Halley's Comet (Japan, prototype)

Arcade Video game published 38 years ago:

Halley's Comet (c) 1986 Taito.

A space-shooter. Protect the earth from falling comets and asteroids.

- TECHNICAL -

Prom Stickers : A62

Main CPU : Motorola M6809
Sound CPU : Zilog Z80
Sound Chips : (4x) General Instrument AY8910

Players : 2
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 2

- TRIVIA -

Halley's Comet was released in January 1986.

This game was inspired by the actual 'Halley's Comet' ('Halley' is pronounced HAL-lee). It was named after Edmund Halley, who calculated its 76-year orbital period. Halley's Comet was visible in 1910 and 76 years after, in 1986 (February 9, to be exact), just the year when this game was released by Taito :). Its next perihelion passage will be in 2061.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* Space Humour?:
When you start a new game and after the RESCUE THE EARTH FROM THE COMETS ! message appears, you can move your ship over it. The text will get erased, and the following message will appear over it : DO NOT ERASE.

* Level Boss Trick:
Shoot all but one of these squares and then press the hyperspace button (the smart-bomb) when the final square is lit. You should now receive 1,000,000 points! (this works for all level bosses).

* Another Tip:
When the game is in Game Over mode, you can actually control the ship at one point. This is rather useless, but fun!

* For Invincibility and Infinite Lives DIP Switches to work you must enable Debug Mode by pressing START1 during boot sequence.

- STAFF -

From highscore table: Kouju Miki (K.M), (NIG), (LSI), Hisayoshi Ogura (OGR), (E.T)

- PORTS -

* CONSOLES:
[JP] Nintendo Famicom Disk System (1989) "Halley Wars [Model TFS-HAL]"