The Collection Chamber: MORTAL COIL: ADRENALINE INTELLIGENCE

Lead your team to defend planet Earth from alien attack using brains as well as brawn. At last - an action packed shoot-em-up that allows real-time strategy in a free-roaming environment. Players have been crying out for a game in which success relies as much on their ability to make tactical decisions as it does on their gun-toting prowess. Mortal Coil delivers.

Key to this VIBE (Virtual Intelligence Behavioural Environment). Unlike many games, your opponents don't simple charge in your line of fire. Players face an alien opposition that respond to their moves with intelligence and with varying patterns of behaviour. It's a battle of wits.

At any time, players can jump between characters to gain and swap weapons or complete tasks. In addition, player characters can elect team members to perform other operations. Waypoint settings send team members on fighting missions whilst you are locked in combat and real-time multi-tasking allows team members not in player control to act intelligently.

The fast free-roaming 3D engine offers third person viewpoint and first person perspective and a four-way split-screen facility allows comprehensive monitoring.

VIBE offers a level of sophistication and a depth of gameplay unparalleled in this genre.. It allows total control and an unpredictable enemy previously unique to network play.

Summary of VIBE
Free-roaming first person perspective environment.
External or roving player-cam for third person viewpoint.
Multiple character control.
Non player character behavioural characteristics (exploration modes).
Variable enemy attack patterns and hierarchy.
Team member intelligent risk assessment and reaction.
Multiple destination waypoint settings.
Team member command system (formations, proximity, groupings).
Local area network support.
Multi-level resource manager.
Featuring the voices of: Dani Behr, Ed Bishop, Brian Bowles, Fiona Allen and Charles Hutchinson.

~ from the back of the UK box

What's the earliest squad-based tactical shooter you can think of? Most would confidently pick Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six from 1998, but not me. Three years prior (or thereabouts) I remember playing Mortal Coil: Adrenaline Intelligence, a sci-fi tinged attempt at implementing squad-based artificial intelligence into a first (or third) person shooter developed by Crush! Software, produced by Vic Tokai and published by Virgin Interactive.

More than the unique gaming mechanics, what stood out to me more at the time was the voice cast (and the risqué yet overly long opening sequence). Our lead heroine, a British operative named Candy, is voiced by Dani Behr. I doubt many non-Brits who were alive in the 90s remember her, but she was a mainstay on the covers of FHM magazine as well as earning hosting duties for hyper-chaotic Channel 4 TV shows like The Word or Big Breakfast where horny Gen-Xers would perv over her during their morning coffee. The lengthy shower scene featuring her CGI avatar which kicks off Mortal Coil does nothing to change this image, though her current career as a Hollywood estate agent might.

Meet your team, voiced by minor named talent. That little robot guy will offer hints if you stand still too long (left).
The mission briefings do prattle on without saying much, just like the cutscenes which can go on for 20 minutes! (right).

After a not particularly brief mission briefing, you begin the first mission in a swampy jungle initially flanked by one ally named Dan (a "sensitive" American) and a droid called BB. Eventually, two more fighters will drop in; the "courageous" Jamaican Dred and the "opinionated" German Peech. You can take control of any of the human characters at any time, but the bot is different. While it can assist in firepower, it's main function is to record mission data to report back to HQ. In other words, it just gets in the way.

My first time playing, I kept all my allies close thinking their firepower would help with the hoard of alien enemies scattered around the jungle clearing. In actuality, they just got in the way and wouldn't stop yapping about taking friendly fire. So, I let them do all the shooting, but when confronted with an alien respawning pod, they just wasted bullets taking out the infinite bodies instead of destroying where they came from. In the second level, it's even worse. This stage has each of us drive a jeep with a rocket launcher strapped to the top. Do not shoot. I repeat: DO NOT SHOOT! The resulting explosion will likely take you and everyone around you out and the god-awful driving controls will not provide adequate manoeuvrability to get out of the way. After many attempts, I found my go-to tactic; let them loose!

If you free your team from your shackles, their artificial intelligence shines, as dim a light as it may be. They will run off in different directions taking out most minor enemies along the way. They are so good, you can leave them to their own devices safe in the knowledge that they won't kill themselves doing something stupid (but they will walk into walls and get stuck on scenery). Whenever I got the urge, I would look at what they're doing by pressing "W" to get a four-way split-screen where I can voyeuristically spy on what they're doing. More often than not they were way ahead of me so I just took control of them and carried on. With the exception of those goddamn vehicle sections, playing like this actually makes an otherwise erratic and poorly judged shooter actually kinda fun.

