MegaRace
MegaRace is a video game created by Cryo Interactive. It features pre-rendered 3-D graphics and over twenty minutes of full motion video of fictional game show host, Lance Boyle. It was released for MS-DOS in 1993. It was then released for the Sega Mega-CD/Sega CD and the 3DO the following year in 1994. There was apparently a version in development for the Commodore Amiga CD32, which was previewed in many Amiga magazines of the time. Microïds, owners of the Cryo brand, made the game available on Good Old Games in 2009. It is the first in the series, MegaRace 2 and MegaRace 3 being produced afterwards.
MegaRace takes place in the distant future, where the player is a contestant on a game show, called "MegaRace". MegaRace is on the VWBT (Virtual World Broadcast Television) television channel where contestants compete in a live-or-die race match against Hells Angels-like speed gangs. MegaRace's host is the eccentric Lance Boyle (played by Christian Erickson). He guides the player throughout the game, introducing new levels and enemies, frequently discouraging the player.
The objective in MegaRace is to kill all of the speed-gang members in each race before three laps of the racetrack are completed. The first race starts out with a small number of speed-gang punks, but more are added in each subsequent race. Three ways are available to the player for dispatching opponents: slamming them into the sidewall of the track, hitting them with missiles mounted on the player's car, or passing them, causing the opponent's vehicle to explode after the gap between the two cars becomes too great. Missiles are the most effective way of dispatching opponents; however, they are limited by a finite amount of ammunition available in each race. If all opponents are not killed within three laps, the race is lost and the player must start again from their last saved game. If all opponents are successfully dispatched, the player moves on to the next race.
Megarace is a Vehicular combat game with arcade gameplay, similar to that of RoadBlasters and Spy Hunter. However, it is also a rail shooter, in which the player does not fully control the car; he can move it from side to side and accelerate within a limited range, but cannot turn nor fully stop the vehicle. In fact, the speedway is actually a pre-rendered full-motion video playing on a loop. The player must not only kill the opponents, but must also selectively avoid or run over "symbols" marked on the speedway itself. When driven over, these symbols temporarily improve or harm your car's performance. Almost every symbol on the speedway has a corresponding symbol with an opposite effect, such as acceleration and deceleration symbols. It can be quite difficult to make optimal use of the symbols in some levels, particularly Paradise Valley.
