Meteor Mission II
| Meteor Mission II | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Bill Hogue |
| Publisher(s) | Big Five Software |
| Platform(s) | TRS-80 |
| Release date(s) | 1982 |
| Genre(s) | Shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Meteor Mission II is a clone of the Taito arcade game Lunar Rescue released by Big Five Software for the RadioShack/Tandy TRS-80 home computer (the monochrome Model I and Model III, predating the more well known TRS-80 Color Computer).
The game is similar in concept to Lunar Lander (without the complex physics), but makes the whole thing more interesting by adding a rescue element. Once you navigate through a moving meteor belt, and land on one of several landing pads, a small figure runs out from the side of the screen, enters your ship, and then you have to fire and navigate your way back through the meteor field and dock with the mother ship.
The title Meteor Mission II implies the game may have been inspired by the BBC Micro game Meteor Mission (Acornsoft), another Lunar Rescue clone also released in 1982, rather than the original arcade machine. The author claims he had already written a 'completely unrelated' Meteor Mission game that was never published.
The game was the fifth of seven arcade clones programmed for the TRS-80 by Bill Hogue, who left the TRS-80 platform in 1982. He would later that year create the platform game Miner 2049er for the Atari 800.