MegaRace

The Good
Megarace was one of those early titles that brought multimedia glamour and technological gimmicks to an already tried and true formula, mainly that of a 3rd person perspective arcade racer. And guess what? Unlike other games Megarace actually manages to pull it off and the multimedia elements don't detract from the game, in fact they add to it.

The premise of MR is that you participate in a futuristic racing show which, in typical cyperpunk tradition, is violent, completely decadent and filled with satiric humor. Your host is a live action Max Headroom wanna-be by the name of Lance Boyle, who actually manages to deliver his jokes and commentaries in an amusing way that hardly ever gets in you nerves. He is presented in dozens of fmv clips both before and after each race, commenting on the following courses/enemies, giving you some pretty funny (albeit completely useless) prizes and generally appearing in short clips whenever some part of the game is loading. In fact, for every thing you did in the game a small videoclip played to keep the mood up, be it from Lance, the futuristic citiscapes, ads for the show, etc. Theoretically they should become extremely annoying, but they are short enough (and impressive enough) to become bearable, and remember that at the time everyone was really into all this fmv bonanza.

The graphics in the game are extremely impressive, composed entirely of pre-rendered sprites over fmv tracks (kind of like Cyclemania). And as technically impressive as those tracks are, they are even more so from a creative design standpoint. The tracks twist, bend, loop, shoot out into tunnels, huge drops, etc. etc. The cars may all look like the same one, but the tracks sure are amazing.

An element that also deserves praise is the absolutely AMAZING techno soundtrack. True to the game's nature, this element was also given the multimedia wow factor, and the game's music delivers one of the most pounding and entertaining trance/techno soundtracks ever. Suffice to say that most of the time it was the music that kept me going for more in the game, as it keeps you up and about all the time.

The Bad
What didn't I like about the game?? The game!!! Well, to be fair Megarace isn't absolutely terrible, but it's is barely an average racer at best.

The whole point in the game consists of shooting all the rivals until they blow up by gathering weapons and items laid out on the tracks as painted icons. These range from the usual "nitro" boosts to dual lasers, etc. etc. How does the game proceed? You start racing down the track, until you see a baddie up ahead, then you blast it and wait until another baddie pops up ahead, rinse and repeat and hope you get them all before the clock runs out. That's it. Racing game???? Where the heck is the "Race" in MegaRace? This is merely a rail shooter game on wheels, in fact there are no physics modeling in the game at all! Each car handles and moves pretty much equally, and due to the nature of the sprites-over-video backdrop engine, the cars hardly feel like they are racing at all. In fact the whole experience reminded me of an old toy I remember seeing around when I was a kid, a top-down handheld racing game where the track was a looping piece of cloth that served as a scrolling "screen" over which you moved a plastic car sideways giving the illusion that you were "racing". That's how playing MegaRace feels, except the wheels on the cars are rotating and you have a slight perspective change on the sprites as you near the edges of the screen.... whopie-fricking-doo....

The Bottom Line
MegaRace may be a funny diversion due to it's multimedia additions, but make no mistake, MegaRace THE GAME is barely an acceptable piece of entertainment, there's action and it can prove somewhat challenging, but it doesn't hold a candle to any racing/action game out there. Save for the fact that it's a crappy game, MegaRace is filled with lots of entertaining videos and cosmetic enhancements that somehow make up for it's shallow gameplay experience.

Surprising, isn't it? At least I was expecting a GOOD game bogged down by overambitious fmv-itis when I got it.... funny how things turn out.

The Good
As you would expect from the early Cryo releases, this is an absolute visual and audio feast. Amazingly impressive in 1993 and still looking good now. The graphics are lovely and the soundtrack is excellent. The very best thing about Megarace, however, is the host of this futuristic gameshow, Lance Boyle (played to perfection by the highly talented Christian Erickson). He is one of those characters you will either love or hate. Personally? I think he's the best character ever, in any PC game. He is very, very funny, thanks to a great script and Mr. Erickson's enthusiastic delivery. Lines are guaranteed to stay in your head for ages. I can still think of lots of them now ("Magical Maeva didn't have any vicious speed gangs...So we spent quite a lot of money and got one!")

The gameplay in Megarace is fast and furious, definitely adrenaline pumping. The end of each race is always great, because you know there is some more video coming up, another interesting and unique racetrack to visit and maybe even the chance of winning a prize. Prizes in this game are strictly for comedy value (Lance provides the voice-over as a sparkling rendered clip plays: "Covers...for your car seats! Say...I'd go for some of these myself if I didn't already have a boxful..."). Some of the prizes are also distinctly weird in a way that only the French could come up with.

