Mega Lo Mania

Mega Lo Mania
Tyrants: Fight Through Time

European Sega Mega Drive cover art
Developer(s) Sensible Software
Publisher(s) Virgin Interactive
Platform(s) Amiga, Atari ST, Mega Drive/Genesis, Super NES, DOS, Sharp X68000
Release date(s)
Genre(s) Real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single-player
Distribution Floppy disk or Cartridge

Mega Lo Mania is a real-time strategy computer game developed by Sensible Software. It was released for the Amiga in 1991, and ported for a variety of other platforms. It was released as Tyrants: Fight Through Time in North America.

Gameplay

A new planet is being formed in the orb at the top of the cosmos. This would be an exciting time by itself, but this planet hosts intelligent life, and every civilization must have a god to oversee it. Would-be rulers come from all directions to wage war through the planet's history.

The object of the game is to conquer 28 islands, divided into nine Epochs that span the history of mankind. The player must take on the role of one of four Gods: Scarlet (Red), Oberon (Yellow), Caesar (Green) or Madcap (Blue). As their God, the player must lead his or her people by instructing them to do a number of different tasks such as create buildings, design weapons, mine for elements or form an army. The ultimate aim is to defeat all the other Gods by destroying their towers and their people.

Screenshot of Mega Lo Mania (Amiga)

There are multiple sectors on each island, and multiple islands spanning different Epochs.

Islands are divided into sectors. Islands in this game can have anywhere between two and sixteen sectors on a four by four grid. Some islands are small enough to only allow two different Gods to play against each other, while others are strategically designed for various gameplay scenarios, such as islands that are not connected, requiring flight in the form of jetplanes or biplanes for armies to attack each other.

Each sector can be either empty, or be occupied by a particular people. Although the player cannot see before they occupy a sector, each has different types of minerals and elements available to it that can put the occupier at an advantage or disadvantage.

Epochs determine the base technology level that each group of people begin with. For example, in the First Epoch, the starting technology level is equal to that of 9500 BC, meaning that each starting tower resembles a dwelling of a caveman. In each Epoch (except the final Epoch) there are three islands and each must be conquered before proceeding to the next. The player may use research to develop along the technology tree, eventually increasing in epoch.

In each Epoch, the player selects an island, then allocates a number of men to place onto that island from a starting pool of 100 men (any unused men will carry over to the next Epoch and be added to a new pool of 100 additional men). Each God playing the island then chooses a starting sector. Once the game starts, the player allocates men to various tasks:

Nuclear weapons of AD 1980 follow special rules. A single nuke irrevocably destroys a sector. The defensive weapon of that era is the nuclear deterrent, a nuke that does nothing to save its sector, but is automatically launched at the attacker. The defensive weapon of AD 2001 is the laser turret, which both shoots at ground forces and automatically overheats and self-destructs to shoot down a nuke. All are unmanned.

In addition, the player may undertake the following actions:

Final epoch: Mega-Lo-Mania

The final epoch has just one, square island: Mega-Lo-Mania. The rules here differ in that only one action is available – forming an army. Although you form the army as 'unarmed men', each man is in fact armed with laser pistols and the sole objective is to destroy every other tower and all other men on the island.

The number of men available to the player on this island depends on the number of men shut down in previous epochs, although a bug in the ST version meant that the maximum was 999 – any more and the counter would loop back round from 0. Shutting down a sector can only be performed when the highest tech level (2001 AD) has been reached, sufficient men are in the tower, and there are at least some men outside your tower (so that you are not defeated immediately). Every man in the tower is then cryogenically frozen to be made available in the final battle.

Epochs

Epoch Date Islands Description Offensive Weapon Defensive Weapon
1st 9500 BC Aloha, Bazooka, Cilla Neolithic Rock Stick
2nd 3000 BC Dracula, Etcetra, Formica Bronze Age Sling Spear
3rd 100 BC Gazza, Hernia, Ibiza Iron Age Pike Bow and Arrow
4th 900 AD Junta, Karma, Lada Medieval Longbow Cauldron of Boiling oil
5th 1400 AD Mascara, Nausea, Ocarina Renaissance Catapult (two men per unit) Crossbow
6th 1850 AD Pyjama, Quota, Rumbaba Industrial Age Cannon (three men per unit) Musket
7th 1915 AD Sinatra, Tapioca, Utopia World War I Biplane (two men per unit) Machine Gun
8th 1945 AD Vespa, Wonka, Xtra World War II Jet Fighter (three men per unit) Bazooka
9th 1980 AD Yoga, Zappa, Ohm Cold War Nuclear missile Nuclear deterrent
10th 2001 AD Mega-Lo-Mania Information Age Flying saucer (ten men per unit) Laser Turret

Release information

Mega Lo Mania was ported to several platforms.

The original Amiga version was published by Image Works in 1991, in the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. They also published the Atari ST version the same year in the United Kingdom and Australia.[1]

A MS-DOS version was ported by Audio Visual Magic, Ltd. and published by Ubisoft in 1992 in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France.[1]

Virgin Interactive published the Sega Genesis in the United States in 1992. It was localized for the Sega Mega Drive in Japan by CSK Research Institute Corp. and published in 1993.[1]

Imagineer published the Sharp X68000 version in Japan, and the SNES version in 1993 in France, Germany, United Kingdom and Japan.[1]

A sequel to Mega-Lo-Mania was in development by Sensible Software, but this was never released; a few screenshots were shown in an issue of Amiga Power.[2]

This game was also known (for the Sega Genesis) as Tyrants: Fight Through Time in the United States.

Reception

Reception
Review scores
PublicationScore
MegaTech92%[3]
Mega88%[4]
Awards
PublicationAward
MegaTechHyper Game

Computer Gaming World cited many bugs and flaws, and stated that even if they were fixed "not enough attention has been paid to gameplay".[5] MegaTech magazine said that it was "very easy to get into (but) there are only nine levels". Mega placed the game at #34 in their Top Mega Drive Games of All Time.[6]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Release Information for Mega lo Mania
  2. Scans of Original Amiga Power Articles Featuring Mega Lo Mania 2
  3. MegaTech rating, EMAP, issue 22, page 100, October 1993
  4. Mega review, issue 6, page 39, March 1993
  5. Brassil, John (1993-06). "UbiSoft's Mega lo Mania". Computer Gaming World. p. 148. Retrieved 7 July 2014. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. Mega magazine issue 26, page 74, Maverick Magazines, November 1994

External links