#Missile commander atari how to#
#Missile commander atari series#

However, destroyed cities regenerate between rounds for every 10,000 points you manage to score.Īs for the controls, they’re quite simple: The player has a trackball which is used for moving the cursor. In this sense, if you lose a city, it’ll stay that way and make it much harder to survive subsequent rounds. What makes Missile Command difficult, aside from the increasing speed at which missiles fall to the ground as you progress through the levels, is the fact that your destroyed cities remain as such in the following levels. These cities are the ones you must protect, as the game is over if you lose all of them to the onslaught of enemy explosives. Between the middle and each of the lateral silos rest three cities, for a total of six. Regardless of the level, however, the player always begins with three missile silos one on each side of the screen, and one in the middle. Like with many retro arcade titles, the gameplay in Missile Command takes place in short levels with increasing difficulty.

#Missile commander atari how to#

And when it comes to the latter stages, there’s a good chance that most of your rounds will finish with all your three silos disabled, and with you crossing your fingers hoping that a stray missile doesn’t hit your remaining cities.Īnd with that being said, let’s go ahead and hop into our guide on how to get good at Missile Command. And the reason we say this is because, even if your missile silos are blown up and you’re left defenseless, it’s still possible to survive stages if any of the remaining enemy missiles don’t hit your cities. Rounds in Missile Command last only a few short seconds, regardless of whether you’re actually playing or not. However, unlike Space Invaders, your silos are immobile, don’t have unlimited ammo, and your enemies are exceedingly fast, can come from any direction, and don’t follow a set pattern.

#Missile commander atari series#

So, like Space Invaders, your goal is to take control of a series of elements on the bottom of the screen and use them to blow up other elements that are making their way towards the bottom. True to its name, Missile Command is about taking control of several missile silos and, using their limited supply of warheads, blowing up the incoming wave of enemy missiles that are raining on the field, all with the goal of keeping your cities safe. Missile Command was developed and published by Atari and featured a gameplay that we can only describe as, “Like Space Invaders, but on steroids”. In this month’s edition of Getting Good, we’re going to talk about another oldie but goodie a game that was quite popular back when it was first released in 1980. Augmented / Mixed / Virtual Reality Systems.