Zarlor Mercenary Game System: Atari Lynx Cheat Category: Hint Game Company: Unknown Game Category: Unknown Hint, Cheat, Walkthrough:   Zarlor Mercenary ================ Full Power-Ups: --------------- To get a fully powered up ship try the following trick: At the beginning of the game select XQ49. On the third level, second boss, let him kill you once and then finish the level. At the shop buy one of these items: power shot, side shooters, back shooters, auto fire, super sheilds, or lasers. You'll have everything maxed out except mega bombs and lives, but you can use the rest of your Zarbits on 'em. Hints: ------ I usually use Landru, altho the guy with the wing shots is pretty good too. I've been able to get up to the last level, unsure of how close to the end I was. Level 1 is pretty simple, once you get the flight patterns of the ships down & know to "orbit" the final ship. Having the laser makes this a lot easier. Level 2 is a bitch, and I almost always end up losing a ship there. The trick seems to be to just carve out a path and ignore everything else. The biggest problems I have seems to be with the ramming ships; they take a lot of punishment, and can take you out from full if they haven't been damaged before they hit you. Make sure you get the super shield on that level; its a lot easier to survive if you can regenerate damage. The boss at the end: keep moving so the targeting lasers can't get a beed on you. Aside from that, just avoid the barrage the center section lets out. Level 3's biggest problem is the "trains" that come speeding down from the top, that will wipe you out if you're not careful. They come in groups of three, but you have safety at the side of the screen, so you can always hang out there when they come. The three submerged saucers at the end are tough; stay out of the way of the lasers they throw. Otherwise, just use side weapons whenever you can on it. I've experimented using the laser for zapping the saucers from range, but with limited success (the laser needs a real air target, I think, and the saucers are still partially submerged). The life packs between the saucers are really needed; if you have the super shield, it will regenerate a bit of damage while you're going from one to the next saucer. Level four, the moon, is mostly a dodgefest. For the most part, the ships that show up are _really_ tought to kill, altho you will find lots of stuff that isn't that bad througout the level. Keep firing, tho, cuz it will lessen the damage you take if you collide with one. You get a lot of smart bombs this level; I try to save them till the end, when I'm usually pretty wasted, or till when I just get surrounded by the heavy green-pod firing ships. The boss at the end I end up using smart bombs on. The satellites that circle around the ship aren't too bad once you've zapped them a few times. Level five, the tundra area, isn't too bad, except for convoys of ships that stream from the top (kind of like the 3rd level). The two heavy snow tanks at the end I've only been able to get past twice. Try not to let both be on the screen at the same time, or they'll really pound you. I used a few smart bombs on them, but was mostly able to just zap them. Just be carful and don't wander off to far to the side, as the convoys of heavy ships keep streaming down during this last stage. Level six is just plain muzzleflash. All this damage everywhere, its hard to find a space that doesn't have a missle/ship/shot travelling thru it. I think I've gotten close to the end, but I don't know what the boss looks like. The city is pretty cool looking, tho, with the cars far below. ZARLOR MERCENARY / The Game of Life ----------------------------------- ACCESSING LIFE: The game of LIFE is accessed through the character selection screen of Zarlor Mercenary. Turn on your Lynx with the Zarlor Mercenary game card inserted. Press the fire button twice to get to the character selection screen. At this point you must hold down OPTION 1 while moving the joypad as follows: Up, Down, Left, Right, Up. At this point your screen should say LIFE and there will be a LIFEform known as a 'glider' moving across the screen diagonally. It will go off the edge of the screen and return on the bottom, eventually running into the cells forming the word LIFE and causing the chain reaction that destroys the title screen. Before the title screen is destroyed you may try the following controls: 1. Moving the joypad or pressing either OPTION button or PAUSE will stop the current evolution of LIFE. 2. Pressing OPTION 1 to continue the evolution puts LIFE into a mode where cells that reach the edge of the screen wrap around to the other side. 3. Pressing OPTION 2 to continue the evolution puts LIFE into a mode where cells that reach the edge of the screen behave as though they have reached a solid wall. This may be useful if 'gliders' that are launched are disrupting your LIFEforms. 4. Pressing either BUTTON A or BUTTON B puts LIFE into DRAWING MODE. DRAWING MODE: Access DRAWING MODE by pressing BUTTON A or BUTTON B while LIFE is evolving or after the current LIFEform has reached a stable state. You can tell you are in DRAWING MODE because the joypad will be in control of your cursor, a set of green crosshairs. While in DRAWING MODE, your controls behave as follows: 1. Moving the joypad with BUTTON A depressed will allow you to draw. 2. Moving the joypad with BUTTON B depressed will allow you to erase. 3. Pressing OPTION 1 or OPTION 2 will allow your LIFEform to evolve, as described in 2 and 3 in the above ACCESSING LIFE section. 4. Note that the screen cannot be flipped, but attempting to RESTART the game will cause the screen to be cleared, and you will remain in the DRAWING MODE. 5. Pressing PAUSE and BUTTON A will put you in COPY MODE. 6. Pressing PAUSE and BUTTON B will put you in PASTE/ERASE MODE. 7. Pressing OPTION 2 and PAUSE will copy your current screen to a temporary buffer (see below). COPY MODE: Access COPY MODE by holding down PAUSE and pressing BUTTON A while in DRAWING MODE. You can tell you are in COPY MODE because the green crosshairs will be onscreen with the word COPY in green below and slightly to the right of the crosshairs. While in COPY MODE, your controls behave as follows: 1. Pressing either OPTION 1 or 2 will return you to drawing mode. 2. Holding down PAUSE and pressing either OPTION 1 or OPTION 2 will evolve your LIFEform frame-by-frame. Note that the OPTION button used determines whether screen wrap is on or off. 3. Pressing BUTTON A sets one corner coordinate of a box that you can draw. Pressing BUTTON A again sets the other corner coordinate of the box. Anything within the box is now in your COPY BUFFER. You are now in PASTE/ERASE MODE. 4. Holding down PAUSE and pressing BUTTON A takes you to the LIFEform library, a screen full of goodies for you to put into your COPY BUFFER. After selecting a LIFEform or group of LIFEforms, you will be in PASTE/ERASE MODE. 5. In the LIFEform library, pressing PAUSE and BUTTON A again takes you to your temporary buffer (see above). You can cut items from this buffer to the main screen. 6. Holding down PAUSE and pressing BUTTON B takes you directly to PASTE/ERASE MODE, using whatever was last put in your COPY BUFFER. If you haven't yet selected anything, you may get garbage. PASTE/ERASE MODE: Access PASTE/ERASE MODE either by holding PAUSE and pressing BUTTON B while in DRAWING MODE, or by going to COPY MODE and selecting LIFEforms from your screen or the library screen. You can tell you are in PASTE/ERASE MODE because your joypad now controls whatever you have in your COPY BUFFER. While in PASTE/ERASE MODE, your controls behave as follows: 1. Pressing either OPTION 1 or OPTION 2 will return you to DRAWING MODE. 2. Pressing BUTTON A will allow you to paste your COPY BUFFER. 3. Pressing BUTTON B will allow you to erase using your COPY BUFFER. 4. Holding PAUSE and pressing BUTTON B will flip your COPY BUFFER any one of eight possible ways. 5. Note that the screen cannot be flipped, but attempting to RESTART the game will cause the screen to be cleared, and you will remain in the PASTE/ERASE MODE. 6. Pressing PAUSE and BUTTON A will put you in COPY MODE.