MegaRace

1994 Mindscape

Platform: Commodore Amiga CD32

MegaRace was an ambitious title due for release on the Amiga CD32 by Mindscape back in 1994, and was being developed by French programmers Cryo.

Set in the future, the game revolves around a VR gameshow that is hosted by a Lance Boyle where you participate in a death or glory race over 15 different tracks and with 8 different supercars. Seems like something very Running Man’esq.

The game was released on the likes of the 3DO and PC platforms, with the PC version being released first – but the Amiga CD32 edition due for release in October would be nowhere to be seen. The title was previewed in many Amiga magazines back in the day, and wowed all of those who saw it – suggesting that the screenshots were not just taken from the PC edition, but from an actual playable edition of the game on the CD32.

The backgrounds in the game were all done using FMV that would be streamed straight from CD with cars overlaid over the top as sprites, so there was no worrying about having to process lots of polygons – and how the CD32 edition would come to look so good. Although leading to some limitations in variety of gameplay – it was still pretty impressive.

According to one preview, there was a suggestion that the CD32 edition was going to show up the PC’s VGA edition of the game, with a much sharper version of the graphics – with a car that loses its blotchiness and much clearer FMV graphics for the background. There would also be some fixes as a result of feedback from the PC edition that had already been out there for some months. However, according to The One’s feature on the game – the better looking graphics would mean that some of the PC tracks would be dropped.

Tragically, the game was due for release around the time that Commodore would go bankrupt, and many CD32 titles would be canned as a result – including it seems MegaRace. It is a shame, as the title could have really given the platform a little boost, given some of the advantages over the PC edition.

Thanks to The One article, we learn that Lionel Guillang was the CD32 programmer, with Frank de Luca and Madjid Taibi on graphics, and Stephane Picq on music and sounds. The producer was Simon Harris. Hopefully we will be able to get hold of someone involved in the development to learn more – to work out if the game ever got to a completed stage, and crucially if anything still exists.

On an old EAB Amiga thread about unreleased games, someone called retrosale.co.uk suggested that they had a beta version of the game saved from Commodore’s UK offices. However, they had since disappeared with no further updates.

Well, it turns out retrosale.co.uk was none other than Dave Arcadian, who is well known in the Acorn/BBC Micro world. A build was found within a set of CDs recovered years ago, and Dave has now dug out a backup to pass onto Games That Weren’t to add to the site! This was made around 2019.  We have built a CD32 ISO that you can attach to an emulator and now run the game (with thanks to notrevenant and Steve Snake for the label fix).

Steve also revealed that to get it working, you need these settings: CPU 68020; chipset AGA with chipset extra CD32, ROM 3.1 CD32 version and extended ROM, RAM 2MB chip. Add the ISO with no other settings checked. The FMV module does not need to be enabled!

Everything should then run, and you can see various intros and the navigation screens. When you go to the “Practice” mode, it doesn’t allow you to select a car and move on. But if you wait a while, then it will kick into a demo of the game running with the car you have the icon hovering over.

However, if you set up a CD32 pad, then you can select a car and start one of 3 tracks with the different cars and play the game for yourself. I used an Xbox 360 pad, and the select button started the level and one of the shoulder buttons then acted as accelerate.

There is a lot of corruption for some of the car animation sequences (after you watch the intro and then are asked to pick a car). Only one of the car sequences seems to run fine. Not sure if this is fixable at all and could be corruption from the original CD. We’re going to try and obtain the original development CD at some point from Dave to do another dump, especially if there is something missing/corrupted.

Further analysis of the prototype has been carried out by MrKsoft (@wafflenet.com), who has uncovered a number of interesting technical and gameplay findings:

• Requires more than 2MB ChipRAM to avoid resets when loading the car select screen, suggesting it was not yet optimised for retail CD32 hardware. Gameplay feel appears to be a hybrid between the PC and 3DO versions.
• Credits have been expanded to give Lionel Guillang additional roles in Motion System and Compression
• MEGARACE.DAT uses a different compression method compared to the PC version (which used HSQ), currently preventing extraction
• “Practice” and “TV Show” modes act as difficulty settings (equivalent to “Novice” and “Hardened” on PC) and use different FMV sequences
• FMV sequences between levels do not appear to be implemented
• No music is present, despite being selectable; unclear if 3DO PCM audio or Amiga Paula-based audio was planned
• Car damage system is inconsistent: initially appears disabled (invincibility), but may function on certain levels
• General inconsistencies between levels, including differing sound effects (mix of PC and 3DO assets)
  Level progression is incomplete, with several missing stages
• Opponents are tougher than in the PC version, with increased durability and higher difficulty balance
• Game over behaviour varies: early levels enforce failure conditions, later ones allow progression or restart inconsistently
• Enemy vehicles can attack from behind (a behaviour seen in the 3DO version but not PC)
  “TV Show” mode appears more complete, with more cutscenes present
• Evidence suggests some levels from the PC version were removed and repurposed into “Practice” mode
• Palette issues observed on certain levels (e.g. NewSan 3)
• Graphical glitches and crashes present (e.g. Skyholder level causing reboot)
• Some issues may be due to a bad dump rather than the original build itself. Overall build is clearly incomplete, but a significant portion is functional. Further progress likely depends on obtaining a cleaner dump and decompressing MEGARACE.DAT

A huge breakthrough and part of a long lost CD32 game recovered. The question is whether this was as far as the development got, or could there be later builds to find?

With huge thanks to Karl Kuras for flagging up to cover, Ross Sillifant and Archive.org for additional PC article, Dave Arcadian for the recovery, MrKsoft for a deep dive into the prototype and sharing findings, Petr Vrtílka for controller/playable confirmation, @notrevenant.bsky.social and Steve Snake for helping to fix the prototype and get working, Amiga Magazine Rack, Archive.org and Stephen Stuttard for many of the scans.

Download

• MegaRace CD32 Alpha (Fixed)

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