NEWS SECTION - June 1993
| COMPO It's been a while since we've heard the old 'softwear' pun here at MEGA, but it's back like an old friend with the news that top merchandising outfit Outer Limits have produced a new range of videogame-related clothing. Games featured on the t-shirts include Sonic (natch), Sonic 2, Street Fighter 2, Ecco The Dolphin, Lemmings, Taz-Mania, Greendog, Chuck Rock, Toejam And Earl, James Pond and Zool, and the asking price is a practically-insane £7.99 for kiddie size and £9.99 for fat (Snip! - Ed). But you don't even have to pay that much (although if you really want to, you can ring Outer Limits' mail-order service hotline on 0272 768989), because we've got a hold of no less than 10 (and no more than 10 either Ð in fact it'd probably be entirely accurate to say the number in question was precisely 10 and just leave it at that) of 'em, and because we've got millions of freebie t-shirts of our own already, we're going to give 'em to you. Just send us a snapshot of you wearing the most appallingly tasteless/out-of-date/downright revolting t-shirt currently humiliating the rest of your wardrobe, and the ones we judge most desperately in need of replacement get a nice clean shiny new one of their choice. Entries to 'Barbara Cartland Competition', MEGA, 30 Monmouth St, Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW. BASHING THE BISHOP Chess, eh? It's difficult to imagine what kind of person would play chess on a Mega Drive - presumably, even if you've already got one and you really want to play chess and you haven't got anyone to play against, it's still going to be cheaper to go and buy a dedicated chess computer, but, er, if you're allergic to dedicated chess computers or something, you'll be pleased to hear about Kasparov's Gambit, the Mega Drive's first chess game, which is coming soon from Acclaim. VIRTUAL ACTUALITY US gamers unhappy with their current reality were doubtless ecstatic this month when Sega announced the first four games which will be released later this year for their new Sega VR peripheral. Bundled with the hardware will be Nuclear Rush, a flight simulation set in atomic wastelands with the player as a 'nuclear pirate' in charge of a big 'weapons-loaded hovercraft', but users will also be able to mess up their hair and look stupid in front of their friends with Iron Hammer (which, frankly, sounds a bit similar with it's 'heavily-armed skimmer gunship'-type malarkey), Matrix Runner ('a dazzling, hypnotic materialisation of cyberspace, where players collide with strange semi-humans and vulture-like manifestations', ie it's probably a bit like Sewer Shark with more black in it), and Outlaw Racing, which is, er, a racing game. As for when we're likely to see these games, or indeed the Sega VR itself, in this country, your guess is as good as ours. GLOVE STORY If you're a bit jealous of SNES owners who can now have all kinds of multi-player antics and tomfoolery on games like Dyna Blaster and Super Soccer 2 thanks to the wonders of Hudson Soft's Super Multi-Tap four-player adaptor, then envy no longer. Eight-handed action will soon be yours for the taking with the release of Tengen's Gauntlet 4, a four-player continuation of the legendary series of dungeons-and-dragons monster-mashing epics. You will, of course, have to buy a multitap too, but solo gaming will never seem the same again. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! Bought a Mega CD? Impressed with your £400 state-of-the-art home arcade set-up? Want to invite your friends round and leave them gaping open-mouthed in awe at the astonishing quality of the new age of video gaming? Then why not buy, er, Mega CD Wheel Of Fortune? Yes, you and up to two of your buddies will be able to marvel at footage of the lovely Vanna White {shot specially for the game}, scratch your heads over the enormous new database of questions {not used on any other version of the game} and then, hopefully, kill yourselves and donate your machine to someone more deserving and, frankly, not quite so completely bonkers. The game will be released in the US in November for $39.95, and if you buy it on import, we're going to come round to your house and kick your head in. NHLPA HOCKEY '94! Oh, look, isn't this getting just a little bit out of hand now? MAY CONTAIN SEXUAL SWEARWORDS Sega of America have recently announced that, 'to help consumers make more informed decisions about their video game purchases', they have instituted an age-rating system for all future game releases. Nice, harmless, fun games for all the family will get a 'GA' (General Audiences) rating, slightly dodgy ones with bits of blood or glimpses of Chun-Li's underwear (say) will be dubbed 'MA-13' (Mature Audiences - parental discretion advised), and Splatterhouse 3 will get an 