Major Havoc

Last updated
Major Havoc
Mhavoc flyer.png
American arcade flyer
Developer(s) Atari, Inc.
Publisher(s) Atari, Inc.
Designer(s) Owen Rubin
Mark Cerny
Programmer(s) Owen Rubin
Mark Cerny
Platform(s) Arcade
Release
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s)Up to 2 players

Major Havoc (or The Adventures of Major Havoc) is an arcade action game released by Atari, Inc. in 1984. [1] A vector-based upright arcade cabinet, Major Havoc consists of several smaller game experiences played in succession, including a fixed shooter, platform game, and a lunar lander sequence. It was developed by Owen Rubin with some levels designed and tuned by Mark Cerny, who joined the development team approximately a year into the game's development. [2]

Contents

The game was released as a dedicated cabinet in January 1984 and then in March 1984 as a conversion kit [1] for older vector arcade games like Tempest . [3] Dedicated versions of the game used a roller control for left-right movement, while conversion kits used their native controller hardware, such as the Tempest rotary spinner knob. [4]

Plot

According to the story provided by the game's original cabinet, long ago the evil Vaxxian Empire overran the galaxy. Most of humanity was enslaved and abducted to the Vaxxian homeworld. A few humans, who were scientists, managed to escape. At the current moment (according to the timeline of the game), the Empire has since collapsed, but numerous Vaxxian space stations, all blindly controlled and defended by robots, still remain in the galaxy, mindlessly pursuing their original orders.

The small band of scientists who initially escaped managed to clone the great human hero Major Havoc, in order to fly his Catastrofighter through a wormhole in space, so that he may lead a clone army against the dreaded Vaxxian robots, and to liberate the remnants of humanity by destroying the enemy reactors. The player controls Major Havoc, the leader of this very band of clones.

Some games identified the Vaxxian homeworld as Maynard, referring to the town of Maynard, Massachusetts, home of Digital Equipment Corporation, manufacturer of the VAX minicomputer.

Gameplay

Platform segment Mhavoc gameplay.png
Platform segment

The player controls the titular character, Major Rex Havoc, first in the "shoot-'em-up" style game, in which the player operated Major Havoc's spaceship, the Catastrofighter, against the numerous robot ships who defend the enemy reactors. The ships are encased in a sort of "buckyball" force-field shield which must be shot first before the ship can be killed.

In the next phase, the player lands on the robot space station by centering the Catastrofighter in between the moving white line and Major Havoc would exit his ship and enter the space-station. The roller-knob controlled left and right character movement and a "jump" button permits the player's character to leap over obstacles. The object is to get to the core of the space station, sabotage the reactor, and escape to a minimum safe distance before the space station explodes. Red arrows point the direction going in and the word "OUT" appears on the arrows during escape to point the direction out. The levels get gradually more complicated and difficult to navigate as the player progresses. Upon a successful mission, the next space station becomes more difficult and the time allotted (both in and out) is decreased.

The game includes a "warp system" that lets the player to skip levels and gain bonus points. Warps are activated by a Breakout game at the bottom-right of the screen, where there are two- or three-digit numbers. The player has to move the joystick until the number matches the number required to warp. For example, the red warp requires the number 23, so the player moves the joystick to the right or left until the first digit matches 2, then the player clicks the fire button, the Breakout ball starts moving, so the player has to play the game while moving the joystick to the 3 at the same time. When the player enters the warp code, the player is transported to a higher level.

Extra lives are earned not only by achieving a certain number of points, but also by completing the Breakout mini-game.

Reception

Gene Lewin of Play Meter magazine reviewed the arcade game in January 1984, scoring it 2 out of 10 for initially being an expensive dedicated cabinet rather than a more affordable conversion kit. [5]

Legacy

Major Havoc was re-released as part of compilations of older Atari games, such as Atari Anthology . In July 2010, the game was re-released on Microsoft's Game Room service for its Xbox 360 console and for Games for Windows Live. In March 2011 a port was released on Nintendo DS and iOS as part of the Atari's Greatest Hits Vol. 2 collection.

World record

According to Twin Galaxies, Ettore Ciaffi, of New York, NY, scored a world record 1,940,078 points on June 28, 1985, at the Broadway Arcade during the Video Game Masters Tournament.

