DRAFT 1.0 Oct. 15, 1996 ATTENTION: Some of the functionality described in this manual is not yet implemented such as the installation, refer to the READ.ME file for game installation. REX BLADE Created by Xtreme Games LLC under License of Simon & Schuster Interactive all Right Reserved. Table of Contents I. Briefing II. Installation III. Setting up Rex Blade IV. Running Rex Blade V. Using the Control Panel VI. Game Objectives VII. Controlling Rex Blade VIII. Rex Blade's Features IX. Playing Rex Blade X. Using the Virtual Computers Rex++ - readme.file XI. Completing a Level- readme.file XII. Completing a World-readme.file XIII. The Cyborgs and the Worlds XIV. Rex's Arsenal XV. Objects and Wetware XVI. Trouble Shooting XVII. Credits Briefing It's sometime in the late 35th century. Mankind has reached a level of technology that is almost unreal. The first Cyborgs were created in the early 21st century. By 2178, the Constitution was amended and laws were created to help protect the artificial and synthetic lifeforms that then inhabited Earth. However, the level of technology increased, so did the tension between the humans and the machines. Even though, the machines and Cyborgs were the creations of mortal men, in most cases these beings were far superior to their human counterparts. Most people were still mostly human, with perhaps a simple memory augmentation or physical enhancement such as artificial eyes. But in most cases the average person simply couldn't afford to be cybernetically enhanced. This was another factor that was slowly eroding the peace between humans and the machines. Finally after nearly 1000 years in the late 30th century in a small outpost it all began. A small extremist left wing radical group of "pure" humans using military weapons simply went out into the streets and started mowing down anything with cybernetic enhancement. It was a real blood bath. Then the MILP (Military Police) hit the scene. The police and the small faction battled it out for about 6 hours. Finally, the MILP sent in a small neutron implosion device and killed the humans instantly. Needless to say there was a moment of silence and the people of the large city fixated upon their video monitors realized that the machines that they had once enslaved had really enslaved them. Within moments all over the map similar incidents started occurring and the war ensued. The battle raged on for many years. But, even with their superior intellect, speed, and strength the machines couldn't beat the humans. The humans won in the end. Maybe it was their passion, maybe it was their heart, maybe it was a single warrior named REX BLADE but the Cyborgs and total synthetics were all finally stopped. And mankind had taken back the planet on which it had slowly lost it's grip. The High Council decided that a mass extermination of over 500,000,000 lifeforms was ethically barbaric since we had been the ones that had given them life. It was thus decided that the machines would be sent to another world far from Earth. Using a new and experimental Transdimensional Teleportation technology that allowed not only the Time-Space continuum to be bent, but the Hyperdimensional Fabric itself to be warped, the machines were at once teleported nearly 2 galaxies away to a Binary star system with a number of M- Class worlds that could sustain the organics of the Cyborgs. After the "Exodus," the population of Earth changed and became united for the first time in history. War, poverty and most problems were eradicated. The Earth Federation was one of the most powerful in the galaxy, but was powerful not because of its military, but because of its wisdom. It was truly a good time for humanity. Today at exactly 1400 hours in the year 3597 a Transdimensional Pulse was detected. The EM spectrum analysis confirmed that the signature is identical to the original prototype of 500 years ago. The only possible explanation is that the Cyborgs have constructed a TD teleporter and are probing to find Earth. We must assume that they are preparing for a military advance against their home world. However, due to downsizing, our military is 1/10 of what it was 500 years ago. Even though our technology is considerably superior to the days of the "War," we haven't used the technology to create weapons. The High Council feels that we are in danger and must take action. REX BLADE was the most violent creature of war ever created by man. He fought for the humans, but was feared by all. Designed in old Silicon City as an experimental prototype, he was never meant to see action. Instead, he was to be used to test out new theories and the results were to be used to improve the other Cyborg designs. In any case, when the "Great War" broke out it was REX BLADE that literally decimated the Cyborgs. And now he is going to do it again. REX BLADE's mission: 1. Teleport to the Cyborg star system. 2. Nullify all lifeforms. 