'MA-17' rating, classified as 'not appropriate for minors'. Presumably, after the ridiculous furore over Night Trap, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that this system or a variation of it could make it across the water, so stand by to see anything with a 'GA' rating plummet down the charts faster than Sharon Stone's (The rest of this joke was rated 'MA-17' and has hence been censored from the magazine. - A Moral Guardian). GREAT! ANOTHER BEAT-'EM-UP! Just in case SF2, Mortal Kombat and, er, Pitfighter 2 aren't enough for you, there's another big beat-'em-up on the way. Eternal Champions is a 24-meg cart starring '11 of eternity's greatest fighters', each with over 35 moves in their own personal martial arts repertoire (ranging from Thai kick boxing to Kapkido Cane Fighting and Brazilian Capoeria, although strangely not 12 O'Clock Outside The Chip Shop Random Arm Flapping And Beergut Bouncing) with which to rearrange the teeth of the other competitors. Released in the US in November at a bowel-loosening $65.99, Eternal Champions is designed to be played with Sega's new six-button joypad or (no sniggering at the back please) the Activator peripheral which (cough) 'translates your own kicks, punches and body movements to control the action on screen'. Still, there are some new features as well, like a slow motion replay for reliving those particularly spine-juddering moves, so, um, there. GREAT RHYMING SLANG OF OUR TIME Pitfighter 2 is coming soon. Bet you can't wait. VIRTUA RACING FOR MEGA DRIVE! No, we didn't believe it either, but it's here in front of us in black and white on Sega headed notepaper, so it would appear to be true. The best coin-op racing game for so many years it's not even funny is set to defy the cynics and appear, not on Sega VR or even Mega CD, but the humble Mega Drive! As you can see from these early pics, the programmers have made a pretty decent stab at the arcade game's stunning polygon graphics (as well as including the choice-of-viewpoints feature that made the coin-op look so stylish), but as for how it plays, we'll have to wait until the game is released (in America) in December, with a forbidding $70 price tag which will doubtless translate to something extremely scary on import. But if the Mega Drive version comes anywhere near to the thrilling playability of the original, it could be money well spent. IT'S SONIC! IT'S PINBALL! IT'S SONIC PINBALL! Well, Sonic Spinball to be precise. The latest outing for the world's greatest videogame superstar is a game inspired by the bumper-and-flipper antics of Sonic 2's Casino Night Zone. Nasty old Dr Robotnik (look, Sonic, why don't you just kill the old psychopath and be done with it, eh?) has created a Veg-O Fortress, which despite having a completely silly name is in fact a fearsome and oppressive robot factory where he's imprisoned lots of Sonic's furry animal chums using the Pinball Defense System. However, Sonic has developed some great new powers, and - oh sod it, I'm not going into this ludicrous plot any longer. Sonic Spinball will be released on 'Segamania Day', a to-be-confirmed date in November, so watch this space for more details, and all that stuff. GOT HALF AN HOUR TO KILL? Then you'll probably be pleased to hear that there's another Disney game on the way, this time featuring the bizarre what-kind-of-animal-is-he-anyway gormless lump of semi-sentience Goofy. It's a bit of a very slightly Bionic Commando-ish platformer by the sounds of things and it'll be out in late autumn for around £50 on import. MUTANTS, CREEPS AND MUSCLEMEN After the partial success of Mutant League Football (ie it was quite good, but everyone said 'It's not nearly as good as John Madden' and slagged it off a bit, EA are trying again with Mutant League Hockey, which aims to give the same treatment to NHPLA Hockey as MLF did to JMF. But isn't NHPLA Hockey all about smacking people around and having big punch-ups anyway? Solve this existential crisis for yourself, sometime in early 1994. JUST LOOK AT NOBBY STILES! Some people are on the pitch! They think Robo Aleste (the forthcoming release from Tengen on Mega CD) is just Nobunaga And His Ninja Force with a different name! It is now! DE DUNE, DUNE 2 (DE DA DA DA) (Jesus - Neil) Yes, Sting from out of The Police is glad to announce the release of Virgin's acclaimed pair of Dune games on the Mega CD and Mega Drive. Converted from the PC originals, the first game (a strategy adventure epic) will be appearing on the Mega CD around the autumn, with Dune 2 - The Battle For Arrakis (an excellent sort of Sim City meets Mega lo Mania affair) coming out, somewhat bizarrely, on the Mega Drive at the far end of the same season. It's yet to be confirmed whether either game will feature a man with a dinner plate stuck in