Keycards will open locked doors, though there's no hint as to which one (left).
Use your Wayfinder to set Waypoints for each character, directing them where you want them to go (right).

Another aspect that needs tweaking to play better is the camera. By default it is set to the third-person which puts your pixelated character in the exact spot to obscure your view, but tapping "6" will cycle through the three viewpoints. First-person is the best, and I rarely veered away from this but should you want a bit of sweeping cinematography that looks cool but plays naff, set it to roaming. Unfortunately, none of these options are particularly good when driving the car. No matter the view, you cannot see the ground clearly enough to devastating land mines but even if you do the controls are so janky that you'll likely drive over them anyway. This is the absolute worst level of any shooter I've played for both of these reasons, and I just about got through it by ignoring all dangers, spamming my limited health packs and driving through the maze in search of the end.

If you do die, your character will bee encased in a puffy yet strangely phallic body suit and remain like that throughout while the rest of the team complete the mission. The idea behind this is to protect the wounded body until help arrives before you begin the next stage so you don't question why they've magically reappeared. Other than being a man down, the only downside will be your end-of-mission ranking. And in the early game at least, it will be. Later levels have been deviously designed to force you into switching characters. An enticing key card will trap you (and hopefully just you) in the room where you found it forcing you to take control of another character to activate a switch elsewhere - potentially miles away in the rather large levels. Eventually, you'll have to get to grips with the Wayfinding mechanic you've been ignoring to force a team member to hover by a locked door that only opens via a timed switch on the other side of the map. You can even alter their behaviour between aggressive (fight) and defensive (avoid), kleptomaniac (collect) and minimalist (leave), or curious (investigate) and oblivious (ignore). Setting them to investigate can be good as they will push any button they come across like an ADHD child in front of an inviting giant red buttons. Thankfully, there's few that say "DO NOT PRESS" in big, bold letters.

When you die, you will be encased in a dubiously phallic body bag (left).
Control moves to the next character, who can visit your remains whenever they like (right).

So far, I've been describing something of a mild hidden gem but the generally unkind reviews it got at the time hint at a massive "but" in my recommendation. And that "but" is jank. Worse than that; glitches. The kind of glitches you can't quite come back from. My first came when I wanted to jump. Originally assigned to the Alt key and re-mapped to F by me, the button just didn't do what it proposed to. For some reason beyond my understanding, combining F with H (whether or not is was given the default task of lowering the gamma) will make you soar in the air like a gazelle - a fix that isn't documented anywhere by official means. I only stumbled across it while looking at a Let's Play on YouTube (thanks UnknDoomer). Save issues and a Radiation Suit item glitch is fixed with a patch (can't tell if it's an official one or not) but not everything has a workaround. Towards the end of the second area on the second mission, an barrier won't lower when you interact with it soft locking you into an unwinnable situation. I've read that a combination of G (raise gamma) and H (lower gamma) will trigger the event, but in my testing I could not replicate it. Normally, I would've abandoned the game and chosen an alternative to fill this slot, but I spent so long figuring it out that I've run out of time to work on another game.

Even so, the couple of hours getting through one and a half missions out of seven (that's seven levels or "areas" played) is enough to get a good enough idea on the game as a whole. Despite my initial misgivings and an incomprehensibly bad second area, I actually enjoyed most of what was here once I got used to the jank. It helped that I remapped the many keys to a joypad which is a more comfortable way to play for a more discerning modern gamer but due to the unresolved glitches, I cannot recommend this as anything more than a curio. Once they've been figured out, I'd say Mortal Coil: Adrenaline Intelligence is well worth a play before you shuffle off a mortal coil of your own.

*UPDATE*

Since writing this review, I managed to get the barrier glitch working, though it's still a little spotty. If you find you're having trouble at that moment, load up the "M2-A2-FX" game save (Ctrl-L to load game) to take you to a few seconds after the problem moment. I've now played over half of the game and can confidently give it a minor hidden gem status.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox to bring the game to modern systems. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 256 Mb. Install Size: 639 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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