Megatraveller 1

Title		Megatraveller 1
Game Type	RPG
Players		1
Compatibility	All
Submission	Isaac Abraham

Review
Right from the start this game seemed doomed. It says "HD Installable", even
has an "HD Install" icon (albeit via some custom installer), but only
"installs" if you have set up some assigns. I say "installs" in parenthesis,
because in fact, it`s a ploy to merely destroy your HD - MegaTraveller 1
does not install, but crashes when you first run it, and then when you
reboot, your Amiga informs you that your HD partition is invalid. I know, I
tried to install MT1 twice, both times it happened. My HD, and DiskSalv,
must have hated me, and before I`d even loaded up MT1, I hated it.
So I calm down a little, and run it off floppies. I thankfully have two fds,
so no disk swapping is required, but even off one drives there`s little
swapping.
Whilst it was loading, I rapidly skimmed through the instructions "You are
an elite band of people... mumble mumble ... save princess .... get jewel
.. blah blah...." Seemed easy enough. Alas, I was to be proved wrong. You
start the game in an unusual position - you and your merry band of
"MegaTravellers" are sitting in a bar, probably some sort of attempt to get
drunk, when in comes this women, gives you some money, mumbles some story
about jewels, assassinations, standard RPG fare, and disappears. Next thing
you know, four people appear and start shooting at you. This before you even
have a chance to do anything, literally - it MUST happen, EVERY TIME you
start the game. Now, depending on your characters, you can choose to fight
it out, or leg it. You see, before the game starts, you generate your
characters in a convoluted board game-type thing, choose their skills, their
intelligence, strength etc.. If you made your people a bunch of boffins with
no skills, they`ll most likely die immediately, otherwise, you`ll have a
chance. Anyway, if you escape from there, you`ll eventually discover that
the game is not unlike Elite, only not quite so. You need to get to Planet
X, which is 10 light years away, but - oh no - your ship only has a class 2
hyperdrive which can only go 7 light years. So, what`s next? Trading. Hours
and hours of endless trading and pirating and buying and selling, just to
scrounge up the cash to do this. You go from one planet to the next, fight a
few ships along the way, ad infinity. It`s boring, it`s crap, and it`s not
enjoyable in the slightist. I remind you that I am a big fan of Frontier
(not so much Elite...) and /do/ enjoy those space-flighty games. But not
this. It has no rewarding elements in it, and to cap it all, you need a
blank disk to save games, only you can`t format a disk in game!!! If you
spend an hour getting somewhere and need to save - tough luck, start again
mate. Graphics are crummy, to the point of actually making it difficult to
see what is going on, thus the graphics actually count against this game.
I quickly tired of MT1, but a mate of mine actually persevered with it for
days, weeks, got that hyperdrive, went here and there, found some jewel, and
then discovered he needed another component for his ship... back to square
one. He never played it again. And, come to think of it, neither will I. It
may have depth, but never mind that - Megatraveller 1 is rubbish.

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