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Mega-lo-Mania: passing Hernia

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I bought Mega-lo-Mania on the Mega Drive second hand from the Computer Leisure Centre in Orpington High Street. The screenshots on the back of the box looked a bit like Populous, which I had enjoyed playing previously, and the funky boxart was appealing. The thing is, I bought it at the same time as another game, and being a bit less immediate and fast-paced, Mega-lo-Mania lost out on my teenage attention span. I cannot remember wat the other game was – it might have been Ristar – but despite not spending hours at a time on Mega-lo-Mania it seeped into my memory, and I have played it many times since.

But I’m not very good at it, again because it seems to inhibit my attention span. Levels either fail very quickly, or it takes a long time to win through attrition. I’m sure there are things I could do to win quicker – not worrying about researching every technology, for example – but that just feels wrong. By the time I’ve played a couple of levels, I fancy playing something else instead, and Mega-lo-Mania gets shelved for another six months.

I have decided to rectify this, bolstered by my completion of Populous the Beginning, and so over the last few days I have been playing through the opening levels, making sure I remember appropriate strategies. I’ve decided to play the Mega Drive version, because the PC version (via DOSbox) was misbehaving a bit, and I’m used to the controller which has done a great job of adapting the mouse control. The A button jumps between playing areas on the screen; the d-pad moves the cursor but only to defined locations rather than a fluid movement. There is only one frustration, when trying to select the turrets on a factory to place defenders, which don’t sit on the expected grid.

It doesn’t look that exciting, but since I play it at full speed it can get a bit frantic

The levels are named in alphabetical order, starting at Aloha and Bazooka, and I’ve just passed Hernia, with only a couple of levels needing more than one attempt. I am trying to complete all levels starting with at most 25 people, so trying to keep back some stocks for later levels, though there was one level where I had to throw 30 people at it to avoid being defeated almost immediately.

Virtua Racing: grey grey skies

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After the magnificence of the Switch port, it’s hard to see how Virtua Racing could get much better, without becoming a completely different game. Instead, then, we head in the opposite direction, with an (unofficial) port to a tiny 1-bit screen, to a console without enough buttons, to something that really shouldn’t work – but it does.

Virtua Racing on the Playdate is a limited marvel. It runs incredibly smoothly, although the small range of greys allowed for by the dithering means that it can be tricky to make out what’s happening at times – and overall the darker greys and blacks are underused making the screen just a bit washed out. There are a few control schemes, one of which can allow you to use the crank for steering, but I preferred the d-pad for steering with A and B buttons for accelerate and brake – and the crank allows you to choose the viewpoint exactly, not restricted to VR’s four positions. During replays the crank rewinds and fast forwards the action, which is a welcome addition. Due to the number of buttons you are restricted to automatic transmission.

There is, apparently, a secret car you can obtain from coming first on every track in one play session. I’ve not managed to come first on the easiest track yet, so I suspect that may be beyond me. With the Switch game easily accessible, I’m not sure I’ll spend too much time here, but all it takes is for one delayed train and I know it’ll be there ready to go.

Denshattack: chugga chugga

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The bright colours caught my eye, and since I was stuck at some hunters in a room on the way to the Silent Cartographer, I thought I’d give it a go. I’m glad I did. Denshattack bombards you quickly with different controls, and it’s an assault on your concentration for the first few levels as you battle to remember to grind around corners, jump ahead of blockages, and find routes to the collectibles. However, as soon as I realised that it’s an experience meant to be repeated, with you working out the best places to perform stunts and where there are quick switches between rails, then it turns into a much calmer experience; the first one or two runs through a level are there for research, before then trying to nail a proper run.

In Denshattack, you control a train which can jump between the rails (both double and single) which have, for some reason, been installed around large areas of Japan. You do stunts as you jump, choose which route to go down, and explore varied locales including the inside of a volcano, a factory, and a mountain. At one point I jumped on a Ferris wheel and rolled it down a hill, knocking over satellite dishes and rolling through the bay.

It feels like a Dreamcast game, with colours, very solid-feeling worlds, high score chasing, multiple objectives, and short levels. But it builds on the last twenty-five years of game design, pulling in everything that makes gaming more accessible nowadays.

There is a story. Someone who takes photos told my character about denshattack, and as a train operator she decided to become the best. There’s someone who I am travelling to see in order to challenge her, but on the way there are others to beat. I’m sure there’s more nuance to it than that, but I missed it.

Burnout Legends: without the legends

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Or, indeed, any other traffic. Burnout Legends on the DS is quite impressive given its age, but it doesn’t feel like a Burnout game; it’s pedestrian, there’s little danger or threat, it’s really difficult to actually cause a crash, and the digital steering means the cars feel almost identical to each other. You can build up boost by driving on the wrong side of the road with basically no concern that you might meet something coming the other way; if another car does appear you have the same chance to avoid it as if you were driving on the right side anyway. I can’t make the car drift around corners, but it doesn’t really matter since you don’t lose much speed by scraping along the walls.

I don’t think I’ll be dedicating the time needed to unlock everything. Or, indeed, anything.

Whitewater Wipeout: triple 360

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Whitewater Wipeout was one of the first games available on the Playdate, being released in the first week of Season 1, and I think it’s still my favourite on the system. It has the vibes of California Games, but with a clear end point, refined scoring system, and responsive and intuitive controls.

The front of the board goes where the crank is pointing. It is such an immediate piece of feedback that it gives you an innate sense of connection to the character, but the fact that you can turn the crank quicker than the board can turn makes it crucial to plan in advance when to stop your stunts. Being able to shift weight on the board as you launch, using up on the d-pad, gives even more depth to it.

It’s ideal for a handheld game too. Three lives; you lose one each time you land the wrong way or stray to the bottom of the screen. As you travel to the left, the wave slowly catches up with you unless you constantly move, and the further to the left you go the smaller the wave is – making it more difficult to launch and land tricks, and eventually forcing a wipeout. I’ve reached that last point once in all my games.

The top global scores are over 2 million, and I have no idea how they can be achieved – you would need to have a perfect run on each of your three lives, getting a triple and then quadruple 360 on every trick, building up the combo for the whole run, and hitting a few birds along the way. My top score is less than a quarter of that, and even that felt like I was lucky so many times throughout.