MegaRace

Moby ID: 592
DOS Specs
Buy on 3DO
$38.49 used on eBay
Buy on Windows
$2.99 new on Steam
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Description official descriptions

Virtual Television has given us a chance to do the things that we can't make real in everyday life: Race through 14 great tracks in 5 different environments in a totally virtual place where you can kill each other quite easily with sidekicks or guns. In every track you will see some symbols that can make your car speed up, slow up or even blow up, like your mega-host Lance Boyle says, "Who knows; who cares!" Everything you see in MegaRace is virtual and no one really dies there. So have fun!

Spellings

  • メガレース - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

37 People (26 developers, 11 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 63% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 53 ratings with 4 reviews)

An excellent addition to any racing fans game collection

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.

DOS · by Mullet of Death (592) · 2004

Good futuristic racing gameshow.

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.

DOS · by gametrader (208) · 2000

Surprisingly good multimedia elements save this mediocre racing game from oblivion.

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.

DOS · by Zovni (10504) · 2003

[ View all 4 player reviews ]

Trivia

3DO ratings

While the US release of the game had a 3DO rating of 12, the Japanese version was rated E.

Cancelled ports

The credits of the Best Seller re-release adds credits ("CD32 program") for the unreleased Amiga CD32 port as well as credits related to the 3DO and Sega CD versions.

OEM release

This game came with some Packard Bell computers in the early to mid 90's.

Information also contributed by Lance Boyle.

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Related Games

Megarace: Megarace + Megarace 2
Released 2009 on Windows, 2013 on Macintosh
MegaRace 2
Released 1996 on DOS, 2014 on Windows
MegaRace: MR3
Released 2001 on Windows, PlayStation 2

Related Sites +

  • IGCD Internet Game Cars Database
    Game page on IGCD, a database that tries to archive vehicles found in video games.
  • RacePRG
    A Mega Race fan site featuring gameplay details and DOSBox emulation info.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 592
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Accatone.

Linux, Windows, Macintosh added by Plok. SEGA CD added by Martin Smith. 3DO added by Jeanne.

Additional contributors: Mullet of Death, Alaka, Martin Smith, Lance Boyle, Patrick Bregger, Victor Vance.

Game added December 18, 1999. Last modified January 29, 2024.