Astro Invader, 1980 Leijac/Konami/Stern

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crazyclimber80

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Published on October 22, 2018 10:03:42 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmzqRAlNlUw

Game:

Astro Invader (1979)

Duration: 14:04

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7

Not bad Space Invaders-type game, with some fetching strategy approaches. Note the playfield: there are 2 sets of 5 columns each in which invaders are dropped by a mothership. When a column is filled with 4 invaders, the bottom one will soon drop. A falling invader is dangerous-- not so much the invader itself (though that's an obvious danger) but its explosion radius when it hits spreads out more than you'd think! To add to the danger, a saucer will periodically drop from the wide columns on the left, middle and right. Let this saucer hit the ground and you are destroyed! The fetching strategy I mentioned involves clearing out the 2 columns just left of the center wide column, and the 2 columns just right of the center wide column. Blast these columns free of aliens as best as you can so they don't fill up and drop explosive aliens. This way you can hover around the center and be just out of range of the explosions. Another strategy you can pull off is getting the maximum amount of points for the saucer. The max is 400 points (in the Astro Invader version, not the Kamikaze original, in which the max is 800 points), and it can be obtained if your 15th shot to start the game hits the first saucer. Then it must be every 16th shot, but that's hard to do since the saucer starts dropping too quickly. Other values are 100, 200, and 300. The pattern of where the saucer is not random either; it will drop center, left, right, center, right, center, left, center, center, right, left, center, right, right, left, left and repeat. Note that you can hide under the left and right walls from explosions. You CANNOT do this in Kamikaze! The aliens will also drop from the left and right columns, and their explosion radius is wider! Again, you can get 800 points from the saucers but it's not worth the added challenge. Stick with Astro Invader. The company Leijac would of course be later known as Konami with their first release under that company title, "THE END", which was also licensed to Stern.