his bottom lip. SNES OWNERS SUCK SONIC BOOM! No, that's not two headlines in one. Yes, Super Nintendo saddoes the world over have been getting all smug and superior all over again since it became known that they were getting another version of the world's biggest beat-'em-up, the supposedly even-better-than-the-Champion Edition Turbo Hyper Fighting version. But (BUT!) a press release lying hot on our desk from CapCom USA reveals that the Mega Drive version of SF2 will NOT, as previously though, be the boring old Champion Edition, but in fact a Special Champion Edition, featuring a Hyper option which allows nine different game speeds and boasts the Hyper Fighting version's new special moves, including Chun Li's fireball and Dhalsim's spooky teleport. Not only that, but the 24-meg (as predicted in MEGA last month, fact fans) SF 2 SCE (as it's to be known) will also offer new features and moves unique to the Special Champion Edition, including a special Tournament mode! Looks like we're in for the best version of the lot after all... SONIC'S CRUSTY BOX Sad? Really sad? Sad beyond the ordinary boundaries of sad-dom? In training to represent Britain in the 1994 Sadness Olympics? Then why not walk around in public dribbling your Ribena from one of these Sonic flasks, or safely storing your pants sandwiches (with the crusts cut off, natch) in a super-dreamy Sonic lunchbox? Coming next: Sonic - The Lampshade. GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! It's often been said that gaming is a male-dominated leisure pursuit, and that one of the reasons that more girls don't enjoy the delights of console ownership is that most games are so strongly targeted at boys, with lots of guns and hitting things and all that kind of malarkey. Well, worry no longer. Now, at last, there's a game coming out for the chicks to play, featuring the things they like to do best. Yes, it's Barbie! Go shopping! Play with dollies! Gossip! Learn to knit! Subvert patriarchal society by refusing to conform to submissive stereotyped role models! No, hang on, that's not right... PAINT THE WHOLE WORLD WITH AN AERO Admit it. When you bought a Mega Drive you didn't really want Sonic The Hedgehog. You didn't really want Dragon's Fury. You didn't really want John Madden Football. You wanted to play a simulation of launching and running a profit-making airline business, didn't you? Well, is it ever your lucky day? The new game from Koei is Aerobiz, offering you the once in a lifetime chance to 'Establish your hub and then expand outward'! Yes, 'Realistic business strategy' is now yours for the taking! Form an orderly queue, won't you? DINOSAURS IN EXTINCTION SHOCK HORROR PROBE! 'Five levels with vertical and horizontal levels', boasts the press release for Joe And Mac from Data East, and it's hard to argue with it. Out soon from Takara. READ THE NEXT PAGE When a press release marked P.T.O. arrived on Andy Dyer's desk, he spent an entire morning turning it over and over with a baffled look on his face before someone pointed out that it was actually about Pacific Theater of Operations, a new naval wargame from Koei. You can play either the Japanese or US Navy during the tense and violent sea battles of World War 2, and you have complete control over almost every aspect of your fleet, right down to deciding what kind of headbands the kamikaze fighter pilots wear. Probably. ARE YOU PUSHING MY BUTTONS? The most interesting-looking Mega CD game for a while could be Third World War from Extreme Entertainment Group. Visually akin to Populous, it's a government strategy game which makes you leader of one of 16 countries trying to dominate the world by careful manipulation of economic, foreign, domestic and military affairs. The press release seems to suggest thermonuclear apocalypse as one possible economic-difficulty remedy, but it's hard to be sure. Whatever, this one's going to be worth a look when it appears at the tail end of the year. ROCKY, BUT NO BULLWINKLE Boxing Legends Of The Ring, due out later in the year from Electro Brain, seeks to take boxing games where they've never gone before, ie anywhere any bloody good, with eight real-life heavyweight legends (including Jake 'Raging Bull' LaMotta and Roberto 'Duran' Duran) and a wide range of special moves, including the revolutionary 'punch in the face'. Will it succeed? We don't know. This is a news section, not a fortune teller's. HUH? A sports game from EA, but with a disclaimer announcing that 'Super Baseball 2020 is not an EA Sports title'? I don't understand. Anyway, Super Baseball 2020 is 'a new action game with a baseball theme' (no!) and a conversion of a coin-op, apparently. Doubtless it'll be just as fabulous as every other Mega Drive baseball game there's ever been, so hurrah, eh? MORE NEW MEGA CD