Missile Command

[JaySevenZero]

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions of Missile Command for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder to all that where feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but self-editing (brevity) is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mainly reading. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

[stvnorman]

I don’t remember ever seeing this in any arcades at the time, which might explain why that despite playing many home versions over the decades, I had no idea you could shoot from three places until I accidentally pressed the wrong button on the PS4 Atari Flashback Collection (around two weeks ago)! Only shooting from the centre base is a bit simpler, but it might affect your high score capability, and if nothing else, those extra sets of missiles are a real luxury!

[ratsoalbion]

That’s pretty much the equivalent of playing Asteroids and never moving your ship from the centre of the screen...

[stvnorman]

You can move your ship??? I know it’s only almost Asteroids, but I was so good at the similar Omega Race on the VIC-20 that I did exactly that for more challenge - didn’t have many games to choose from in those days! Anyway, the additional bases have been a real revelation in my enjoyment of Missile Command!

[seanmacgabhann]

I was a 10 year old when Space Invaders arrived in my local arcade

Overnight, we went from tuppeny-push machines and maybe pong to.. queues out the door, as people couldn't wait to play This New Thing

We glimpsed the future and wondered if more would follow. We had no idea.

A cavalcade of new games arrived in quick succession and that early 80s scene remains a blissful memory

But Missile Command was the game that forged me and has remained with me to this day. When I read retrospectives on the game, it usually involves The Cold War and how the Game Over screen was a chilling reminder of same. I was 12 when Missile Command arrived and was aware of global political machinations. But perhaps the abstractions of the Atari coin-op allowed me to ignore that connection and focus on the game itself. The Game Over screen never gave me chills

By now, the left-right/fire combo was common practice in new arcade games - but the layout of Missile Command made it special. Those three fire buttons combined with the rollerball (a hefty contraption for my slender hands - centipede this was not) made this game stand out

Those first 4 waves demonstrated the basics - they got faster, the sprite colours changed and you needed to up your game as you progressed. Standard
But wave 5 changed everything. Cyan background. Pink sprites. And a significant increase in tempo. Simply moving the crosshair was no longer viable. A new strategy was required

I don't know if it has acquired a name - but the combination of ball-roll across the screen, combined with a salvo of missiles from nearest base to form a wall of defence became the way forward for all future waves

The sound was amazing - especially as the between-waves screen totted up spare missiles and cities

The gap between a perfect wall of missile explosions - annhialating all oncoming attacks, and an imperfect wall - where attacks would sneak through and then split and destroy your bases, can be measured in millimiteres and milliseconds

This game remains in my all time top 10, 40 years later

[BlueWeaselBreath]

If my memories are correct, I first played Missile Command on my friend’s Macintosh in the early 90s. It was black and white, and you moved the mouse cursor to where you wanted to launch, then clicked, making a black circle in the area. Looking back now, I realize this control scheme results in an entirely different gameplay experience than the arcade original, but in its own right, the Mac version is a parsimonious, satisfying, and addictive experience. I don’t believe that I’ve ever played the game since, in any other format, unless I messed with a similar PC version some time in my youth.

[Stanshall]

I first played 'Missile Command' on the BBC Micro. It was a knock-off imitation called Missile Base and I found it incredibly stark and stressful. The anticipation of the first few seconds was exciting as I predicted my first shots and I visualised the missile trajectories in my mind, but this immediately turned to panic once the vector lines began streaking across the monitor towards my bases. My rising panic never became unbearable, though, because the Game Over screen usually appeared pretty quickly. In defence of my seven-year-old self, it was virtually unplayable with keyboard but nevertheless, it's not a game I held in great regard as I grew up and experienced the unimaginable leaps of the medium. While I could look back quite fondly on the simple but somewhat enduring pleasures of Space Invaders, Asteroids and Galaga, in my mind Missile Command was a joyless relic.

Fast forward roughly thirty years and I finally played the game as intended at Arcade Club in Bury. And what a revelation it was! With the speed and angular precision of the trackball and a more attuned visual acuity for bullets and lasers, I had a great time with it over the course of an afternoon and it's now a game I will always seek out for a few credits when I visit. It is still a very stressful experience but when you're better equipped to meet the demands of the overlapping bullet trails, it becomes intense and thrilling and it has a unique feel. It doesn't feel like a shoot em up, necessarily, because of the lack of movement or dodging, but when you get in the zone, it does produce an intense, euphoric flow state similar to how I feel when reading bullet hell patterns. I wish I'd played it properly thirty years earlier.

Ultimately, it's an iconic, tactile, exciting arcade experience that is difficult to reproduce faithfully at home, even in 2020, and for that reason it's something I will always look forward to playing whenever the chance arises.

[Simonsloth]

My dad always loved to be on the cutting edge when it came to home cinema. Surround sound, subwoofers and laser disc were the norm in our household. His favourite movie scene to showcase his setup to friends was the chase sequence from Terminator:Judgement Day.

As a consequence I saw this sequence multiple times without being old enough to see the whole film. I watched longingly at Edward Furlong playing Afterburner and Missile Command. These were on his C.V as future-war commander so therefore being good at these games would put myself in contention for a similar prestigious mantle.

But the first time I played it was on the Atari with a joystick and I could not have been more disappointed. The game controlled terribly and I was equally bad at playing it.

Roll on a decade and I would find myself in (I think) the london Trocadero with a arcade cabinet complete with trackball. I gave it a whirl and instantly my whole perception of the game changed. There’s something almost mesmerising compared to the Atari home computer equivalent. I became John Connor.

This really comes back to the legacy of the arcade and how playing games how they were originally intended is a little bit magical.