produced by THE SALES CURVE LTD for VIRGIN GAMES LTD. Coding by IMAGITEC DESIGN. Pack and Tronix logo design by definition. 1991 Virgin Games Ltd, 338a Ladbroke Grove, London W10 5AH.