Mega SWIV
From Sega Retro
| Mega SWIV | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| System(s): Sega Mega Drive | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Publisher: Time Warner Interactive | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer: Sales Curve Interactive | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sound driver: Teque London/Peter Hennig | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Genre: Shooting | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Number of players: 1-2 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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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 original SWIV for home computers. The acronym "SWIV" stands for Special Weapons Interdiction Vehicles.
Contents
Plot
Tests of prototype military airships near Bermuda end in disaster as the airships vanish; in reality, an underground race capture the airships and use their technology to build a new, unstoppable army powered by computer drones — an army that no nation's army can match. And it is up to the player to stop it.
Gameplay
fires a single shot and can be held down for rapidfire. 
cycles between a variety of weapons. 
uses a special weapon that can be collected in levels. Weapons are powered up by collecting more from the same type. Each weapon has seven power levels. From the main menu, hitting , , or allows access to a configuration menu which brings up the choice between playing as a helicopter (which will not be blocked by obstacles) or a jeep (which can turn to aim in any direction but must actually complete the turn and stop firing before the gun sets in the new position).
Mega SWIV features an all new stage (stage 1, with the desert stage from the original becoming stage 2), not seen in any other iterations of the game.
Weapons
- "Bullet" - default weapon, actually looks like rockets, gainst a small spread when powered up
- "Flame" - Flamethrower
- "Plasma" - up to 5 way blue spreadshot (almost identical to Twin Cobra)
- "Laser" - piercing laser attack
- "Ionic" - Split Shot (splits into two shots on contact)
- Special Weapons: homing missiles, circular bomb, straight rockets
- J Shot (counts as special weapon, last stage only, "J" likely stands for "Jedi", a reference to Star Wars)
Versions
Comparison with Super SWIV
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 no run over most obstacles that required a jump in the original.
Also noticable is that enemy behaviours and sizes (e.g. the black jets) weren't recreated faithfully, causing Mega SWIV to become an easier game.
Magazine articles
- Main article: Mega SWIV/Magazine articles.
Physical scans
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72 |
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| Based on 23 reviews | |
| Mega Drive, EU |
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 Cover
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 Cart  Manual  PCB |
| Mega Drive, PT |
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Technical information
ROM dump status
| System | Hash | Size | Build Date | Source | Comments | |||||||||
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1MB | 1994-11 | Cartridge (EU) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sega Magazine, "March 1995" (UK; 1995-02-15), page 84
- ↑ Sega Power, "September 1994" (UK; 1994-08-04), page 28
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Games World: The Magazine, "April 1995" (UK; 1995-0x-xx), page 15
- ↑ 1700 igr dlya Sega, "" (RU; 2001-xx-xx), page 178
- ↑ Consoles +, "Février 1995" (FR; 1995-0x-xx), page 90
- ↑ GamesMaster, "February 1995" (UK; 1995-01-22), page 65
- ↑ Hobby Consolas, "Marzo 1995" (ES; 1995-xx-xx), page 98
- ↑ MAN!AC, "04/95" (DE; 1995-03-08), page 63
- ↑ Mega, "February 1995" (UK; 1995-01-xx), page 50
- ↑ Mega Force, "Février 1995" (FR; 1995-0x-xx), page 77
- ↑ Mega Fun, "04/95" (DE; 1995-03-22), page 84
- ↑ Megazin, "Letnik 3, Številka 5, Maj 1995" (SI; 1995-xx-xx), page 37
- ↑ Mean Machines Sega, "March 1995" (UK; 1995-01-30), page 82
- ↑ Player One, "Février 1995" (FR; 1995-0x-xx), page 88
- ↑ Play Time, "4/95" (DE; 1995-03-08), page 105
- ↑ Power Up!, "Saturday, March 11, 1995" (UK; 1995-03-11), page 1
- ↑ Power Unlimited, "Jaargang 3, Februari 1995" (NL; 1995-01-25), page 34
- ↑ Sega Power, "April 1995" (UK; 1995-02-16), page 48
- ↑ Sega Pro, "April 1995" (UK; 1995-02-23), page 56
- ↑ Sonic the Comic, "14th April 1995" (UK; 1995-04-01), page 11
- ↑ Todo Sega, "Abril 1995" (ES; 1995-0x-xx), page 46
- ↑ Tricks 16 bit, "Tricks Sega Gold 800 igr" (RU; 1998-03-20), page 164
- ↑ Última Generación, "Abril 1995" (ES; 1995-0x-xx), page 90
- ↑ Video Games, "4/95" (DE; 1995-03-22), page 94
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