Tuesday, June 30, 2009

When the Earth is destroyed you get guilt.




Star Strike was one of the first Intellivision games that really showcased its awesome 16-bit power! I mean, sure, you could float in the blackness of space in Asteroids and blast some floating cosmic debris but that could not really compare to flying down the trench of a large battle cruiser, having only a limited amount of time before the Earth came out from behind the Moon and was within range of the missile that would ignite its atmosphere and cause it to explode before your very eyes!

The popularity of this game probably had something to do with its connection to the ending of Star Wars...in fact it could have been designed as a home game version of Star Wars for Intellivision had been working on a title for Battlestar Galactica but the producers ended up not going for it, with a product already in hand they named the game Space Battle but the ships are clearly Cylon fighters.

The object of Star Strike was to bombs vents that appeared below your ship at key times, enough vents hit would overload the battle crusier and cause it to explode. You also had to beware of other starcraft trying to blast you out of the trench as well as crashing into the surface of the crusier.

I've included one of the Plimpton commercials comparing Asteroids and Star Strike, the second one was an Intellivision ad played in movie theaters and Drive-In movies. I saw it and an Atari Dig Dug commercial when I went to see the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas at the local Drive-In. Yeah...the second feature was Cat People.









No comments: