Zarlor Mercenary (1990). Play online

Summary

Zarlor Mercenary blew me away with its frantic top‑down action on the Lynx’s tiny screen. The game treats you like a contractor, giving you a fleet of ships instead of a single life – four in solo, three each in co‑op, and just two when four pilots join via the Comlynx. There are seven mercenary pilots, and each carries a permanent weapon or skill that colors the battle, and every player sports a distinct hue on screen.

Money earned by ripping apart enemy fighters and hulks fuels a post‑mission shop run by the Merchant of Venus, where you can swap out extra ships, speed boosts, wing cannons, super shields, laser or auto‑fire upgrades, and even a mega‑bomb. A mischievous twist lets you buy an invisibility cloak or the ‘backstabber’—a weapon that steals loot and can knockout a teammate.

Peter Engelbrite slipped a hidden Game of Life cellular automaton into the code, a quirky Easter egg for those who look deeper. Critics called it visually crisp but a bit sluggish, noting the steep difficulty; later retrospectives praised its four‑player chaos and the no‑holds‑barred ‘shoot anything that moves’ fun.

Storyline

Zarlor Mercenary drops you into a centuries‑long war between the Mendicant and Zarlor races. Stuck in a stalemate, the Zarlors outsource the fighting, hiring a mercenary to wipe out six strategic sites on the Mendicant homeworld Yorith.

The first assignment sends you to the Cadmar Desert, where a hidden super‑weapon must be located and destroyed. Next, the murky Mesort Swamp hides a secret base, followed by a naval showdown in the icy Docrit Sea against the Mendicant fleet.

Mission four, Sedimor Domes, targets a moon in the sector, while the fifth takes you to the radioactive ice caps of Mardi Koldavia, where the enemy has built nuclear reactors, power plants and weapons factories.

The final strike is on Cedmite City, the planet’s sole metropolis, to clear the area for Zarlor colonisation.

Throughout, you’re a hot‑gun for hire, traveling to exotic, dangerous locales, battling alien foes, earning cash, and buying better weapons to keep the killing spree going.