Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest

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Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest
Developer(s)	Williams Electronics Games
Publisher(s)	Williams Electronics Games
Designer(s)	John Newcomer
Platform(s)	Arcade
Release date	December 1986
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	2 players
Input methods	2-way joystick, Buttons: 2 (Flap, Start/Transform)
Cabinet	Upright
Arcade system	Williams Rev. 2 CPU: M6809 (@ 1 MHz) Sound CPU: M6808 (@ 1 MHz), M6809 (@ 2 MHz) Sound Chips: Yamaha YM2151 FM, MC1408 DAC, Harris HC55536 CVSD

Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest is a classic arcade game by Williams Electronics that was produced in 1986 as the sequel to the arcade game Joust.

Although most Midway/Williams games in the 1980s used horizontal video monitors, vertical monitors like those in Pac-Man and Galaga were very common. Recognizing the need to create arcade games that could be packaged as conversion kits for vertical cabinets, Williams asked Joust designer John Newcomer to create a vertical-screen game. The result was Joust 2: Survival of the Fittest.

Joust 2 is a much more complicated video game than Joust, featuring more characters, 100 distinct waves (levels), music (composed by Chris Granner), and digitized voices. Perhaps the most notable change is the "Transform" button. At any point in the game, a player can choose to transform his/her ostrich character into a pegasus, and vice versa. The pegasus falls much more quickly than the ostrich, thus it can be used to quickly attack a villain or opponent from above.

Because Joust 2 was released during the waning days of the golden age of arcade games, it did not achieve nearly the level of success that Joust did. Joust 2 cabinets are now collector's items.

[edit] Ports

Since the video game industry was losing steam at the time, and since the Joust 2 screen is aligned vertically, Joust 2 was never available on any home systems. Since Joust 2 cabinets have been nearly impossible to find since the early 1990s, this meant that the vast majority of video game fans had never been able to play the game before 1997, when Midway released the game as part of "Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Midway Collection 2".[1] It was later included on Midway Arcade Treasures in 2003.