SOFTWARE! Super Battletank 2 from Absolute is 'The fourth entry in the company's best-selling Super Battletank series'. What? How does that work, then? Is maths different in America? Anyway, it's Battlezone with nice graphics and it's bound to be fab. Coming your way this winter, and we've never been so eager to see snow. DAVE RIOT - THE NEW HERO FOR THE 90s Game-starved Menacer owners bored of pretending to be Arnold Schwarzenegger can soon pretend to be someone else entirely - Body Count, one of Sega's two new Menacer releases for winter '93, features the inspiringly-named hero Dave Riot, a one-man force intent on saving the Earth from alien rule, which may very well involve shooting lots of things. Monster Hunter promises to be broadly similar, but with a jungle/big game hunt setting replacing the urban/space creatures scenario. Yum. INSERT BAD FISH GAG HERE James Pond 3 - it's still on the way! It should be quite soon now! It should be really good! We hope! RACE DRIVIN' A sickening travesty of a nightmare on the SNES, it can only be hoped that this new Tengen release fares rather better on a machine with a processor twice as fast. Hard Drivin' was a little way short of perfect, but they've had a long time to get it right with the second attempt - let's hope they've managed it, eh? IS THAT SPORTING? Never slow to spot a live market, Sega are to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the EASN by launching their own Sports label. Titles will include Joe Montana 94, NBA Action Hosted By Marv Albert (?), World Series Baseball and Greatest Heavyweights on the Mega Drive, with Joe Montana 94 and World Series Baseball also getting enhanced Mega CD versions. ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE AND FRIENDS Has anyone outside of the USA ever seen a Rocky And Bullwinkle cartoon? Thought not. SEGA CD PRICE DROP No, that's not a spelling mistake - the price of the American version of the Mega CD has just dropped from $299 to $229, as predicted by MEGA a little while ago. Could UK cuts be around the corner? Not until they get a few more units into the country, at least... ANOTHER WORLD - AND ANOTHER OTHER WORLD Virgin are to treat Mega CD owners by giving them both the brilliant Another World and it's sequel Another World 2 on a single CD, featuring live actors and digitised dialogue. We haven't seen Another World 2 yet, but if it's anything like the first one, this could be one of the bargains of the year. |
MEGA TOP TEN PEOPLE WHO DON'T DO REVIEWS FOR MEGA
2. Ashley Young 3. General Norman Schwarzkopf 4. Norman Bates 5. Simon Bates 6. Dominik Diamond 7. Anne Diamond 8. Judy and Richard from This Morning 9. You. Ha. 10. Andy Dyer (Oi! - Andy) |
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| VOYAGE TO THE BOWELS OF THE BACK CATALOGUE
What's the point of this, exactly? You load it up, you spot-weld your finger to the accelerate button, you veer slightly to the right or left once every five minutes and half an hour later you're admiring the end sequence. Okay, lots of games are too easy, but at least with World Of Illusion or something, you get a little bit of fun while you're heading for the finish line with one eye closed and your right arm tied behind your back. Out Run kicks off with your car static on the start line, and if you think that's boring you ain't seen nothing yet. This game isn't just 'not fun', it's actually a deeply and affectingly unpleasant experience - you want to give up by about half-a-minute in, but a subconscious guilt forces you to see the whole sorry episode through to the end once you've started, and the harrowing schizophrenic struggle between the opposing elements of your psyche is likely to leave you physically and emotionally drained for several days, and mentally scarred for life. I shouldn't be at all surprised if Hannibal Lecter started off as a perfectly normal and pleasant guy, but then accidentally played Mega Drive Out Run one time and unhinged himself totally, y'know. Unless Sega want to risk lawsuits from the parents of serial-killer victims, I reckon they should get this one off the shelves just as quickly as they possibly can. Better safe than sorry. |
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MEGA TOP TEN THINGS MORE FUN THAN PLAYING G-LOC
2. Counting the number of letters in your own name. 3. Counting to three. 4. Death by inhaling your own vomit. 5. Death by inhaling someone else's vomit. 6. Timmy Mallet. 7. Drinking petrol. 8. Holding your breath until you faint. 9. Having your arms and legs gnawed off by a wolf while someone pours napalm in your ears. 10. Not playing G-LOC. |
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MEGA TOP TEN REASONS FOR NOT GOING DOWN THE PUB RIGHT NOW
2. (Silence) 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. |