3. Destroy the teleporter. System Requirements Pentium 75 (but a 100 is recommended) 16 mb of RAM 15 meg free hard disk space Optional: a sound blaster (for sound) VGA graphics Optional: Joysticks are supported Installation: REX BLADE is completely uncompressed, so installation is as easy as copying the files to your hard drive and running the setup. To Install using Windows 95: Insert the REX BLADE CD ROM into your CD ROM drive. Once the computer has acknowledged the disk then navigate into the CD ROM and double click the CD ROM icon. When the CD ROM window opens up you should see the main REXBLADE directory along with the installation program named INSTALL.EXE. Simply double click INSTALL.EXE and follow the installation menus. REXBLADE will be installed on your hard drive. OR, Insert the REX BLADE CD ROM into your CD ROM drive. Once the computer has acknowledged the disk then click the Windows 95 START menu icon and then select the RUN menu item. Once the RUN menu dialog appears, click the BROWSE button and navigate into the CD ROM that the REX BLADE CD is loaded into. Then the program INSTALL.EXE should appear. Then simply click the OK button and the installation program will be launched. Follow the menus and install REX BLADE. To Install Using DOS: Insert the REX BLADE CD ROM into your CD ROM drive. Once the computer has acknowledged the disk then navigate into the CD ROM by changing drives. For example, if your CD ROM drive is drive F: then you would type at the DOS command prompt: C:\> F: press "ENTER" F:\> Launch the installation program by typing INSTALL.EXE F:\> INSTALL.EXE "ENTER" then press "ENTER" The installation program will start and the menus will guide you through the installation. Setting Up REX BLADE The only setup that is necessary for REX BLADE is the sound system. REX BLADE uses the Miles Sound System from RAD Software, so virtually every sound card on Earth (and some other planets) are supported. To start the sound setup program you must be in DOS, so if you are DOS then read on, but if you are in Windows 95 then open the MS-DOS program from the Programs Menu. Once you have a DOS command prompt then navigate into the directory that you installed REX BLADE into. For example, if you installed REX BLADE into C:\REXBLADE then you would do the following from the root: C:\>CD REXBLADE and then press "ENTER" C:\REXBLADE\>SETSOUND.EXE and press "ENTER" The Miles Sound System installation program will be launched, simply follow the menus and select both Digital and MIDI devices. If you do not have either then simply enter NONE for the selections. When you are satisfied will your selections then exit the installation program and SETSOUND.EXE will write the necessary files to your disk. Note: the music for REX BLADE was sequenced with both FM Synthesis and Wave Table Synthesis in mind, however, the Wave Table versions sound better! TO RUN REX BLADE: See readme.file REX BLADE can be ran from either a Virtual DOS under Windows 95 or from pure DOS. Using the Control Panel The control panel is the main interface to the game. At any time during the game you can access it by pressing the key. Once you have the menu up, you can start a new game, load or save a game or change the game play options such as the sound volume or the difficulty level. To return to the game from the control panel simply press ESC again and you will be placed where you left the game. Menu Options NEW GAME LOAD GAME SAVE GAME OPTIONS QUIT Game Objectives Your objectives are two fold. Your prime directive is to kill everything and we know that you don't have a problem with that. However, your secondary directive is to learn as much about the Cyborgs and their evolution as possible. This can be done by accessing various computer terminals located around the complexes on each world and hacking into the terminals system software. This will take a bit of brains, but your 2000 I.Q. and 500 Tera Quads or RAM should suffice. Learn the Cyborg's science, history, and mathematics -- it might be useful to us and to you. This can be done by accessing their educational software and information logs. Once you have turned each of the inhabitants of a level into a burnt bloody pile of flesh and metal then try to find the way out. You might be able to teleport with one of the terminals to the next level or you might be able to find an Automatic Teleportation Zone. Your guess is as good as ours. But just make sure to complete all levels of each world. When you have done this you will win the game. Controlling REX BLADE REX BLADE has a fairly simple control interface augmented by multiple Heads Up Displays that show various game and tactical information. The basic controls are: - Display Control Panel - Rotate Left - Rotate Right - Move Forward. - Move Backward. - Enable Strafing. - Inspect/Use Object. - Fire Weapon. - Jump Up. - Crouch Down. - Select Previous Weapon in Arsenal. - Select Next Weapon in Arsenal. - Toggle System HUD. - Toggle Bio-Stats HUD. - Toggle WETWARE HUD. - Toggle Weapon Display HUD. - Toggle Ammunition stores HUD. - Toggle all HUDS. - Scroll Down on WETWARE Menu HUD. - Scroll Up on WETWARE Menu HUD. - Toggle current WETWARE item On/Off. Of course as REX obtains more WETWARE items there will be other keys that control various added features, but you will have to figure them out for yourself. REX BLADE'S Features As REX BLADE you have all the latest technology. You can carry about 10 tons, run like the wind, jump higher than Spud and you pack enough fire power to blow up a small city. However, the price of all this cool stuff is a lot of hardware and software that must be taken care of. There are 4 different areas that you need to keep an eye on and keep up to date and find replacement and repair parts for. They are: The Main On-Board Computer and Electrical Systems. The Organics System and Exo Skeleton. The Ammo Stores. The Wetware Interface. Your on-board computer has a certain amount of CPU power and RAM Memory. You can increase these by finding RAM and CPU modules lying around in the worlds. Also, REX uses a lot of power, so make sure to pick up any power modules you find while exploring. CPU power and memory will help you better understand and use the computer terminals found around the Cyborgs worlds. You are both man and machine, so you need to keep up your organics. This is done by ingesting a NANITE GEL that regenerates your organics. Once the gel is used up then your organic systems will sustain damage and not automatically repair themselves. NANITE BIO-GEL can be found lying around the worlds, just bump into it and you will ingest it. The Cyborgs