Megarace is a fun game, quite a delicious treat.

The Bad
Well...OK...the gameplay is quite good, but not amazing. You race around pre-rendered tracks that spool off the CD. You have to use the various symbols scattered across the track (speed up, get extra weapons, etc.) and avoid the bad symbols (lose weapons, slow down, skid, etc.). You then have to kill a sequence of gang members, who will appear one after the other in front of you. You can do this either by shooting them or knocking into them until they are destroyed (an onscreen damage meter shows how close they are to death...Some of this is quite reminiscent of ye olde Chase HQ) or by passing them and staying in front for a certain amount of time, after which they auto-destruct. You are strictly racing against the clock, of course, and often races come down to the last few seconds. It can be very tense and frustrating. Eventually, you kill all of the other gang members (although, as Lance Boyle reminds you, no-one actually gets hurt, because it's only 'virtual death') and have to take down the gang leader. If you do that, you win the race and also the gang leader's car. Mmm...nice. (Wait a moment...I was meant to be complaining about things in this part of the review, not describing how the gameplay works. Oops.) Anyway, yes, this gameplay is pretty good. You have to be strategic in your use of the symbols around the track, although its mainly down to memorising the track layout so you'll know what to do when and what to avoid. It's hard to quite put your finger on just what is dodgy about the racing in the game, but it doesn't feel quite right, at times. You will become so proficient with some of the tracks (because you will probably have to repeat them, a lot) that you will end up doing each lap and killing each gang member in the optimum time. Then you'll get up to the gang leader and almost kill him (I say 'him', because I think all the gang leaders are meant to be male) and then the time will run out. Knowing you have raced an optimum race, you will think "What? How can I possibly do this in the time limit?", but your only choice will be to try again. Then one time, you will somehow manage to do it, with about quite a few seconds to spare. It's on to the next race. You are relieved, but not quite sure how you did it. It feels a bit random and strange, at times. Also, the game could be accused of being slightly too easy, and sometimes you'll play one track that takes you many repeats to finish, and the next track, you will blitz through on the first try. But overall, I guess the level of difficulty is about right. Oh yeah - one thing that's not too cool. There are too difficulty settings, but if you play on the first one ('normal', I think), then when you finally finish the last race, there is no ending sequence. You are just told that you have to play again, on the next difficulty setting. This is very disappointing. Of course, I did it, and was completed it on the 'hard' setting, and then there was an ending sequence. Nothing too amazing, though. And here's one more weird thing - When I was a few tracks away from the end of the 'hard' difficult level, the races were indeed becoming very tough. Then I upgraded my double-speed CD-ROM drive (Heh heh...Yes, this is a few years back!) to a quad-speed, and when I next loaded the game, the races were about twice as fast! Initially, I thought the game would be unplayable like this, but in fact, it's what enabled me to rush through the last few races and finish the game! My car shot around, destroying everything in front of it with consumate ease. I felt like a bit of a cheat, but it wasn't my fault, and anyway, I'd already played through the game one and a half times.

The Bottom Line
Megarace is a fun game with great comedic video clips. It has aged a bit, though, and Megarace 2 is a much more advanced game. But I still look back very fondly on this one, and am now eagerly awaiting Megarace 3 (once again starring Christian Erickson...Hooray!)

The Good
The whole concept of the game being a TV show with Lance Boyle, a Max Headroom like announcer popping up all over. The graphics remind me of one of the early laserdisc racing games.

The Bad
Many of the OEM versions shipped without instructions. Sometimes you can race and race and have no idea why you can't pick any of the alternate cars. There are no in game instructions.

The Bottom Line
Interesting racing game. Definitly in a different class.

The Good
I liked the music to this game very much. Stephane Pisq did an excellent job writing the soundtrack to this game. I think that the techno-rock fusion was excellent. Lance Boyle needs some work though. The acting is pretty bad, but his lines describe each track very well. Plus, the idea of a video commentary of each track is cool. The graphics are good, too. I like the fact that this game is a video backdrop game, and that the cars are pre-rendered. The Virtual World thing is awesome, because it's the only place where you can race down the Golden Gate Bridge in the future.

The Bad
1. Lance Boyle's bad acting. 2. When you blow up the car in front of you, the next car just appears out of nowhere further down the track.

The Bottom Line
I would totally recommend this game to anyone. It's just cheesy enough for it to be funny, and just serious enough to really get into it. Unfortunatly, this is an old game, so it is very hard to find. I got a copy of MegaRace off of Ebay, so I would check there first.