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Asteroids</i> (video game) 1979 video game

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.

<i>Zaxxon</i> 1982 video game

Zaxxon is a scrolling shooter developed and released by Sega as an arcade video game in 1982. The player pilots a ship through heavily defended space fortresses. Japanese electronics company Ikegami Tsushinki was also involved in the game's development.

<i>Berzerk</i> (video game) 1980 video game

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.

<i>Breakout</i> (video game) 1976 video game

Breakout is an arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and released on May 13, 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak, based on conceptualization from Nolan Bushnell and Steve Bristow, who were influenced by the seminal 1972 Atari arcade game Pong. In Breakout, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen and the goal is to destroy them all by repeatedly bouncing a ball off a paddle into them. The arcade game was released in Japan by Namco. Breakout was a worldwide commercial success, among the top five highest-grossing arcade video games of 1976 in both the United States and Japan and then among the top three highest-grossing arcade video games of 1977 in the US and Japan. The 1978 Atari VCS port uses color graphics instead of a monochrome screen with colored overlay.

<i>Gyruss</i> 1983 video game

Gyruss is shoot 'em up arcade video game designed by Yoshiki Okamoto and released by Konami in 1983. Gyruss was initially licensed to Centuri in the United States for dedicated machines, before Konami released their own self-distributed conversion kits for the game. Parker Brothers released contemporary ports for home systems. An enhanced version for the Family Computer Disk System was released in 1988, which was released to the North American Nintendo Entertainment System in early 1989.

<i>Ikari Warriors</i> 1986 video game

Ikari Warriors, known as Ikari in Japan, is a vertically scrolling run and gun video game released for arcades by SNK in 1986. It was published in North America by Tradewest. At the time there were many Commando clones on the market. What distinguished Ikari Warriors were rotary joysticks and a two-player cooperative mode. The rotary joystick controls were in turn based on SNK's earlier TNK III (1985). Ikari was originally intended to be an official licensed adaptation of the film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), but SNK were initially unable to acquire the rights to the film.

<i>Gorf</i> 1981 video game

Gorf is an arcade video game released in 1981 by Midway Manufacturing, whose name was advertised as an acronym for "Galactic Orbiting Robot Force". It is a fixed shooter with five distinct levels, the first of which is based on Space Invaders and another on Galaxian. The game makes use of synthesized speech for the Gorfian robot which taunts the player, powered by the Votrax speech chip. Gorf allows the player to buy two additional lives per quarter before starting the game, for a maximum of seven lives.

<i>Robotron: 2084</i> 1982 video game

Robotron: 2084 is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional world where robots have turned against humans in a cybernetic revolt. The aim is to defeat endless waves of robots, rescue surviving humans, and earn as many points as possible.

<i>Space Ace</i> 1983 video game

Space Ace is a LaserDisc video game produced by Bluth Group, Cinematronics and Advanced Microcomputer Systems. It was unveiled in October 1983, just four months after the Dragon's Lair game, followed by a limited release in December 1983 and then a wide release in Spring 1984. Like its predecessor, it featured film-quality animation played back from a LaserDisc.

<i>I, Robot</i> (video game) 1984 video game

I, Robot is an arcade shooter game developed and released in 1984 by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dave Theurer, only a total of 750–1000 arcade cabinets were produced. The arcade machine comes with two games. The first is I, Robot, a multi-directional shooter that has the player assume the role of "Unhappy Interface Robot #1984", a servant bot that rebels against Big Brother. The object of the game involves the servant bot going through 126 levels, turning red squares to blue to destroy Big Brother's shield and eye. The player can switch to the second game, Doodle City, a drawing tool that lasts for three minutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arcade cabinet</span> Housing within which an arcade games electronic hardware resides

An arcade cabinet, also known as an arcade machine or a coin-op cabinet or coin-op machine, is the housing within which an arcade game's electronic hardware resides. Most cabinets designed since the mid-1980s conform to the Japanese Amusement Machine Manufacturers Association (JAMMA) wiring standard. Some include additional connectors for features not included in the standard.

