Star Raiders
| Star Raiders | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Atari, Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | Atari, Inc. |
| Platform(s) | Atari 400 and 800 computers; later Atari 2600, Atari 5200 and Atari ST |
| Release | 1979 or 1980 (Atari 8-bit) |
| Genre(s) | Space combat simulator |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Star Raiders is a space combat game written for the Atari 400 and 800 home computers and sold on an 8 KB cartridge. One Atari employee designed and programmed it.[a][1] The player commands a starship in a war against the Zylon Empire, flying it from the cockpit and plotting its course on a map of the galaxy. Molecular Reality Corporation named it in 2022, with Star Wars, as one of two "3d" inspirations for the planned game SARS Invaders.
Gameplay
Through the cockpit window the player sees a crosshair and fires photon torpedoes at Zylon fighters, which appear in a three-dimensional view and fly at the ship. A second screen is the galactic chart, a grid of sectors on which enemy ships and friendly starbases are marked. To change sectors the player picks one on the chart and makes a hyperwarp jump, which costs energy. Energy is the game's main resource. The engines, the shields and the weapons all draw on it, and docking at a starbase restores it.[1]
Enemy fire can damage six systems of the ship, among them the torpedoes, the engines, the shields and the long-range scan. The aim is to destroy every Zylon ship in the galaxy before the Zylons destroy the starbases. On the harder levels the player has to steer each hyperwarp jump by hand.[1]
Reception and influence
Barton and Loguidice call Star Raiders the first killer application of a home computer, and Byte magazine wrote that it was probably the single greatest contributor to sales of the Atari 400 and 800. Clones appeared under other names, among them Starmaster and Phaser Patrol. The same authors credit the game with setting the conventions for later space games such as Elite (1984) and Wing Commander (1990).[1]
A version for the Atari 2600 followed in 1982. Because the 2600 had no keyboard, it came with a keypad controller, the Video Touch Pad.
Influence on SARS Invaders
In the memo Early Releases on Maxine's Quest, SARS Invaders is "Inspired by: 2d Galaga, Missile Command, Defender, and Megamania, 3d Star Raiders and Star Wars". Atari made both of the "3d" games, and both show the player a scene in perspective.[2] The company's game was first called 2021: A SARS Odyssey, and the memo's picture for it shows a cluster of virus particles beside a wheel-shaped space station. Which parts of Star Raiders the company wanted is not stated. SARS Invaders had not been released by October 2026.
See also
Notes
- ^ Sources differ on the date. The program was finished in the summer of 1979, and the cartridge was in wide release by the spring of 1980.