Space Cruiser

Arcade Video game published 44 years ago:

Space Cruiser (c) 1981 Taito corporation.

An excellent and varied space shoot'm up game. Locate the coordinates of attack on the interstellar map, the UFO attack is coming!
Forwards! The Earth's future is on your shoulders! Blast off the Space Cruiser for a new survival adventure!
Stages:
1. UFO's found! Attack and destroy!
2. Danger! Asteroids!
3. Space station!
4. Alien's found! Attack and destroy!
5. Enemy bases in range!

- TECHNICAL -

Runs on the "Taito SJ System" hardware.
Prom Stickers: CG
Screen resolution: 224x256 (vertical)

Players: up to 2 (alternate)
Control: 2-way joystick (left and right)
Buttons: 2
=> A = fire, B = continue

- TRIVIA -

Released in September 1981.

A few seconds of 'Night on Bald mountain' from 'Fantasia' are played during most stages.

The game features digitized speech during countdown before blastoff, but the quality isn't high.

High score allows to put up to 10 letters.

'Forward!' is misspelled as 'Foward!'.

The game has punctuation mistakes - an unnecessary space is placed before almost all exclamation marks (except 'Danger! Asteroids!', 'Asteroids point! and 'Alien's found!' - there's no space before exclamation marks).

Also available as a cocktail model. In Japan, the cocktail version is known as "T.T. Space Cruiser".

- SCORING -

Enemy's ufo on 'UFOs found' stage: 50 points.
Mothership on 'UFOs found' stage: 1000 points.
Miniature asteroid on 'Danger! Asteroids' stage: 10 points.
Huge asteroid on 'Danger! Asteroids' stage: 20 points.
Bonus for full distance traveled with no crash on 'Danger! Asteroids' stage: 2480 points.
Docking on 'Space station' stage: 2000 points (without any shots into it) and extra life.
Ufo on 'Space station' stage: 100 points.
Shot into docking spot: (-50) points per shot, taken away from bonus score.
Alien on 'Aliens found' stage: 30 points.
Ufo on 'Enemy bases in range' stage: 100 points.
Crater damage on 'Enemy bases in range' stage: 200 points.
Crater destroyed on 'Enemy bases in range' stage: 200 points.
Rocket on 'Enemy bases in range' stage: 1 point.
Base destroyed: 3000 points.

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* You can randomly get a protective ufo on either half of the 'UFOs found' stage. This ufo protects you from rockets fired from enemy's ships.

* Avoid the red maneuvering laser from mothership on 'UFOs found' stage.

* Shoot all possible asteroids on 'Danger! Asteroids' stage.

* Watch out on 'Danger! Asteroids' stage: it has a slip zone; you'll be warned before you enter it.

* Dock successfully on 'Space station' stage to increase firepower. This is required to get 3000 point bonus for destruction of the red base.

* Shoot the green alien in the first half of the stage to kill the remaining yellow ones. Do the same on the second half, but this time cyan aliens will be dead.

* You have 21 ufos to shoot out on 'Enemy bases in range' stage before you proceed to destruction of 3 craters and the base itself.

* Watch out for red ufos: they release a yellow beam freezing you for 2 seconds.

* Don't let red ufos land on the bottom of the screen: you'll lose a life when you let them.

* You don't have much time to destroy 3 craters on 'Enemy bases in range' stage. When the base moves away, you'll need to start the game from the beginning.

- PORTS -

* COMPUTERS:
[JP] FM-7 (1983)
[JP] NEC PC-8801 (1983)

- CONTRIBUTE -

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