Missile Command is a game that has stood the test of time magnificently. It was originally created by Dave Theurer while he was working for the Atari corporation whom released the game in 1980 as an arcade machine. Missile command has been ported countless times since this release in 1980, making an appearance in almost every new generation of console gaming, from the Atari consoles, all the way through to Xbox 360, as well as being released every few years on PC and has now made its way into both Apple and Google's application stores for smart phones.
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The first spark of the idea of missile command came from the president of Atari after a magazine article about satellites caught his attention, he then passed the article to Lyle Rains, a senior producer at Atari at the time. Lyle then asked Dave Theurer to create an action packed arcade game. The game was originally going to be dubbed Armageddon, though this was scrapped as there was a bit of doubt that people would not know what the word means, thus it was named missile command.
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Release
Doomsday Clock
Before I talk about the success of Missile Command, I would like to take a minute to paint a picture of the world during its release.
The year was 1980, tensions between Russia and America were at an all time high, and the doomsday clock was beginning to creep closer and closer to midnight, signifying the end of the human race. The end would come in the form of hundreds of nuclear missiles being launched by Russia and America, covering the world in a toxic radiation cloud, leaving nothing alive. The only defence against such a missile attack was a missile defence system, in which anti-ballistic missiles were used to shoot down the incoming nuclear interplanetary ballistic missiles. Fear was at an all time high as the end of the world was coming.
With all this fear and tension, Missile Command exploded into the arcade and it was such a realistic interpretation of what might happen if the doomsday clock finally reached midnight. Not only did it give kids the ability to feel like they were defending their own country against the threat of a missile attack, but it also accurately showed what would happen if the clock finally hit midnight.
To give a few figures, in 1981 Missile command was released on the Atari 2600, and on this console it sold over 2.5 million copies, which was the third most successful game Atari ever released, which is a figure dwarfed by the top two sellers Pitfall, 4 million copies and Pacman 7 million copies.
The year was 1980, tensions between Russia and America were at an all time high, and the doomsday clock was beginning to creep closer and closer to midnight, signifying the end of the human race. The end would come in the form of hundreds of nuclear missiles being launched by Russia and America, covering the world in a toxic radiation cloud, leaving nothing alive. The only defence against such a missile attack was a missile defence system, in which anti-ballistic missiles were used to shoot down the incoming nuclear interplanetary ballistic missiles. Fear was at an all time high as the end of the world was coming.
With all this fear and tension, Missile Command exploded into the arcade and it was such a realistic interpretation of what might happen if the doomsday clock finally reached midnight. Not only did it give kids the ability to feel like they were defending their own country against the threat of a missile attack, but it also accurately showed what would happen if the clock finally hit midnight.
To give a few figures, in 1981 Missile command was released on the Atari 2600, and on this console it sold over 2.5 million copies, which was the third most successful game Atari ever released, which is a figure dwarfed by the top two sellers Pitfall, 4 million copies and Pacman 7 million copies.
Story
The original story of Missile command was that the player was defending the California coast of america from a russian missile attack, this idea was however dropped, as it made the game much too realistic. In the end Atari opted for a story much more appealing to kids.
Aliens from Krytol are attacking the planet Zardon. The Zardonians are a peaceful race, who are skilled and hard working with rich built up cities, their civilisation is devoid of crime and violence. As it is the last peaceful planet, they are prepared with a powerful defence, antiballistic missile systems are placed near the cities. You are the base commander, and your task is to protect the Zardonian cities from interplanetary ballistic missiles (IBMs) fired by the Krytolians as well as cruise missiles that look like satellites. |
Missile Command Audio Book |
Gameplay
The rules to Mission command are simple, use the three missile batteries, Alpha, Delta and Omega to shoot down the incoming missiles before they destroy either one of your 6 cities or one of the missile batteries. This is done by using the three buttons to command the firing of each missile battery individually, as well as a trackball that was used to aim the targeting reticule for the next missile shot. The difficulty comes in that each battery has 10 missiles which will not be replenished until the start of the next level and the missiles fired from the outer two missile batteries, Alpha and Omega, travel quite slowly compared to the Delta battery. Thus the user must conserve their ammunition every level and attempt to hit multiple missiles with a single shot, as well as ensuring that every shot taken is a hit.
