Altered Beast (Mega-Tech)

The Mega-Tech System is an arcade cabinet released by Sega in 1989, and Western counterpart to the Mega 6. It was based on the Sega Mega Drive home console, and was designed similarly to Nintendo’s PlayChoice-10: players chose games from a menu of eight titles, with credits buying more play time (usually 1 minute per credit) rather than extra lives or continues; reaching a game over screen does not end the play session, and players can start over or choose a different game as long as there was some play time remaining. The Mega-Tech was not released in North America, though did see use in Asia and the PAL regions.

Altered Beast is a side scrolling, platform, beat ’em up game that puts the player in control of a centurion who had died in battle. The centurion has been raised from the dead to rescue Zeus’ daughter Athena from the demon Neff. The player battles undead and demonic hordes, controlling the shapeshifting hero. He must fight through several levels in order to save the kidnapped goddess.

You are a hero risen from the dead on a mission to rescue Zeus’ daughter from the clutches of an evil magician. Kill the flashing white wolves to reveal power-ups. As you collect more power-ups you gain more muscles and eventually you will transform into a beast, a different one each level. These beasts are: a werewolf, a flying weredragon, a werebear, a weretiger and finally the Golden Werewolf.

Level two features head suckers that can be shaken off by moving the joystick left and right quickly very difficult to work out if you don’t know the game.