Asteroids is a space-themed multidirectional shooter arcade video game designed by Lyle Rains and Ed Logg released in November 1979 by Atari, Inc. The player controls a single spaceship in an asteroid field which is periodically traversed by flying saucers. The object of the game is to shoot and destroy the asteroids and saucers, while not colliding with either, or being hit by the saucers' counter-fire. The game becomes harder as the number of asteroids increases.
Millipede is a fixed shooter video game released in arcades by Atari, Inc. in 1982. The sequel to 1981's Centipede, it has more gameplay variety and a wider array of insects than the original. The objective is to score as many points as possible by destroying all segments of the millipede as it moves toward the bottom of the screen, as well as eliminating or avoiding other enemies. The game is played with a trackball and a single fire button which can be held down for rapid-fire.
Kaboom! is an action video game published in 1981 by Activision for the Atari VCS. It was programmed by Larry Kaplan, and David Crane coded the overlaid sprites. The game was well received and sold over one million cartridges by 1983.
Missile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game Tempest from the same year. The game was released during the Cold War, and the player uses a trackball to defend six cities from intercontinental ballistic missiles by launching anti-ballistic missiles from three bases.
Berzerk is a multidirectional shooter designed by Alan McNeil and released for arcades in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago. Following Taito's Stratovox, it is one of the first arcade video games with speech synthesis. Berzerk places the player in a series of top-down, maze-like rooms containing armed robots. Home ports were published for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Vectrex.
Pitfall! is a video game developed by David Crane for the Atari Video Computer System and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls Pitfall Harry, who has a time limit of 20 minutes to seek treasure in a jungle. The game world is populated by enemies and hazards that variously cause the player to lose lives or points.
Phoenix is an video game developed for arcades in Japan and released in 1980 by Taito. The game is a Fixed-screen shooter where the player controls a space ship, and must shoot at incoming enemies that fly from the top of the screen down towards the enemies.
Starmaster is a video game written for the Atari 2600 by Alan Miller and published in June 1982 by Activision. The game is similar to Atari 8-bit family game Star Raiders. Starmaster was not ported to other systems, but has been re-released in collections such as Activision Anthology.
River Raid is a video game developed by Carol Shaw for the Atari Video Computer System and released in 1982 by Activision. The player controls a fighter jet over the River of No Return in a raid behind enemy lines. The goal is to navigate the flight by destroying enemies while collecting fuel and not crashing.
Super Cobra is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed by Konami, originally released as an arcade video game in 1981. It was published by Konami in Japan in March 1981 and manufactured and distributed by Stern in North America on June 22. It is the spiritual sequel to the Scramble arcade game released earlier in 1981. Super Cobra contains eleven distinct sections, versus six in Scramble, and is significantly more difficult, requiring maneuvering through tight spaces early in the game.
Grand Prix is a Formula One Grand Prix motor racing-themed video game. It was designed and programmed by David Crane for the Atari 2600 and published by Activision in 1982.
Ice Hockey is an ice hockey video game designed by Alan Miller for the Atari VCS, and published by Activision in 1981. Actor and comedian Phil Hartman starred in the commercial for the game.
Beamrider is a fixed shooter written for the Intellivision by David Rolfe and published by Activision in 1983. The game was ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit family, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and MSX.
Megamania is an Atari 2600 game by Steve Cartwright and published by Activision in 1982. Versions were released for the Atari 5200 and Atari 8-bit family in 1983. Megamania is similar to Sega's 1981 arcade title Astro Blaster. Both games have nearly identical patterns of approaching enemies with the player relying on an "energy" meter. The player's ships are remarkably similar in both games.
Cosmic Avenger is a scrolling shooter developed by Universal and released as an arcade video game in July 1981. It is part of the first wave shooters with forced horizontal scrolling which followed Konami's Scramble and Super Cobra from earlier in the year. It was released the same month as Vanguard. The final installment in Universal's Cosmic series, players take control of the Avenger space fighter and, as in Scramble, use bullets and bombs against enemy air and ground forces. The world is one continuous level made up of different areas.
Stampede is a video game written by Bob Whitehead for the Atari Video Computer System and published by Activision in 1981. Stampede is a left-to-right, horizontally-scrolling, action game with a cattle round-up theme. An Intellivision version was released the following year.
Oink! is an Atari 2600 video game designed by Mike Lorenzen and released by Activision in 1983. Oink! is inspired by the fairy tale "The Three Little Pigs" and casts the player as a pig defending his home from a wolf bent on destroying it.
Laser Blast is a single-player video game developed and published by Activision in March 1981 for the Atari VCS console. Designed by David Crane, one of Activision's co-founders, Laser Blast places players in control of flying saucers attacking land targets.
A vertically scrolling video game or vertical scroller is a video game in which the player views the field of play principally from a top-down perspective, while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom to create the illusion that the player character is moving in the game world.
Dolphin is a side-scrolling video game created by Matthew Hubbard for the Atari 2600 and released by Activision in 1983. Dolphin requires the player to use audio cues in order to survive.