The player progresses through the game in stages, each stage being 2 levels long. Upon reaching the next stage the difficulty level of the game is increased, in the early stages of the game this increase is quite drastic, making the game of a novice user over quite quickly, meaning that skilled players usually got much more entertainment out of their spent quarter than a novice player. This is also increased through the fact that as the player continues through each stage, the number of points available from each stage is increased, and every 10,000 points the player is given an extra city. Points are gained several ways, during each round points are gained from destroying incoming missiles, as well as jets and satellites that shoot missiles, at the end of a round bonus points are awarded for the number of cities left, and the number of left over missiles at the end of a round.
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After playing this game several times, and failing pretty badly, I figured that trying to save every city is very difficult, and for a novice player such as myself it is much easier to cordon off one side of the screen and attempt to defend those three cities, allowing the other three to be sacrificed, and at the start of each wave, using the missile battery that is on its own to lay a blanket of fire, using the majority of its ammo as early as possible before ignoring it and using the two batteries closer to the cities I am protecting.
Goals and Records
As there is no final mission or ending to missile command it is impossible to beat, therefore the goal is simply to survive for as long as possible and rack up the highest possible score.
There are currently two records for missile command, this is due to the fact that it is possible for a player to continue playing the game indefinitely as they gain a life every 10,000 points, making it more of a battle of endurance rather than that of pure skill. The two types of records are Marathon mode, which the player may gain lives, and tournament mode, in which the user only has his initial 6 cities, making it one of the hardest classic game record.
The current official records are:
In Marathon mode the record is held by Victor Ali at 80,364,995 points, this was set in 1982 and took Victor 56 hours of continuous play to get.
In Tournament mode the record is held by , Tony Temple at 1,967,830 points, which was set in 2006.
There are currently two records for missile command, this is due to the fact that it is possible for a player to continue playing the game indefinitely as they gain a life every 10,000 points, making it more of a battle of endurance rather than that of pure skill. The two types of records are Marathon mode, which the player may gain lives, and tournament mode, in which the user only has his initial 6 cities, making it one of the hardest classic game record.
The current official records are:
In Marathon mode the record is held by Victor Ali at 80,364,995 points, this was set in 1982 and took Victor 56 hours of continuous play to get.
In Tournament mode the record is held by , Tony Temple at 1,967,830 points, which was set in 2006.
Evaluation
The game is very repetitive and and the sound is absolutely horrible, it is loud, and noisy with no music or anything to help dull the sounds of the missiles being fired and exploding. The graphics is nice and simple, as the game is quite difficult already, and very busy having any more on the screen would remove from the game play rather than add to it.
I found the game a little fun, but at the same time it was very repetitive and boring.It definitely has re-playability simply due to the fact that it is so hard and the difficulty increases so quickly that i find that i played 5 or 6 games in quick succession attempting to beat my previous score before even realising it.
Overall i would have to say this game is still a decent game, requiring quite a fair amount of speed and skill to play, I would probably have to give it a 6/10, simply because the sound was actually quite painful to listen to and the fact I was just generally not very good at it.
I found the game a little fun, but at the same time it was very repetitive and boring.It definitely has re-playability simply due to the fact that it is so hard and the difficulty increases so quickly that i find that i played 5 or 6 games in quick succession attempting to beat my previous score before even realising it.
Overall i would have to say this game is still a decent game, requiring quite a fair amount of speed and skill to play, I would probably have to give it a 6/10, simply because the sound was actually quite painful to listen to and the fact I was just generally not very good at it.