Mega SWIV

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Mega SWIV
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Time Warner Interactive
Developer: Sales Curve Interactive
Distributor: Ecofilmes (PT)
Sound driver: Teque London/Peter Hennig
Genre: Shooting
Number of players: 1-2
Release Date RRP Code EU 1995 T-48366-50 PT 1995 MDJ48366 UK 1995-03 £39.9939.99 T-48366-50 GR 199x

Mega SWIV is a shoot-'em-up developed by Sales Curve Interactive in 1994 and published by Time Warner Interactive exclusively in Europe for the Sega Mega Drive. It is an extended port of the 1992 Super Nintendo game Super SWIV (also known as Firepower 2000) and the sequel to the home computer game SWIV, from 1991 (itself a spiritual successor to the 1988 Tecmo arcade game, Silkworm). The acronym "SWIV" stands for "Special Weapons Interdiction Vehicles."

Story

A secret underground race in an island near Bermuda is stealing prototype military aircraft. They are transforming them into powerful new war machines piloted by robots and bent on destruction. The military is sending the only vehicles capable enough to take on this army to infiltrate the enemy base.

Gameplay

The game is a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up. Players can control either a helicopter or a jeep. The helicopter flies over obstacles, but the jeep can fire in any direction. In a single-player game, the player can choose either vehicle. In two-player games, one player controls the helicopter and one player controls the jeep. The vehicle can be changed or a two-player game can be started from the options menu, accessed by pressing , , or from the title screen.

Vehicles are moved in any direction using the D-Pad. The playable area is wider than the visible area, so the screen scrolls at the left and right edges. They fire their main weapon with , which can be held for rapid-fire. The helicopter always fires forwards. The jeep has a turret that rotates in the direction that it is moving; the turret locks in place when the player is holding the fire button. Players start with three weapons and can acquire two others in the later levels. Each weapons can be upgraded up to level 7 by collecting its token. Surplus tokens are stored. Weapons are cycled through with (with the weapon and level being shown in the bottom of the screen).

The vehicles also have special secondary weapons, such as homing missiles, which are limited use. Players do not start with any of these but can acquire them by collecting their tokens in the levels. They are used with . Multiple special weapons can be stored in reserve (the last 12 are shown, but any number can be stored), with the most recently collected weapon being used first.

A vehicle is destroyed when it is hit by enemy fire, but it respawns (with a brief period of invulnerability) if the player has an extra life remaining. The helicopter is destroyed if it runs into flying enemies, and the jeep is destroyed if it runs into terrestrial enemies. The vehicle's weapons lose a level when the player loses a life, but this can be mitigated if the player has excess tokens stored. The player is awarded an extra life every 50,000 points. The game ends if the player runs out of lives. There are no continues.

Weapons

Permanent

	Bullets
	Initially equipped. Fires rockets forwards. It gains a small spread when leveled up.
	Flame
	Initially equipped. Shoots a flamethrower that does high damage but has short range.
	Plasma
	Initially equipped. Fires a energy pellets. They form a conical spreadshot when leveled up.
	Laser
	Shoots piercing lasers.
	Ionic
	Shoots energy blasts. When these projectiles hit a target, they reflect off laterally.

Special

	Homing Missiles (H)
	Launches several homing missiles that seek out and attack enemies.
	X Missiles (X)
	Fires three large missiles directly forwards.
	Scorch (S)
	Releases a ring of explosions out from the vehicle.
	J
	Shoots a large, slow-moving firebolt. Appears only in the last level.

Items

	Item Container
	Destroy to release a cluster of items.
	Star
	Worth 100 bonus points when picked up. At the end of the level, the player is awarded 1,000 points times the level number for each star collected.
	Bullets
	Levels up the Bullets weapon.
	Flame
	Levels up the Flame weapon.
	Plasma
	Levels up the Plasma weapon.
	Laser
	Acquires and levels up the Laser weapon.
	Ionic
	Acquires and levels up the Ionic weapon.
	Homing Missiles
	Equips another use of the Homing Missiles weapon.
	X Missiles
	Equips another use of the X Missiles weapon.
	Scorch
	Equips another use of the Scorch weapon.
	J
	Equips another use of the J weapon.
	Glowing Mine
	Destroy to release a Bubble.
	Bubble
	Collect to surround the vehicle in a shield that lasts 12 seconds or attack to blow it up and destroy all on-screen enemies. Collecting a Bubble when the vehicle already has a shield also blows it up.

Levels

	Level 1
	This is a new level that was not present in the SNES version.
	The Desert
	The Jungle
	The River-Bed
	The Military Air Base
	The vehicles enter airplanes at the airbase and play the rest of the level in them.
	The Volcanoes
	The Enemy Complex

Versions

It is widely thought that Mega SWIV was rushed to meet a deadline, as the game is not as fully optimised for Mega Drive hardware as seemingly planned.

Stage 3 (Jungle), for example loads a complete but largely unused 16-colour palette into memory, while pieces of scrap metal in the scenery appear to have been given the wrong palette line, causing them to appear dark grey with odd green spots. Assigning the unused palette to this metal causes it to look more natural, with a gradient metallic shading. Many design oversights, such as only a few flying enemies having shadows, also exist.

The jeep had the ability to jump in the original SNES release, a feature omitted from this version. Instead the jeep can now run over most obstacles that required a jump in the original.

Also noticeable is that enemy behaviours and sizes (for example, the black jets) were not recreated faithfully, making Mega SWIV an easier game.

Production credits

• The Game:
  • Programmer: Ken Murfitt
  • Artist: Ned Langman
• Presentation:
  • Programmer: Charles Robson
  • Artist: Rob Whitaker
• Producer: Sean Kelly
• Many Thanks Go To: The game testers, Matt Sansam, Chris Lipscombe, Kevin Filson, Michael Wolliston, Rob Lewtas

Source:

In-game credits

Magazine articles

Main article: Mega SWIV/Magazine articles.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 50 Consoles + (FR) 80 GamesMaster (UK) PAL 87 Games World: The Magazine (UK) PAL 76 Hobby Consolas (ES) 86 MAN!AC (DE) PAL 49 Mega (UK) PAL 87 Mega Force (FR) PAL 76 Mega Fun (DE) PAL 59 Megazin (SI) 68 Mean Machines Sega (UK) PAL 66 Player One (FR) 82 Play Time (DE) 60 Power Up! (UK) 70 Power Unlimited (NL) 73 Sega Magazine (UK) PAL 66 Sega Power (UK) PAL 64 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 79 Sonic the Comic (UK) PAL 92 Todo Sega (ES) 85 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 79 Última Generación (ES) 78 Video Games (DE) PAL 52

	72
Based on 23 reviews

Mega SWIV

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart Manual PCB

Mega Drive, PT
Cover
Cart Manual EU Manual

Mega Drive, GR
Cover

Technical information

Main article: Mega SWIV/Technical information.