![]() Players expecting more of the same on stage two were surprised to find themselves in an entirely different environment: a surreal network of maze-like columns, rocks and Maoi heads, which spat hoops of deadly lasers. While you can see the influence of Scramble in the game’s opening level, with its undulating planetscape and sharp outcroppings, the designers also added screen-filling, magma-spewing volcanoes, enemies which scuttled around on the planet’s surface, and a huge, show-stopping alien ship to fight at the end – and this was only stage one. Inspired by Star Wars and an anime adaptation of EE “Doc” Smith’s Lensman, which had just appeared in cinemas in the mid-1980s, Gradius’ designers allowed their imaginations to run riot. Subscribe Gradius and the side-scroller’s heydayĬreated by a group of four developers in their early 20s, Gradius was originally envisioned as a direct sequel to Scramble, before its design gradually drifted away from the game which inspired it. But Super Cobra was, if anything, an even more widely-ported game than Scramble, with versions of it appearing on the Atari 2600, the Colecovision and the MSX home computer. Konami somewhat cheekily recycled the code from Scramble itself, with Super Cobra (also released in 1981) offering up the same frantic vaunt through tunnels and across mountains, except this time in a little helicopter. The Commodore 64 alone saw a range of thinly-veiled clones of Defender and Scramble, each rechristened with names such as Survivor, Skramble and the rather rude-sounding Shaft Raider. The aim was the same (defend the hapless humans from the aliens) but was distinguished by its control system, which presented the player with no fewer than six buttons as well as a two-way joystick – quite a bewildering sight in 1981, particularly if you were used to the ‘left-right-shoot’ mechanics of most of the era’s blasters.ĭefender, Stargate and Scramble ushered in a wave of official and unofficial ports and clones, ensuring that, even if you’d never set foot in an arcade back in the early 80s, you’d probably played or at least seen a side-scrolling shooter if you owned an Atari 2600 or a home computer. That same year saw also saw the release of Stargate – Jarvis and Larry DeMar’s sequel to Defender. Like Defender, Scramble was ferociously difficult, particularly when the rolling planet surface gave way to claustrophobic little tunnels, where the environment became as deadly to negotiate as the waves of alien craft. The player’s ship traversed a rocky landscape, taking out alien craft with bullets and bombs while replenishing a constantly-falling energy supply by taking out fuel drums lying on the surface. Less mind-bogglingly fast than Defender, Scramble was clearly derived from the same DNA as Williams’ earlier hit. Just one year after Defender appeared in arcades, along came Konami’s Scramble. ![]() ![]() While Defender established Williams as one of America’s big names in game design – Joust and Robotron 2084 were two of its other major hits in the early 1980s – other developers were also looking closely at Eugene Jarvis’ breakthrough shooter. ![]() As a result, Defender became one of the most popular games of the amusement arcade’s golden era, and the side-scrolling shooter was born. After the static screens of Space Invaders, Galaxian and their assorted clones, Defender’s speed and relentless intensity was mesmerising. ![]()
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