Mega lo Mania / Tyrants: Fight Through Time (Amiga)

Developer:

Sensible Software

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

Amiga, Atari ST, Mega Drive, SNES, DOS, X68000, PC-98, FM Towns

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm finally taking a look at classic Amiga strategy game MEGA lo MANIA (or Mega-Lo-Mania). It's also occasionally known as Tyrants: Fight Through Time in the US. It's never just called Megalomania, though maybe it'll help someone find this page on Google if I mention the word anyway.

This one's by eccentric British developer Sensible Software, creator of games like Wizkid, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer and Sensible Train-Spotting, so I'm expecting to see tiny men running around the screen at some point. I should probably know already if they're in it as I've played the game before, but that was ages ago, I didn't play it for long and my strongest memory of it is being amazed that I actually worked out how to do something. It's one of those games where the first challenge is the interface.

Here's some random trivia for you: when Virgin Games published the game they decided to release a tie-in single called "Mega-Lo-Mania (Goin' All the Way)" to promote it. I don't think the song has any relation to the game or anything that happens in it, but it does have the same cover at least!

Okay I'm going to play this for an hour or so to see what it's like. Which means I'll either make it through a bunch of levels or just get really frustrated on the first one, depending on whether I'm able to figure any of it out. I actually started making some progress in Populous when I wrote about that, so there's always hope.

Crusader Kings II (PC)

My odyssey through the alphabet shall continue, but today I've reached the final 'C' game I'll be playing this year: Crusader Kings II, and man what a C it is; I've definitely saved the best 'til last, typographically speaking.

I have to admit, I've been deliberately putting this off as long as I could, because it seems like it's horrifically complex and strategy games aren't really my genre at the best of times. This is really out of my comfort zone and I won't be surprised if I get hopelessly stuck halfway through the tutorial, and have nothing else to show to you.

I know, tell you what; if the worst case scenario happens and I get absolutely impossibly lost in the game, I'll quit and fill the rest of the space up with more screenshots of Charly the Clown.

(Click the images to restore them to their previous size.)

King's Bounty (Amiga)

Super Adventures in Gaming Replay 2014 - Game 5

Long long ago in the year of 2011, I took a look at a game called King's Bounty. It wasn't a long look though; in fact I only made it to four screenshots before I realised that it wasn't my kind of thing and turned it off. I think I just wanted to show off the character select screen really and that was about the limit of my interest.

But since then I've learned that this game is actually a precursor to the long running Heroes of Might and Magic series as well as a new King's Bounty franchise. It even got a PS2 remake called Heroes of Might and Magic: Quest of the Dragon Bone staff. I know even less about HoMM than I do about King's Bounty so it's not like I can compare the games, but it's triggered my curiosity now; I want to know what this actually is.

So I present to you an idiot's guide to playing King's Bounty. Uh, I mean a guide to how an idiot plays King's Bounty. The game came out on PC, Genesis/Mega Drive, C64 and Amiga, and I'll be playing the Amiga game as I've heard that it's the better looking one.

Master of Orion (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

Master of Orion is a game I’ve heard mentioned many times. I’m slightly rule breaking with this one, as there was actually a section in a game guidebook that I had in the nineties which broke down this game, alongside others such as Masters of Magic and Sim City 2000. However, I don’t remember any of the pearls of wisdom from that guide at all.

Well… except for the fact that this is a game about SPACE.

As I load the game up, the title screen certainly goes along with this one thing I know. At this point I still don’t really know what Orion is. A planet? A galaxy? Wait, I think I remember ‘Orion’s Belt’ being a space thing.

No time for speculation however, as without a moment’s pause this fiery giant is attacked by a space armada!

UFO: Enemy Unknown / X-COM: UFO Defense (Amiga)

It took me way too long to get around to this one. UFO: Enemy Unknown is the original XCOM game, a genuine classic, renamed to X-COM: UFO Defense in North America presumably because they wanted to sell it to the X-Files audience, which was huge at the time.

It was originally released for DOS, then ported across to Amiga, CD32 and PlayStation. As far as I can tell, the PC version runs fastest and looks the best, though they're all basically the same thing with similar graphics and music. But I'm playing the Amiga AGA version instead, because sometimes I do crazy things for no reason!

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Demo) (PC)

Today I'm having a go at the demo of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the remake of classic 1994 turn based tactics game UFO: Enemy Unknown/X-COM: UFO Defense. I guess they took the bits they liked most from each title and combined them.

This is the tactical XCOM game by Firaxis by the way, not the first person shooter one by the Bioshock 2 developers. I don't know why publishers keep getting the idea that what classic strategy game fans would really like to play is a fast paced shoot 'em up. Fortunately this time there's a game for everyone.

Click the pics for a slightly better resolution.

The Clue! (Amiga) - Guest Post

It's the Amiga's famous heist-'em-up!

Freedom Force (PC)

I've owned this one for years, but I can't remember why I stopped playing it, or much of anything about it in fact. Maybe I'll be able to appreciate it more this time around.

Click the pictures to see them in their original resolution.

Burntime (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

Burntime. A relaxing game about cultivating wheat.

Deadline (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

What's that? I'm doing a game that looks interesting? I know!

Celtic Legends (Amiga)

Hey, this looks badass.