and other evil enemies are packing a lot of fire power and when you are hit, you're hit hard, so you have been fitted with a Shape Memory Metal Armor Exo-Skelaton. This Exo-Skelaton is your protection from both mass-based projectiles and energy-based weapons such as lasers and plasma pulses. As long as you have more that 1 ml of ARMOR REGENERATION GEL you can sustain anything, but the second you run out you are definitely going to feel it! ARMOR REGEN GEL like everything else can be found in the world at various places. Just bump into it and it will be interfaced. The next area of interest is your AMMO Stores. You can use, fire, and wield just about any weapon in existence since your reflexes are lightening fast and your BIO-Interfaces can connect to any kind of hardware. But you can only hold so much AMMO. Your AMMO Stores hold APRS (Armor Piercing Re-configurable Shells) for your standard mass weapons, Plasma for your plasma weapons, mortars for your mortar launcher, and re-configurable rockets for any kind of rocket, missile or mass projectile launcher. If you see anything that looks like AMMO pick it up! The final system that you need to concern yourself with is the WETWARE interface. This is an engineering feat to say the least. The WETWARE interface will allow you to pick up objects on the world and use them as if they has been designed from Earth. This is accomplished by a Neural Nanite Interconnection Matrix that interfaces to the device and figures out the Transfer Functions for the device. Anyway, if you see something floating or on the ground, try and pick it up and interface to it. If your are successful then you should be able to access it in your WETWARE menu and toggle it on and off by selecting the WETWARE and pressing ENTER. Playing REX BLADE Simply navigate REX around and destroy all of the Cyborgs. The environments are full of objects, keys, ammo, alien weapons, old computer parts, etc. You should try to collect as many objects as possible since your BIO-Organic META interface can probably use just about anything you find. Also, we believe that the Cyborgs use DNA sequences in a lot of their technology. We think that many of the locking systems and computer systems may have DNA-encoded locks, so if you see anything that looks like a key, pick it up -- you might need it to open a door. Using the Virtual Computers Virtual Computer terminals are located around the Cyborg installations and are all linked into their central computer core, so theoretically you should be able to do a lot with them once you figure them out. We assume that the standard tricks such as locks, passwords etc. will stand between you and the internal programs, but you shouldn't have too much trouble getting things to work. We have calculated that there should be log files, library files and Rex++ on these computer terminals among other things. To use the computer terminals get close and click on the space bar, type in: "dir" to get a directory of available programs. To use the Rex++ program see the readme.file. Completing a Level: see readme.file Completing a World: see readme.file REX's Arsenal You can hold many weapons, but we can only put one on you during teleport, so we will be giving you only a "State of the Art" Tech-Flesh-Shredder. We will try to teleport a few weapons to your coordinates, but this kind of teleportation is only accurate within about 2 kilometers, so you might be looking around for your other weapons. Sorry for sending you in with so little on-board. To pick up a weapon simply bump into it. To change weapons, move through the weapons list via the and keys. If you run out of ammo for a particular weapon type then be sure to switch weapons or find some more ammo. Objects and WETWARE The final discussion we need to have concerns your new experimental WETWARE interface. You can think of it as a Universal Hardware Translator. If you see something that looks useful then pick it up. If it interfaces into your WETWARE then you will be able to use it. We are sending you with a INFOCOMPASS. This Infocompass will indicate your current position, trajectory and messages from central computer will be displayed on it. We have also teleported a targeting computer and hand scanner into the area, so look for them. To acquire one of the wetware items, press the ";:" key select your wetware and press "ENTER." Trouble Shooting REX BLADE REX BLADE is a 32 Bit DOS Protected Mode game. It functions using Standard VGA graphics. It doesn't need any extra software or hardware to run other than the computer and a sound card. If you find that REX BLADE doesn't operate correctly in DOS, then try to remove all TSR's and make sure that you don't have any memory managers on. If REX BLADE has trouble in Windows 95, then try running it in pure DOS. If your sound doesn't work, you may have selected the wrong sound card during installation. Make sure that the card you select for Digital Sound and MIDI is correct. Simon & Schuster Interactive Team VP/Creative Director Jeff Siegel Producer Amanda Thornton Director of Marketing Amy Nobles Marketing Manager Melissa Helmke-Alcruz Publicity Coordinator Marni Friedman Marketing Coordinator Cathrine Wayland The XTREME GAMES TEAM 3D Engine and Game Design..........Andre' LaMothe Level Editor Tool..................Richard Benson 2D Games and Virtual Computers.....Jarrod Davis 3D Modeling........................Mark Bell & AAron Sheridan Level Design.......................AAron Sheridan & Mark Bell Virtual Libraries..................Joel Slatis 2D Artwork.........................Robin Parkinson Additional Artwork.................Long Vo Music and Composition..............Dean Hudson Voice Talent.......................Ted Tatman Musical Patch Libraries............The "FAT MAN"