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Review
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Review by
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 Jonah Cohen
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Reviewed on
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2004-11-22
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Attention span: 9/10 You'll play it all day
Controls: 9/10 2nd accelerates, arrows change direction. No biggie.
Implementation: 6/10 Too unstable, even though everything else rocks.
Overall: 8/10 It's a lot of fun, but there's a risk involved.
Megacar is a racing game by Thomas Fernique. For now it is the only racing game for the TI-89, leaving it a niche to fill. It does so nicely. The accelerating and decelerating is done very realistically, and the graphics are great. It keeps track of best race time and best track time for every level, as well.
This game comes with six external levels, as well as a level editor, which means that new levels will keep the game like new. The level graphics are very good, and the bar at the bottom enhances the experience further. If you ever need to pause, hitting the diamond key will shutdown the calc until ON is pressed.
Unfortunately, there is a very annoying bug in this game. For some reason, when the sixth level is selected, it always gives a "Not enough mem" error, even though all the other levels will run. Apparently checking the mem screen before running it works. However, when Andi's levels (they didn't come with Megacar) are selected, the calc gets an address error. This is extremely annoying, to the extent that I no longer even keep those levels on the calc.
Megacar is really in beta right now. Although when you play a level it is very addicting, you play at your own risk. This game will more than likely crash your calculator at one time or another. Hopefully, the next version will make it a bit more stable. |
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Review
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Review by
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Miles Raymond
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Reviewed on
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2004-11-22
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Attention span: 8/10 This game keeps your attention away from everything else.
Controls: 5/10 The controls could be worked out a bit better.
Implementation: 6/10 The level editor means more track goodness.
Overall: 6/10 It's a fun game to at least try out.
MegaCar is the first racing game for the TI-89 where you only race against the clock. You attain a high score by getting the lowest time. You are able to chose from all of the levels on your calc, and the good thing is that they don't have to be in the same folder. MegaCar has a nice window for you to choose the folder/level that you want to race and shows the high score of that level.
MegaCar comes with 6 levels, but you have to make sure that you send them to your calculator, since MegaCar isn't in a group file. Most of the 6 levels are challenging for a beginner, but are not in order of difficulty.
In MegaCar, you are a peanut-shaped race car. You control the car as if you were in it. That means that when you press left, the car turns left, and when you press right, the car turns right. This seems normal, but gets confusing when the car is heading down and you press the wrong button. To accelerate, you press the 2ND key. There is no break or shift keys in MegaCar. All of the keys are responsive, although you have to lift your thumb off of the acceleration key to go around those tight corners.
When you drive on the road (the white section of the map), your car can drive faster than when you go off-road (the dark part of the map). The maps are big, and it scrolls without a flaw. MegaCar comes with a map editor, so you can design your own creative racetracks. The maps can be as big as 640x480!! As long as you make your map length and width divisible by 16 and make it in only two colors, you can create your own levels.
This game is fun, and is going to have some personally design levels in the near future. This isn't the best game for the TI-89, but with the external levels, this game is going to be around for quite a while. MegaCar is definitly worth a try. Once you get around the controls on about the third or fourth time you play it, you want to design some levels of your own. |
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