Missile Command (video game)
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| Missile Command | |
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| Developer(s) | Atari |
| Publisher(s) | Atari |
| Designer(s) | Dave Theurer |
| Release date(s) | July 1980 |
| Genre(s) | Shoot 'em up |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Mobile Phone, PC, PlayStation |
| Input | Trackball; 3 buttons |
| Arcade cabinet | Upright, cabaret, cocktail, and cockpit |
| Arcade CPU(s) | M6502 (@ 1.25 MHz) |
| Arcade sound system(s) | POKEY (@ 1.25 MHz) |
Missile Command is a 1980 arcade game by Atari.
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[edit] Description
The plot of Missile Command is simple: the player's planet is being attacked by an endless hail of interplanetary ballistic missiles (IPBMs), some of them even splitting like multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), and in later levels smart bombs which can evade a less than perfectly targeted missle. As a regional commander of three anti-missile batteries, the player must defend six cities in their zone from being destroyed. The game is played by moving a crosshair across the sky background via a trackball and pressing one of three buttons to launch a counter-missile from the appropriate battery. There are three batteries, each with ten missiles; a missile battery becomes useless when all its missiles are fired, or if the battery is destroyed by enemy fire. The missles of the central battery fly to their targets at much greater speed; only these missles can effectively kill a smart bomb at a distance.
The game is staged as a series of levels of increasing difficulty; each level contains a set number of incoming enemy weapons. The weapons attack the six cities, as well as the missile batteries; being struck by an enemy weapon results in destruction of the city or missile battery. Enemy weapons are only able to destroy 3 cities during one level. A level ends if all the cities are destroyed, or when all enemy weaponry is destroyed or reaches its target. If a player should run out of missiles, he no longer has control over the remainder of the level. At the conclusion of a level, the player receives bonus points for any remaining cities or unused missiles. Between levels missile batteries are rebuilt and replenished; destroyed cities are not rebuilt, but at set point levels (usually 10 or 12K) a bonus city is awarded.
The game inevitably ends when all six cities have been wiped out. Like most early arcade games, there is no way to "win" the game; it theoretically goes on forever with ever faster and more prolific incoming missiles, until it becomes humanly impossible to stop them all. The game, then, is just a contest in seeing how long the player can survive.
The game featured an interesting bug: once 810,000 points had been reached a large number (176) of cities were awarded and it was possible to carry on playing for several hours. At some later stage the speed of missiles would increase greatly for a few screens. On the 255th and 256th yellow screens, known as the 0x stages, the scoring increases by 256 times the base value. For good players these two 0x stages could earn over a million points, this enabled them to reach a score of approximately 2,800,000 (although only 6 digit scores were shown, so it would display 800,000) and at this point the accelerated rate would suddenly cease and the game would restart at its original (slow) speed and return to the first stage, but with the score and any saved cities retained. In this way it was possible to play this game for hours on end. The world marathon record, set in 1983 by Victor Ali, is 80,000,000 points.
[edit] Effect
Missile Command was an immensely popular money-maker for Atari, with many units around the world still outperforming contemporary machines' revenue as late as the mid-1990s.
Missile Command is considered one of the great classic video games from the Golden Age of Arcade Games. The game is also interesting in its manifestation of the Cold War's effects on popular culture, in that the game features an implementation of National Missile Defense and parallels real life nuclear war.
[edit] Ports
Like most top-grossing arcade hits, Missile Command was ported to the Atari 2600. In later years, it was ported to several other systems, such as the Lynx and Game Boy.
On the Atari Jaguar, there was also Missile Command 3D. It contains three versions of the game - the classic one, 3D, and Virtual. The last version is the only game that works with the virtual reality helmet from Virtuality (only 2 pieces are known to exist).
Having just acquired the Atari label, Hasbro Interactive released Microsoft Windows and Sony PlayStation versions in 1999, but they didn't sell well. Hasbro Interactive released a series of Atari classic remakes around the time, most of which quickly found their way to the discount bin.
Missile Command is scheduled for release via Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 in 2007.
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| Atari 5200 (1982) |
[edit] Legacy
In 1982, a multi-player sequel was planned but never released. This game would have been identical to the first except with twice as many cities and batteries and the players cooperating to save each other's cities from the onslaught.
In 1984, Atari released a game called Liberator, which was seen by some as being a variation of Missile Command with the situation essentially reversed; in Liberator, the player is the one attacking the planetary bases.
In 1992, Atari developed a prototype of an arcade game called Arcade Classics for their 20th anniversary. The game included Missile Command 2 and Super Centipede (an updated version of the original Centipede).
The game has been widely cloned. For example, there is an open source/SDL game with the same rules as Missile Command called Penguin Command, and an Amiga clone.
[edit] Trivia
- Missile Command was referenced in a 1981 episode of the TV sitcom Barney Miller, which featured a young detective who was hooked on the game.
- In the 1991 sci-fi action film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, protagonist John Connor is seen playing Missile Command in a video arcade. The game itself was also part of the film's theme: a nuclear holocaust.
- On 9 March 2006, Tony Temple (AKA "TT"), a UK based gamer and banker, set a new world record for Missile Command in Tournament mode on new tournament settings. His score of 1,967,830 points beat the record previously held by Roy Shildt, who set his record on the factory default settings. Temple's new record has been recognised by the Official Video Game & Pinball Book Of World Records.[1]
- While programming Missile Command, its writer suffered from nightmares[2].
- The documentary High Score follows a Portland gamer's quest to beat the Missile Command high score record.
- In the episode of Everybody hates Chris, At Greg's house Chris and Greg were playing the game of "Missile Command" on Atari 2600.
- When the game as originally designed, the six cities were meant to represent six cities on the U.S. West Coast: Eureka, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego
[edit] See also
- Bio-ship Paladin
- D-CON a spin-off of Missile Command
[edit] References
- ^ WayOfTheRodent.com
- ^ Blue Wizard Is About To Die!, Pg. 140, Seth Flynn Barkan, ISBN 0-9741000-0-5
[edit] External links
- Missile Command at the Killer List of Videogames
- Atari's official online version of Missile Command
- Missile Command at MobyGames
- Arcade History Database enty
- Category at ODP
Categories: Arcade games | Fixed shooters | Atari 2600 games | Atari 5200 games | Atari 8-bit family games | Atari Jaguar games | Atari Lynx games | Commodore 64 games | Game Boy games | Game Boy Color games | MSX games | Windows games | PlayStation games | ZX Spectrum games | 1980 arcade games | Atari arcade games | 1980 video games | Mobile phone games
