Multiplayer RPGs released before the Internet came along are rare treasures. While they're often limited in some manner, they more than make up for it with the joy of not being alone in front of the computer.

Hired Guns is such a game, one that aims for those aspects of gaming: the companionship of friends and teamwork. This real-time dungeon crawler allows up to four players to squeeze in front of a single computer to control a band of mercenaries on a top-secret mission.

The game pays for its multiplayer focus by being a very “lite” RPG. There is no character creation process: players pick their merc(s) from the pool of 12 available characters, and besides included gear, three barebones stats and a Human/Droid race factor, there is nothing more to speak of in RPG terms. The XP only serves as a high score counter, nothing more.

What helps give each character an identity is their gear. The medic carries health kits and a stun gun, the combat droid lugs a mini-gun about and the mystery woman packs a plethora of psi-amps, the game's version of magic spells. These limited-use items do things like act as weapons, build bridges, teleport players and generally affect the terrain in various ways, and are often essential to completing each stage.

There are three game modes on offer: practice stages, single missions and the long story campaign. Gameplay in each one boils down to finding keys, killing baddies, solving environmental puzzles and reaching the exit, sometimes under a time limit.

In order to fit in the multiplayer the UI has been streamlined to a bare minimum: each character gets 25% of the screen, with tabs for their first-person view, inventory, stat page and map display. Playing with the mouse is surprisingly intuitive, but not so much with the keyboard and joystick.