Popular games for platform Vectrex
The very first racing game with the rear perspective camera and track based on real life.
The player controls an aircraft, referred to in the game as a "Jet," and has to guide it across a scrolling terrain, battling obstacles along the way. The ship is armed with a forward-firing weapon and bombs; each weapon has its own button. The player must avoid colliding with the terrain and other enemies, while simultaneously maintaining its limited fuel supply which diminishes over time. More fuel can be acquired by destroying fuel tanks in the game. The game is divided into six sections, each with a different style of terrain and different obstacles. There is no intermission between each section; the game simply scrolls into the new terrain. Points are awarded based upon the number of seconds of being alive, and on destroying enemies and fuel tanks. In the final section, the player must destroy a "base". Once this has been accomplished, a flag denoting a completed mission is posted at the bottom right of the screen. The game then continues by returning to the first section once more, with a slight increase in difficulty.
The player controls a jeep and must destroy the many tanks and helicopters that attack them in a maze-like cityscape. The jeep is armed with a rocket launcher that fires straight forward; the player can have two rockets on-screen at the time. The driving is generally similar to the well-known Combat for the Atari 2600. Tanks 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 spawns from any point, and approaches the player in looping paths flying over the jeep and periodically firing. If hit, the helicopter spirals in.
Catch the falling bombs! (And you thought your job was dangerous!).
The player controls a gun turret on a watchtower in the Robot Drop Zone. Robots circle the tower and shoot seekers at the player in an attempt to deplete their damage gauge. Both the robots and the seekers must be destroyed, but ammo is not infinite and must be used with care. When the player's ammo is completely spent, it's only a matter of time before game over. In a phase where a certain number of robots must be destroyed, the player is just a sitting duck; however, in a survival phase, it is possible to advance to the next stage if the player has enough health, then they can can wait out the time limit.
The goal in Narrow Escape is to successfully navigate a ship through the narrow, fast-moving passages of the warlord's fortress, destroy the defense forces and avoid space debris. The player's ship must also be maneuvered through small holes in a series of walls where fuel cells can be picked up to restore the ship's constantly decreasing fuel supply. If the player pilots their ship successfully, they will be faced with the warlord's own escape ship which must be hit several times to be destroyed, liberating the star system from the warlord's tyranny. Each level becomes more difficult as everything will move faster, fuel will be consumed more quickly, the holes in the walls will become smaller, and more menacing defense forces will appear. Each level of game play consists of two phases: 1. Passages: During the first phase of each level, the player must maneuver their ship through the narrow, moving passages with the joystick while shooting six of the warlord's defense forces with button 4. If any of the six are missed, they will go off-screen and be recycled to give the player another chance, but more fuel will be used. In addition to various defense forces which must be destroyed, there are extra targets that can be shot for additional points. Unlike the regular defense forces, the extra targets are non-threatening in that they will not shoot or crash into the player's ship. During this phase, space debris will also be shooting up through the play field. Space debris cannot be shot and can only be avoided by dodging it by moving from side to side. The walls of the narrow passage are also a danger to the player. If the player's ship crashes into a wall, a life will be lost. There are gaps between the moving walls which the player can maneuver quickly into and out of so as to avoid approaching enemies or space debris, however as game play becomes faster this will present a higher risk to crashing into oncoming walls. 2. Walls: If the passages are successfully navigated and the the required six defense forces are destroyed, the player will enter the second phase. This is a series of walls with holes. In the first level of the game, there are five successive walls, each with one hole through which the player must maneuver their ship. In the second level of play, there will be six successive walls, in the third level, seven walls, etc. Also the size of the holes will become smaller in each new level. The hole will be in a different location on each wall. After passing through the hole in each wall (but prior to entering the hole in the next wall) there will be a fuel cell which must be passed to pick up. If the fuel cells are missed, the game will continue, but the fuel gauge will be continuously depleting. Note: in early levels of the game, all of the fuel cells will not need to be captured. However as the game progresses and fuel is consumed faster, all of the fuel cells will need to be captured in order to make it through the next level. After successfully completing three levels of play, the player will come face-to-face with the warlord's escape ship in open space. The warlord's ship must be shot five times to be destroyed during the first encounter, seven times on the next encounter, nine times the next, etc. The warlord's ship will shoot torpedoes at the player's ship, which can be either avoided or shot at to be destroyed. If the warlord's escape ship is destroyed, the player will enter the next level of play and the game will continue.
Vectris is your typical blocks and lines type puzzle game. The game is complete however, it does suffer from some screen flicker. A Vectrex side effect of drawing too many vectors on screen at once
Rip-Off is a vector shoot 'em up released in arcades by Cinematronics in 1980. It is the first shoot 'em up arcade game to feature cooperative gameplay and the first game to exhibit "flocking" behavior. The objective is to prevent computer-controlled enemies from stealing eight canisters set in the center of the screen. One or two players control tank-like vehicles while game-controlled "pirate" tanks rush onto the field and attempt to drag the canisters off the edge of the screen. Enemies can be defeated by shooting or colliding with them. The game speed and difficulty increase with each successive wave until all the canisters have been taken ("ripped off").
