Copyright 1997-98 David Wareing & Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Visit us on the World Wide Web for the latest news, updates and add-ons: <www.MarsRising.com>
WELCOME TO MARS!
The year is 2084. Resentful of Earth's economic dominance and the mother planet's refusal to permit an autonomous government, Mars Colony (a wholly owned subsidary of Terran Assets Corp -- a Microsoft company) has unilaterally declared independence. A nationalistic, war-mongering General has siezed control with the help of unknown forces and her first act was to sever communications with the home world. Shortly thereafter, Terran military assets on Mars and in Martian space were attacked in a devastating and overwhelming surprise attack. All but Deimos have been lost.
Despite the magnitude of the loss and bewilderment as to how the Martian Defence Force (MDF) could have seized control of the planet so easily, Terran Command has ordered a stategic retaliatory action against key Martian facilities. (Note: this is an action, not a bloody fight to the death with lots of civilian casualties -- that wouldn't look too good on CNN, would it!). You are to strike from Deimos using prototype Vac-Fighters. These advanced craft are the cutting edge of Peace Enforcement and feature a wide array of weaponry, counter measures and all the other sexy things that people who buy guns desire. The Vac-Fighter is also equipped with the new Wave Motion Gun for attack on heavily defended targets (or lightly defended targets if you feel overzealous and there are no witnesses.)
ELINT reports indicate that the Olympus Mons Air Base is being used by the MDF as a staging area for a second attack on Deimos. Conduct a low level flight over the base and nullify any Martian military assets. All Martian ground and air units are to be considered hostile. Your Vac-Fighters are equpped with upgradeable rapid deployment in-flight weapons systems (i.e. bombs and other things that go bang.) Bombs are available for air-to-ground attack and the latest in matter cannon for aerial engagements. Reinforcements and weapon replenishment upgrades will be made available throughout your missions
If you succeed in this task, you'll have saved many lives, restored democracy to the Red Planet, and secured yourself a Senate ticket.
ABOUT MARS RISING
Mars Rising is a vertically scrolling arcade game for Power Macintosh computers, featuring 28 levels of joystick-thrashing action. Pilot your squadron of VacFighters¬ in solo missions above the Red Planet, or team up with another pilot and compete against each other for fun, glory and fabulous prizes. Power up your VacFighters with inflight wepoons upgrade modules, and unleash some destruction on the war mongering Martian regime!
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Ñ PowerPC processor. We recommend at least a 80mHz 601, or a 100mHz 603 processor.
Ñ 7500K free memory. We strongly recommend that you don't run Virtual Memory or RAM Doubler in low memory situations.
Ñ 640x480 screen or larger, supporting 256 colours/grays or more.
Ñ MacOS 7.5.5 or later.
Ñ Sound Manager 3.1 or later.
Ñ Due to the nature of the game, we highly recommend using joysticks or gamepads, especially in 2 player games. However, if you don't use such devices, you may still use the keyboard.
GETTING STARTED
Upon startup, the game will load and present you with a menu screen. You can use the menubar by moving the cursor to the top of the screen. To see a demo, wait for 10 seconds (without moving the cursor) or press the 'd' key.
CONTROLS
To set the controls for each player, press the 'p' key to enter the preferences.
Start a new game: click on either the 1 Player or 2 Player buttons, or press "1" or "2" respectively. Note: to reduce the time between games, you can also press "n" during the highscores screen to start a new game without going back to the main menu.
Your VacFighter is equipped with 2 main types of weapons:
Bombs: these are "dumb" free falling bombs that rain destruction on enemy ground forces.
Cannon: upgradeable air-to-air weaponry for use against all airborne enemies. Hold down the fire key to power up the Wave Motion Gun. When the Wave Motion Gun is fully charged, release the fire button to unleash a firestorm on your foes.
OTHER CONTROLS
Pause: CAPS LOCK key. Press it again to resume the game. (While paused, move the mouse to the top of the screen to show the menubar.)
Abort: Escape key.
Demo: press 'd' at the main menu screen or select "Play Last Film" from the File menu.
Snapshot: press the F13 "print screen" function key to capture a screenshot.
F3: (during a game only). Decreases the sound volume.
F4: (during a game only). Increases the sound volume.
SPEED?
Mars Rising is a fairly demanding game, speed wise. Hopefully, the game will always run at 30 frames per second (FPS) on your machine. However, on slower machines it may slow down somewhat. If this happens regularly, try the following tactics in the following order:
Ñ Quit any active applications before launching Mars Rising. In particular, ensure that you don't have any cpu-hungry applications or extensions running, such as network connections.
Ñ Turn off Virtual Memory if you have it on (this includes RAM Doubler) and restart,
Ñ Restart with all non-essential Extensions turned off (except for Sound Manager 3.1 or greater).
In the Preferences window:
Ñ Turn off "Real time shadows".
Ñ Turn off "Translucency".
Ñ Reduce the music quality. Mars Rising supports 3 types of music:
Ñ CD "Redbook Audio". FASTEST (no CPU time is required), and uses no memory. Pop your favourite CD in the drive and bop out.
Ñ MOD music (Amiga music module format and derivatives). Reasonably fast but quality varies enormously between MODs. Many MODs require a large amount of memory. If speed is a problem, then reduce the quality of the MOD music to 8bit 11khz Mono with no filtering, or play from your favourite CD instead.
Ñ None. The option of last resort. Guaranteed to use no memory or CPU time! :-)
Ñ N.B. If you have a fairly recent PowerMac (7200/7500 series onwards), then make sure you have Apple's "Graphics Acceleration" extension in your Extensions folder if this extension was shipped with your machine. This will allow the OS to use any hardware acceleration available in your machine (and will probably speed up Mars Rising by about 30% on low-end machines).
MULTIPLE RESOLUTION MONITORS
If you have a screen which supports multiple resolutions, Mars Rising will give you the option of resizing your screen to 640x480 for the best gaming experience. If you don't want your screen resized, hold down the option key when you open Mars Rising. You can turn the resizing off permanently in the Preferences once Mars Rising is open. A file called "Display Library" is supplied with Mars Rising. This should be placed in your Extensions folder (inside the System folder). Note that Mars Rising should automatically restore your desktop icons after the screen is resized, but due to bugs in Apple's system software, this is not guaranteed on all machines. If this is a problem for you, turn the option off.
HIGH SCORES
To reset the high scores table to the factory defaults, hold down the Option key while clicking on the High Scores image at the options screen. Try clicking other things with the Option key too for fun and prizes!
COMPATIBILITY/KNOWN PROBLEMS
Ñ If Mars Rising fails to run properly or crashes on your machine, try restarting with Virtual Memory (this includes products such as RAM Doubler) turned off.
Ñ If Mars Rising unexpectedly quits, ensure that you have no other applications running, and increase Mars Rising's memory allocation (through the application's Get Info window). Ensure that you have enough real RAM to play the game.
Ñ Due to the limitations of keyboard hardware, the game may not handle properly at times, especially in 2 player games when using the keyboard for player control. If a joystick or gamepad is unavailable, or you prefer not to use one, then try to assign as many of your control keys to "modifier" keys such as Control, Option and Command. Using other keys may resulting in the game controls "sticking".
