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Megatack Megatack - Japanese Logo - Katakana / Kanji

Megatack - Cabinet - Video Game Marquee

Description

Each wave consists of two rounds. The first round pits you against descending "space monsters", while the second consists of "space rings" that grow in size if you don't shoot them first and try to absorb your ship. Completing both rounds takes you to the next wave.

Megatack was produced by Taiyo System in 1980.

Taiyo System released 8 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1980. Taiyo System was based in United States.

Other machines made by Taiyo System during the time period Megatack was produced include: Intruder, Tora Tora, Enigma II, Kaos, and Pot Of Gold

Megatack - Cabinet - Machine
Cabinet

Specs

Name Megatack
Developer Taiyo System (United States)
Year 1980
Type Videogame
KLOV/MOG # 8664
Class Wide Release
Genre Shooter
Monitor
Conversion Class unique
# Simultaneous Players 1
# Maximum Players 2
Gameplay Alternating
Control Panel Layout Single Player Ambidextrous
Controls
  • Joystick: 2-way (left, right)
  • Buttons: 1 [Fire]
Sound Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles
  • Upright/Standard

Game Play

In the first part of each wave, space monsters descend from the top of the screen towards your ship, dropping bombs as they go. If they reach the bottom of the screen, they will start hopping towards your spacepod if they catch your spacepod, they'll eat it. In these rounds, your spacepod fires in three directions simultaneously straight up, and 45 degrees to either side. The eight types of monsters shown in the score table attack in the order shown for the first eight waves (i.e. wave 1 is all 100-point monsters, wave 2 is all 200-point monsters, etc.) wave nine is a mass attack of all eight types, and waves ten and up are randomly-chosen from the first nine types. Each space monster round contains a total of 25 monsters, though only eight will be on the screen at any one time.

The second half of the wave starts out with a spinning space ring that drifts around the screen, growing in size if you shoot it, it splits into two smaller rings that go off in different directions and start growing again. If any ring reaches sufficient size, it will "tractor-beam" your spacepod into its center (your controls are frozen at this point) and then crush it. In this round, your spacepod only fires straight up the two 45-degree guns are disabled. The rings are worth the same number of points as the monsters in the first half of the waves.

MEGATACK has a somewhat confusing way of indicating how many spacepods you have left. The number in the center of each pod is not a remaining lives indicator rather, it is the serial number of each pod, starting at three (or four) and descending towards one. This number does not change if you earn bonus pods rather, all of your bonus pods are numbered "0". Neither does the "x spacepods remaining" message that flashes briefly across the screen at the start of each player/pod's turn accurately reflect bonus pods rather, once you have exhausted your three standard pods, the game will repeatedly announce bonus spacepod and continue playing until you use up however many bonus pods you manage to accumulate.

Megatack KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 3.71 (1 vote)

Fun Factor: 4.00

Overall Like 4.00
Fun (Social) 4.00
Fun (Solo) 4.00
Collector Desire 4.00

Technical Rating: 3.33

Gameplay 5.00
Graphics 3.00
Originality 2.00
Sound/Music 0.00

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

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More pictures

Cabinet Information

The cabinet is black with red-orange stripes on the sides, and red-orange spaceships and missiles (similar to the marquee art) displayed below the coin door on the front. The monitor bezel is a generic, blue-black "milky way" backdrop, with red and yellow boxes framing the monitor opening, while the control panel has the "space fighter controls" motif typical of most early-80's games.

Miscellaneous

LICENSOR: Centuri

This may have very well been a "rough draft" of the game Challenger since both games were distributed by Centuri, both have similar graphics (as far as the player's ship and the "ring" waves), both have a lot of the same sounds, both have the ring screen where the player's ship can be sucked up, and the high score screen is the exact same as well.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Megatack Census

There are 14,717 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,455 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 164,291 machines (6,886 unique titles).

Uncommon - There are 10 known instances of this machine owned by Megatack collectors who are active members. Of these, 10 of them are original dedicated machines.

Wanted - No active members have added this machine to their wish list.

This game ranks a 1 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Technical

The game uses a unique video-generator system which consists entirely of 7400-series TTL logic and 4161 dynamic RAM. The game-logic and sound boards both use 6502 CPUs running at approx. 900KHz sound is provided by the AY-3-8910 programmable sound generator chip.

Manuals

Foto-Finder® (Books)

  1. Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 115; Color photo

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