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.
Sleep. Eat. Swim. Repeat. Mr. Beluga is tired of the same daily routine and longs for something more. He looks forward to bedtime when he can close his eyes and dream of what he wants to do most of all: flying.
Gravitar was a vector graphic arcade game that took some of the elements of Asteroids (the controls and free flight abilities of the player's['] ship[s]) but made them more restrictive by placing players inside a series of planets. Players had to skim surfaces of the planets and destroy all the bunkers therein, as well as beam up fuel cells to maintain their fuel level(s) and avoiding or destroying saucers that would also appear. The game did not do very well commercially and would only be ported to the Atari 2600 a few years later (although it has reappeared on some modern day compilations since). Gravitrex is a clone of Gravitar, although with many differences, such as the addition of humans dotting the planetary landscapes that have to be rescued, and the Gravitrex Plus cart also includes two bonus games and other features as well. All games are for one player only. Gameplay: The player controls a fighter ship that begins each game in a solar system. There is a sun in the middle and several planets to choose from to enter so the player can start their mission. If the player takes too long with choosing a planet, a pair of space saucers will emerge from the reactor planet and will engage the player in a dogfight if they get close enough (although the player can just elude them by entering a planet). If the player’s ship gets destroyed or the player shoots both saucers then the player will return to the main solar system screen. Once the player enters a planet by thrusting into it, they must destroy every enemy bunker on the surface and dispose of every fuel tank and human. Humans and fuel tanks can be shot (although the player will not receive any points for doing so), but a bonus is given if all humans are rescued on a level (see Scoring and Extras sections), plus fuel tanks are needed to keep up the player’s fuel level (which is indicated by a line right next to the score at the top left of the screen). Humans and fuel tanks can be teleported into the player’s ship by maneuvering their ship close and activating the teleporter/shields function. Once all bunkers have been destroyed and all humans and fuel tanks have been disposed of, a sound effect will signal that the mission is complete, and upon leaving the planet, it will self-destruct and the player will be given a bonus for that planet. The exception to this rule is the lone reactor planet on each level, which has only one target – a reactor – deep inside it. This planet is different than all the others, as the player is given 99 time units to make their way through a brief maze, shoot the reactor, and get out before time runs out or else the player’s ship will be destroyed and the reactor will remain intact. If the player does not destroy this planet last in a level then it clears out the space saucers for the remainder of the level, since this is the planet that they emerge from. Dangers include the player’s ship crashing if it runs out of fuel, plus the ship will be destroyed if shot by a bunker, space saucer or alien air interceptor (which are similar to space saucers but they appear inside a planet), if they crash into a wall, the sun, space saucer or alien air interceptor, or do not leave the reactor planet before their time runs out. If the player runs out of reserve ships then the game will end. The player’s fuel, however, is replenished mostly from a fuel tank and is fully replaced upon destroying a planet, finishing a level, or with each new ship. The player’s teleporter function also doubles as a shield to protect them from enemy fire. Also, if the player defeats all planets in a level, then that level’s sun will go nova, various bonuses are then awarded (see Extras section), and if the player defeats the third level the game will end, giving a congratulations message as well as sharing some trivia about Gravitrex from the game’s programmer John Dondzila on the screen.
Becky's Message is a clone of the first screen of Donkey Kong only.
Omega Chase (non-deluxe version) is the predecessor to Omega Chase Deluxe and was a download only version of the game. While there are a number of differences between Omega Chase and Omega Chase Deluxe, Omega Chase is included on Omega Chase Deluxe along with the game Zap. The main difference between the two versions of the game is that with Omega Chase, the enemies travel in only one direction around the center of the track, but in Omega Chase Deluxe, the enemies travel from both sides simultaneously. Creator Christopher Tumber felt there was no need to release the original file on cartridge as it was included on the compilation of the game.
Omega Chase (non-deluxe version) is the predecessor to Omega Chase Deluxe and was a download only version of the game. While there are a number of differences between Omega Chase and Omega Chase Deluxe, Omega Chase is included on Omega Chase Deluxe along with the game Zap. The main difference between the two versions of the game is that with Omega Chase, the enemies travel in only one direction around the center of the track, but in Omega Chase Deluxe, the enemies travel from both sides simultaneously. Creator Christopher Tumber felt there was no need to release the original file on cartridge as it was included on the compilation of the game.
Clone of the arcade game Lunar Lander, where the player must land their ship on a series of several moons while dealing with gravity, wind, diminishing fuel and enemy satellites.
Berzerk is a port for Vectrex.
Compilation cart with clones of Asteroids, Space Invaders Part II, Tetris and Kaboom!, along with a hidden bonus game.
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
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.
Sports game Diving competition
This is a clone of the Atari vector game Star Wars, which is comprised of three waves. The player starts with six shield units, which will drop every time a spaceship or any other obstacle collides with the player or the player is hit by enemy fire; if the player is hit when they have no more shields left the game will end.
Wetcat is about a curious little cat that got lost deep in the city's sewage system.
The Light Pen is an accessory for the Vectrex released in 1983 by GCE. It was quite revolutionary for its time, but because of the Great Video Game Crash of 1983, it ended up as a commercial failure. Packed in with the accessory was the game Art Master. During its lifetime, GCE managed to release three games for it: Art Master, Melody Master and AnimAction. There was also a prototype, Mail Plane, that never managed to get a release.
Clean Sweep is an arcade puzzle game. Move a vacuum through a maze in order to suck up dollar bills that are strewn throughout the screen. After several bills are vacuumed up, the vacuum will increase in size. After several size increases, the vacuum will become full and will not be able to vacuum up any more bills, so the money must be deposited in the vault in the center of the screen before the vacuum can start gathering up money again. The difficulty level increases by having the vacuum fill up quicker, causing the player to make multiple trips to the vault during a level.
Missile Command and Defender clone
Compilation.
Rockaroids is the name for this Asteroids clone. This is the feature game in the release and sports all the features of the "Asteroids" type games.
Minimalistic Pac-Man clone in the style of the original eighties' Vectrex games
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.