<i>Gravitar</i> 1982 video game

Gravitar is a color vector graphics multidirectional shooter arcade video game released by Atari, Inc. in 1982. Using the same "rotate-and-thrust" controls as Asteroids and Space Duel, the game was known for its high level of difficulty. It was the first of over twenty games that Mike Hally designed and produced for Atari. The main programmer was Rich Adam and the cabinet art was designed by Brad Chaboya. 5,427 cabinets were produced. An Atari 2600 version by Dan Hitchens was published by Atari in 1983.

Sinistar is a 1983 multidirectional shooter arcade game developed and manufactured by Williams Electronics. It was created by Sam Dicker, Jack Haeger, Noah Falstein, RJ Mical, Python Anghelo, and Richard Witt. Players control a space pilot who battles the eponymous Sinistar, a giant, anthropomorphic spacecraft. The game is known for its use of digitized speech and high difficulty level.

<i>Cyberball</i> 1988 video game

Cyberball is a video game released in arcades in 1988 by Atari Games. The game is a 7-man American football using robotic avatars of different speeds, sizes, and skill sets set in the year 2022. Originally released for arcades, Cyberball was ported to several home consoles and computers.

<i>Tank</i> (video game) 1974 arcade game

Tank is an arcade game developed by Kee Games, a subsidiary of Atari, and released in November 1974. It was one of the few original titles not based on an existing Atari property developed by Kee Games, which was founded to sell clones of Atari games to distributors as a fake competitor prior to the merger of the two companies. In the game, two players drive tanks through a maze viewed from above while attempting to shoot each other and avoid mines, represented by X marks, in a central minefield. Each player controls their tank with a pair of joysticks, moving them forwards and back to drive, reverse, and steer, and firing shells with a button to attempt to destroy the other tank. The destruction of a tank from a mine or shell earns the opposing player a point, and tanks reappear after being destroyed. The winner is the player with more points when time runs out, with each game typically one or two minutes long.

<i>Reactor</i> (video game) 1982 video game

Reactor is an arcade video game released in 1982 by Gottlieb. The object of the game is to cool down the core of a nuclear reactor without being pushed into its walls by swarms of subatomic particles. Reactor was developed by Tim Skelly, who previously designed and programmed a series of vector graphics arcade games for Cinematronics, including Rip Off. It was the first arcade game to credit the developer on the title screen. Reactor was ported to the Atari 2600 by Charlie Heath and published by Parker Brothers the same year as the original.

In video gaming parlance, a conversion is the production of a game on one computer or console that was originally written for another system. Over the years, video game conversion has taken form in a number of different ways, both in their style and the method in which they were converted.

Blaster is a first-person rail shooter released as an arcade video game by Williams Electronics in 1983. It was developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar. A vague sequel to Robotron: 2084, the game is a shoot 'em up set in outer space. The goal is to destroy enemies, avoid obstacles, and rescue astronauts in twenty levels, to reach paradise.

<i>Vindicators</i> (video game) 1988 video game

Vindicators is an arcade video game released by Atari Games in 1988. One or two players each control a tank in a multidirectional scrolling level. Home ports were by Tengen. Vindicators was not licensed by Nintendo and used an alternate chip to defeat the 10NES lockout system. Ports were planned for the Atari Lynx and Apple IIGS, with the latter even completed, but both were cancelled. Vindicators was followed by the lesser known arcade sequel, Vindicators Part II.

<i>Rebound</i> (video game) 1974 arcade game

Rebound is a two-player sports arcade video game developed by Atari and released in February 1974. In the game, two players each control paddles on either side of a volleyball net, with a ball dropped from the top of the screen. The players bounce the ball back and forth across the net with the goal of scoring points by having the ball reach the bottom or side of the other player's half of the screen, with the trajectory of the ball dependent on where it strikes the paddle. The winner is the first player to reach eleven or fifteen points, depending on the game settings.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Manufacturers Equipment" (PDF). Cash Box . February 2, 1985. p. 42.
  2. ↑ "Major Havoc - 1984 Atari Inc". Atari Museum. Archived from the original on 12 August 2020. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  3. ↑ GameArchive: Atari Major Havoc
  4. ↑ Atari Major Havoc: Coin-Op: Arcade: ggdb.com
  5. ↑ Lewin, Gene (January 15, 1984). "Gene's Judgements: Critiquing AMOA Show Conversions, Dedicated Games". Play Meter . Vol. 10, no. 2. pp. 60–3.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.