Megamania

Le jeu

Megamania is an Atari 2600 game designed by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision in 1982. It took about six months to develop the concept, and another three months to fine tune the game. It was later released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit family in 1983, ported by Glyn Anderson. The Atari 2600 version was also bundled in with the Activision Anthology release in 2002. In Megamania, the gameplay resembles that of Space Invaders . Rather than being aliens or spaceships, however, the enemies in this game are various objects such as hamburgers, bow ties, and steam irons. Megamania (Atari 2600) The object is to shoot them down before the energy bar at the bottom of screen is depleted, all while avoiding the oncoming enemies and their own projectiles attacks. Each of the enemies fly in select patterns and as soon as they hit the bottom of the screen, they re-appear at the top until shot by the player. The player's spacecraft depicted in the game is a cross between the U.S.S. Enterprise and Klingon battlecruiser from the Star Trek universe. The first cycle scores 20 to 90 points in 10 point increments each round for each object defeated; after the first cycle, every object destroyed scores 90 points. Once a wave is cleared, the player scores bonus points equal to the value of the object times the number of energy units remaining. Every 10, 000 points gives the player an extra life; the player can have no more than six extra lives in stock at a time. If a player exceeds a score of 999, 999 the game ends. Anyone who scored above 45, 000 points could send Activision a picture of their screen and receive an 'Official Megamaniac' emblem. Gameplay-wise and in terms of graphics, MegaMania bears a very strong resemblance to Sega's 1981 arcade title 'Astro Blaster'. Both games feature nearly identical patterns of approaching enemies with the player relying on an 'Energy' meter. Also, the player's ship bears a remarkable similarity in both games. The Atari 2600 version is included with Activision Anthology (2002). A visually updated version is part of Arcade Zone for the Wii (2009). Steve Cartwright would re-use the code for Megamania for a later Atari 2600 game Plaque Attack .