''Armor Attack'' is a

multidirectional shooter Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs) are a subgenre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character mo ...

Tim Skelly Tim Skelly (February 10, 1951 – death reported March 2, 2020) was a video game designer and game programmer who developed arcade games for Cinematronics from 1978 until 1981. He designed a series of pure action games using black and white vecto ...

and released as an

arcade video game An arcade video game is an arcade game that takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. All arcade video games are coin-oper ...

Cinematronics Cinematronics Incorporated was an arcade game video game developer, developer that primarily released vector graphics games in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While other companies released games based on raster graphics, raster displays, early ...

in 1980. It was licensed to

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

for release in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and also to Rock-Ola. The

vector graphics Vector graphics are a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector displ ...

of ''Armor Attack'' present combat between the player's jeep and enemy vehicles in an overhead, maze-like view of a town. The buildings are not drawn in the game, but are an overlay that sits on top of the monitor. The overlay also tints the vectors green. ''Armor Attack'' was released for the

Vectrex The Vectrex is a vector display-based home video game console, the only one ever designed and released for the home market, that was developed by Smith Engineering and manufactured and sold by General Consumer Electronics. It was first released ...

in 1982.

Gameplay

One button rotates the jeep clockwise, while a second button rotates counterclockwise. A third button simulates the gas pedal and moves the jeep forward. A fourth button is used for firing a

rocket launcher A rocket launcher is a weapon that launches an unguided, rocket-propelled projectile. History The earliest rocket launchers documented in imperial China consisted of arrows modified by the attachment of a rocket motor to the shaft a few i ...

that shoots straight ahead. The player can have two rockets in the air at a time.

Tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

s periodically spawn from different locations on the edge of the screen and drive towards the player. The tanks always travel along horizontal or vertical lines, unlike the freely moving jeep. Tank turrets move to track the player, allowing them to shoot in any direction. Tanks normally take two hits to kill, and the player can have only two rockets on the screen at a time. The

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

spawns from any point, and approaches the player in looping paths flying over the jeep and periodically firing. If hit, the helicopter spirals in. Destroying the helicopter rewards the player with an extra life. The player can be killed by being shot by either the tanks or helicopter, or by colliding with the tanks. In two-player mode, the players can not kill each other. Gameplay periodically speeds up to increase the difficulty.

Reception

David H. Ahl David H. Ahl (born May 17, 1939) is an American author who is the founder of ''Creative Computing'' magazine. He is also the author of many how-to books, including ''BASIC Computer Games'', the first computer book to sell more than a million cop ...

of ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...

Video & Arcade Games'' praised the "amazing realism" of the enemy helicopter in the Vectrex version.

References

External links

* {{KLOV game, id=6925
''Armor Attack''
at Arcade History 1980 video games Arcade video games Cinematronics games Multidirectional shooters Multiplayer and single-player video games Vector arcade video games Vectrex games Video games developed in the United States Rock-Ola games