Megarace: review by Patrick B. Moynihan

Text by Patrick B. Moynihan <senator@halcyon.com>

Introduction:

Well I picked up my copy of MegaRace from Babbage's tonight. Here's what I think of it after playing for a couple hours.

Premise:

You are a guest on a futuristing "game show" of sorts where you pilot a virtual car around virtual tracks kicking virtual ass. Apparently you have to keep your "Thrillometer" high so that the audience doesn't get bored. On each track you must pass or destroy the gang of bad guys, then kill (virtually, of course) the Gang Leader. After you've killed the "boss" you win the race and get to drive his car for the next track.

The game makes a big point of the whole thing being virtual and all. Whatever.

Graphics:

All of the graphics in this game are slick and sexy. They have a very high-tech feel that I like a lot. There is a lot of detail in everything. There is, however, a catch.

In order to have all this detail in the game (including some absolutely beautiful tracks) they had to pre-render EVERYTHING. Yes, I mean *everything*. Absolutely everything in this game is pre-rendered except for your car and the enemy cars, which are superimposed sprites.

The tracks look nice, but as your car moves from left to right the perspective of the track does not change. It can't...it's just FMV. Here's the kicker: the way they simulate your speed is by varying the frame rate. So if you slow down, the frame rate of the FMV track goes down to 4 or 5 fps. When you are going at full speed, however, the track flies along at a nice clip and the animation becomes silky-smooth.

There are some nice video special effects that you see when you run over certain power-up's on the track.

Personally I don't like this technique. It makes for nice eye-candy but really detracts from gameplay.

Sound:

Most of the sound effects are very well recorded and pan from left to right in a realistic manner. They add a lot to the game. Of course for the first hour I spent playing the game all I heard was sound effects...no music. For some reason, it defaulted to play with no In-Game music. Anyway, I turned the music on and it was pretty good too. Kinda funky.

gameplay:

The car is hard to control at first as the track seems very slippery. After a while it becomes fairly easy to steer the car. On the track are various power-ups and power-downs that you run over to activate. They're pretty hard to hit.

I found the game frustrating at first because it is so difficult to stay alive. I imagine that later in the game you get more armor and shields and stuff, but I kept getting my butt kicked for the first 30 minutes or so. And every time you die the game restarts (fortunately the 3DO doesn't reboot, however) which got to be really annoying. A continue feature would have been a nice addition. You can save up to 3 games, though.

Overall:

Overall this game looks snazzy, sounds good and really draws you into the environment of it all. But the lack of true interactivity during the driving sequences may bother many people. It bothered me. I think the game would appeal more to a younger (maybe 12 to 14) or less sophisticated audience.

Maybe I'm just too picky? Anyway, don't sell your copy of Road Rash just yet. In fact, if you're itching for a driving game, try dusting off that old copy of Crash n' Burn. Good ol' CNB still feels great and controls better than MegaRace ever will.

ratings:

Of course, all just my humble opinion. See next few posts for some screen captures from the game.

-- Patrick B. Moynihan Application Arts, Incorporated senator@halcyon.com
michel.buffa@essi.fr