Thursday, April 18, 2024

PrinceWatercress plays Megamania - Game 1 Longplay


It's now time to tie everything up with a silent Game 1 longplay. Enjoy.


You may think that this is just a slightly different Space Invaders clone at first glance. But Activision knew better than that, and instead of taking on aliens, you're taking on...hamburgers, cheese and tires...as the Starship Enterprise. Huh?

Actually, according to Wikipedia, the game is a near-clone of Sega's Astro Blaster, and plays the exact same way: stuff moves towards you, you shoot them before they shoot you while trying to avoid them all, the energy bar works as a timer, and the enemies reappear at the top if they move past the bottom. Also, the ship is actually a cross between the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Klingon battlecruiser. Whenever you clear a round, you get bonus points based on how much energy you have left.

Gameplay is pretty simple. Left and Right on the joystick move you left and right, while the fire button fires the lasers, which the game calls missiles. Keep in mind that when you're shooting lasers, the lasers move with your ship. Just be careful not to spend so much time directing your shots at the enemy that you direct yourself into the enemy shots!

The enemies that you face off against are as follows, in this order: hamburgers, cookies, bugs, radial tires, diamonds, steam irons, bow ties and space dice. Once you defeat the space dice, you'll start the second loop, and when you do, the enemies will have new colors and much different patterns.

Game 1 allows you to fire with guided missiles that move with your ship, while Game 3 allows you to fire missiles that go straight no matter what. Games 2 and 4 are the same as Games 1 and 3, but are the two-player variants. In the two-player modes, both players take turns and switch off when someone loses a life to see who can get the better score. Also, the difficulty switches control the speed of the missiles. B/Novice will give you fast missiles, while A/Expert will give you slower missiles.

The pace in this game is pretty good. The patterns will keep you on your toes when you're trying to learn them, and the game can get pretty hard pretty quickly. The later levels can still be a blast, such as avoiding the red tires in the tenth level. Another game I consider worth picking up.

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