Liero

Liero is a computer game for DOS. It was created by the Finnish programmer Joosa Riekkinen in 1998. The game is often described as real-time (not turn-based) version of Worms, or 2D Quake III. It has many weapons and sounds from its precursor MoleZ. 'Liero' is Finnish for earthworm and is pronounced 'lee-eh-roh'.

In Liero two worms fight each other to death for score (or frags) using a choice of five weapons from a total of 40 in a two-dimensional map. Most of the terrain, except for indestructible rocks, may be dug or destroyed by explosions. In addition to the weaponry, each player has a ninja rope which can be used to move faster through the map. This grappling hook-like device substitutes for jetpacks and can even latch onto the enemy worm to drag him closer to his foe. While playing, it is possible to replace one of your five weapons by picking up bonuses. Before playing, you can select certain weapons to be available only in bonuses, in the entire game, or completely disable them. There are also health power-ups to heal your worm.

Unlike most side-scrolling deathmatch games, the weapons in Liero have infinite ammo. Key factors include the reload rate of each weapon and how fast they shoot what, whereas in most others include how much ammo a gun sports and how frequent more ammo for that gun can be found. Liero depends all on timing and swift maneuverability.

The gameplay mode can be deathmatch, Game of Tag or Capture the Flag. It can be played by two human players simultaneously in split screen or in a single player mode against the game's artificial intelligence, although the game's popularity is derived mostly from the fast-paced player vs. player action it provides.

Its last release was version 1.33, released in 1999. However, the author lost the source code and due to the closed source nature of this software no new versions were made since. Despite this, and with the author's approval, the Liero community has been distributing several altered (or hacked) versions of the game through the Internet known as 'mods' or 'total conversions' (TCs). This can be done with tools such as the all-popular LieroKit, or other utilities like LieroM8, the WormHole map editor, LieroCDC, and many others.

Liero is a very versatile game in terms of modification. All of its 40 weapons can be completely replaced with new ones that can be given different images from the original set and custom sound effects. The images of the worms themselves can be transformed into completely different characters. The maps can be given permanent terrain other than rocks. Destroyable terrain can also be colored other than plain dirt. The text of the game can be transformed into different fonts. The AI can be upgraded or downgraded to be harder or easier. Nearly the whole game can be converted into something entirely different, except for the main aspect having to do with slaughtering another player/AI.

The Liero community has grown widely since the comedown of the original Liero, producing many clones of the game for different platforms, incorporating innovative features not present in Riekkinen's game. The three most promising clones are Gusanos, Liero Xtreme and LOSP (Liero OpenSource Project). The Liero community gets most its news from the Liero Community Service, often shorted as ComSer. ComSer provides news to many sites.

However, with the introduction of Microsoft Windows 2000, and later Windows XP, the community shrunk again because Liero can not be run with sound on those operating systems. With the introduction of Windows XP Service pack 2 in August 2004, even fewer people are able to play it, causing the size of the Liero community to shrink even further. A possible solution is to use a DOS emulator for Windows such as DOSBox (http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/), which unfortunately is very slow and does not emulate the sound.

Joosa Riekkinen

Joosa Riekkinen (born 1982) is a Finnish programmer of Liero (1998-1999). Discovered an interest for computers at the age of 10, enjoying various racing games, an interest he still pursues.

External links

Fansites

• D11 Clan (http://www.d11clan.net)
• LieroNet (http://lieronet.cjb.net)
• Liero Hellhole (http://lierohell.tk)
• Liero Forum (http://forums.thegaminguniverse.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=117)
• Liga Liero (http://liero.org.pl) (a polish Liero community)

Clones

• Gusanos (Official website (http://gusanos.sf.net))
• Liero Xtreme (Official website (http://lieroxtreme.thegaminguniverse.com))
• LOSP (http://losp.thegaminguniverse.com) (LOSP is currently being merged with Gusanos)
• Molez (http://www.fractilegames.com/old/index.html#MOLEZ) (As mentioned earlier, Molez is actually the precursor of Liero)
• NiL (Official website (http://nil.sourceforge.net/))

There are many more clones and sequels, most of them are not being developed any more. For a full list, see the Liero Sequels List (http://forums.thegaminguniverse.com/showthread.php?t=8856).de:Liero es:Liero fr:Liero it:Liero nl:Liero pl:Liero pt:Liero fi:Liero sv:Liero