Produced as a promotional item for the Mr. Boston liquor company, Mr. Boston Clean Sweep is an extremely rare game for the Vectrex.
Space Wars is an early vector graphics arcade game. It is based on Spacewar!, a PDP-1 program. It was ported to the Vectrex in 1982. Space Wars was the brainchild of Larry Rosenthal, an MIT graduate who was fascinated with the original Spacewar! and developed his own custom hardware and software so that he could play the game. Cinematronics worked with Rosenthal to produce the Space Wars system. Two players controlled different ships. One button rotated the ship left, another rotated the ship right, one engaged thrust, one fired a shell, and one entered hyperspace (which causes the ship to disappear and reappear elsewhere on the playfield at random). The game offered a number of gameplay options, including the presence or absence of a star in the middle of the playfield (which exerted a positive or negative gravitational pull), whether the edges of the playfield "wrapped around" to their opposite sides, and whether shells bounced. Three other fascinating features were unique to this game. First, the game could not be played in "one player" mode; a human opponent was required. Second, the player's ship could take a glancing hit without dying, but would suffer damage; a cloud of loose ship fragments would break off and float away, after which the ship would be visibly damaged on screen and would turn and accelerate more slowly. Third and most memorable was that the duration of play for any contest was solely governed by the amount of money deposited; each quarter bought a minute and a half of play. A dollar bought six minutes, and for a ten dollar roll of quarters two players could play non-stop for an hour.
AnimAction is one of the Vectrex titles that requires the light pen accessory to operate. The light pen pack-in cartridge Art Master, only had rudimentary animation capabilities... AnimAction takes animating your vector based artwork to another level. An interesting fact about the AnimAction cartridge is that it is not an any of the the aftermarket multi-carts because it had extra memory built in to save your artwork, making it a more desirable program cartridge for your Vectrex collection. let's face it... there is something cool about seeing your own art moving about on the screen of a gaming console that is over a quarter century old! This is one of the software releases where GCE broke out of the "games only" mold and endeavored to make more interactive and educational programs for this awesome vector based platform.
Blitz! is a simulation of American football. Each player (which the game supports a simultaneous two player mode) controls one member of their team on offense and defense and the basic objective is to move the ball up the field to reach the opposition end zone. This is done using a series of "downs", there being four downs available to move the ball ten yards forward. If a player fails to achieve that then the ball turns over to the opposition offense. The player can also score by opting to attempt to kick the ball between the opponent's goal (called a field goal and worth fewer points than a touchdown). When on offense, the player controls the snapping of the ball (which must be done within 30 seconds of the formations being set) and then the quarterback, who can either run with the ball himself, or pass it to a team mate by "pointing" the joystick towards that receiving player, which the player will then assume control of to run with the ball. On defense, the player controls a single defender who runs faster than any of his teammates and is thus most able to tackle the opposition's ball carrier. Players can be penalised and be moved back five yards by either delaying the game (not snapping within 30 seconds), or moving offside (crossing the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped). After each game, a statistics screen is shown, listing items such as number of first downs and total rushing and passing yards for each team.
In the arcade game Tempest, players controlled a blaster that could move around the outermost lanes of a bunch of geometrically-shaped levels and fire at ships that emerged from the middle or innermost areas of those levels. Bedlam, however, was a "Tempest in reverse", where players' ships (resembling the Millennium Falcon from several of the Star Wars movies) sat in the middle of sectors while ships emerge from points of those sectors and came inwards towards the player. Players turn their ships left and right and can spin them around quicker with the Fast Rotate button. Also, Zap, like the Superzapper on Tempest, will destroy everything onscreen and can only be used once per sector. There are several different types and mannerisms of enemies as well as sectors. Getting rammed by an enemy will cause the player to lose a ship in reserve and the game will end once the player has no more remaining ships.
Intense Arcade Style Gameplay, as you fight off wave after wave of ship fragments, that will form into cruisers to attack and destroy your ship. Doc with other ships after each wave to increase your firepower.
V-Pong, as the name implies, is pretty much a vertically played, one player game of Pong (or Breakout in screen orientation, but minus destroying any blocks).
Web Wars release for Vectrex video game system
Missile Command and Defender clone
Vecmania has the largest amount of games for a homebrew compilation for the Vectrex, with a full seven games (one hidden) and two unfinished demos, being clones of the arcade games of Tempest, Star Wars, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Eliminator, Breakout, Discs Of Tron, Asteroids and Phoenix. The games can be scrolled through at the main menu by moving the joystick or D-pad left and right and then chosen by pressing up on the joystick or D-pad. The main menu can be returned to by pressing three on the controller when the player is on an individual game's title screen (except for the demos). Games in Vecmania: - Star Fire Spirits - Repulse - Vector Vaders Remix - Patriots Remix - Rockaroids Remix - 3rd Rock - Disc Duel Demo - Abyss Demo
Rockaroids is back, with with enhanced rocks and rotation, more speed and a faster, challenging game!
From http://www.packratvg.com/vmania.html This game is a remix of Patriots by John Dondzila. It's improved graphics routines, bug fixes and multi-channel sound effects. There is no original cover for cartridge. The original cover is only for package Vecmania.
