Megarace: About the Game

So Megarace came out in 1993. An age when 3D was in it's infancy, full motion video was the current craze, and virtual reality was the future. This game encompasses all three of these and creates a sort of Frankenstein's monster of an experience. At it's core, it's a racing game, The UP key accelerates, DOWN decelerates, LEFT and RIGHT turn, etc. You could also use a joystick if you so chose (I used the ThrustMaster Mark 1 personally). The gameplay appears to be a 3D racing game which in 1993 was a pretty big fucking deal.

My mind was fucking blown by this point

Obviously, getting that in real-time on a home PC during that period wasn't going to happen. Enter the FMV element! The tracks in Megarace are pre-rendered 3D animations that speed up and slow down depending on how fast you move your car, which is a series of 2D sprites rendered from a 3D model. The virtual reality element was really just part of the story. It was effective back then, and I ate this shit up with a spoon, greedily gobbling it up straight from the carton that Cryo shipped it in. It was everything that everyone wanted back then.


The object of the game is simple, yet not entirely like a racing game. It can best be explained by giving you a taste of the "story". You step into the role of "The Enforcer", a contestant on the hit virtual reality TV show, Megarace. Your host Lance Boyle, both chides, and complements you as you attempt to wipe out all of the vicious speed gangs plaguing your universe. Lance makes it crystal-clear that everything that takes place on the show is in a virtual reality world, so nobody really dies. Then he asks how many times someone's neurons can take that kind of pounding after you win a race by killing all of the other racers. So it's pretend murder that can lead to real bodily harm? Whatever. Your goal is to step into the virtual world and wipe out these misanthropic deviants one car at a time. That's right, only one car besides yours is ever on the track and more spawn as you blow up competitors. You have to either blast them with your laser cannon or hit them with missiles if your car can carry them and if you can find ammo (quick aside, I've NEVER found missile ammo), or you can pull up beside them and grind 'em into the sidewall. This is where it sort of fails to be a "race". You can't beat a track by passing your opponents. If you do happen to pass an opponent, their car will explode after about a minute which can, and probably will cost you a victory. To achieve this goal there are multiple power ups that litter the track from energy for your lasers to speed boosts. You can win prizes and shit that don't really matter. They're just gags to keep up the game show theme such as a professor's brain or covers for your car seats. The glue that really holds this bitch together though, is the host.

I still say that virtual TV is WAY more entertaining than reality TV

Lance Boyle, proof positive that a rainbow sherbet suit CAN work. I love this guy. His humor keeps the game moving and gives you a reason to trudge through some of the more aggravating courses. Even better, if you're sick and fucking tired of hearing him say the same old shit over and over again you can totally skip his dialogue and cutscenes! Take THAT Rock Star Games. Maybe I don't want to Watch an animation of John Marston skinning a dead wolf 400 fucking times! Lance says some crazy shit. Anything from calling you a pansy or awarding you with a night out with yourself paid for by Y-O-U, to plugging their sponsor "Bleed, the candy bar homeless people love to be a part of." I'm a sucker for Lance Boyle even now, but that's probably because my 10 year old self thought he was god-damn riot.

Next time on Retronick!

Nick talks about his history playing the nefarious Megarace and chronicles his journey to defeat this beast from another time. Can he prevail over this seemingly insurmountable task that has challenged him for over 17 years? Or will he suckle the acrid cream of failure from the dreaded teat of despair? Read next weeks chilling issue to find out!

The Quest Begins!

I've returned from the great white north! I didn't get a ton writing done in Wisconsin, but what I did get down on paper I think made for some decent content to set the stage for today!  

While in Wisconsin, I stepped outside to use the Internet. Yeah, that sentence seemed a bit strange when I wrote it. It’s sort of like the front door was a time warp and it was 1989 inside and 2010 outside. Whatever, the point is I managed to download a Sega Genesis CD 32X emulator for the Mac called “Kega”, which actually works pretty well. Since I didn’t have my Sega CD 32X with me on this trip it was imperative that I found another way to enjoy the copy of MegaRace I picked up at the Mall of America.

Upon getting everything to work by finally saying fuck the directions and just putting the BIOS files on the desktop instead of in the application support folder; I was a bit miffed by the quality of the SCD port of MegaRace. As you know (I hope you do if you’re reading this), The Sega Genesis can only display 64 colors simultaneously. The Genesis with the Sega CD attachment could display… 64 colors. That’s right, besides adding greater capacity for game storage and some scaling capabilities the Sega CD does almost nothing to boost the old Genesis’ features. That is bordering on retarded when you’re talking about using live-action video and pre-rendered computer-animation in a game. MegaRace had a still slim palette of 256 colors on the PC, which -though ridiculous today- was still way more than the Sega fucking CD had! This game never really belonged on the system.

Perhaps this was Lance Boyle's blue period?

I’ll go into more detail about what’s wrong with this version in my next entry, but suffice it to say; I was a bit disappointed when I started playing the game. Then I remembered I still had my old PC copy kicking around my office. Upon my return from the north a feverish search began for my PC version of MegaRace. Not only did I find it, I found it with the original manual completely intact. I don’t think I can hook my old Thrust Master joystick up to my Mac Pro, but that would make it perfect! Please don’t ask me where the box is. Almost all of my boxes were thrown away when I moved east in 1999. It was not my decision…

Bliss...

The only problem that remained was the fact that this was a DOS era game and I’m on a Mac, which famously works with hardly any games. But one quick search online and suddenly I was playing the 1994 classic on a quad-core machine with six gigs of RAM and a 24” monitor using Boxer. Boxer is a DOS emulator for OSX based on the DOS Box emulator for Windows. Seldom have I felt such glee.

Never before had I thought it possible to play my DOS games on ANY Mac, Let alone my Mac Pro.

Thanks to this crap version of an otherwise great game, I’ve been reminded of what an avid PC gamer I was in 1992 through 1998 and have taken a look at my old DOS and Windows collection that I never thought I’d play again. I think some of these are a pretty good place to start on my quest to beat them all… or at least most of them. The first game on my quest shall be... MegaRace!


Though I've never beaten this game, I have played the shit out of it. I'm going to give it like 3 weeks before (in the interest of brevity), I say screw it and move on to the next game in my collection. This is the beginning!