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.

"Take control of a treasure hunting diver in this exciting game of deep sea exploration. Select your dive location, explore to discover many species of fish, and maybe even find the key to a treasure chest for big rewards. But keep an eye on your air supply and watch out for the shark! "Can you explore all the island locations, recover the treasure and discover all the species lurking down below?"

Aside from having vector graphics and running a bit slow (although the game does speed up as more and more invaders are shot), this is a pretty standard Space Invaders-type game for the most part. A formation of invaders (25 total) march from side to side while dropping bombs and they will drop down a notch once the formation reaches the edge of the screen. The player’s laser base can take cover behind one of four bunkers on the screen, which the bunkers can withstand 16 shots from enemy and/or player fire before disappearing. A flying saucer will also pass overhead during a level and is worth big points if shot. The player starts off with three laser bases and the game will end once all bases are destroyed or if the player is “invaded” by the aliens reaching the bottom of the screen. However, an extra base is earned if over 3000 points are scored. The level number that the player is currently on is displayed at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Shifted's gameplay is based on Pesky Marbles, a Java game developed by Martijn Wenting under the Karma Studios label in 2003 for cellular phones. In Shifted, the task is to combine three or more marbles of a specific colour next to each other to make them explode. Shifted is an improved version of Pesky Marbles with enhanced gameplay in challenge mode and adapted for the Vectrex.

Guide frogs across a busy street and then through dangerous water to get to their home, in this enhanced version of this arcade game clone by Christopher Salomon. The variety of objects and enemies will kill a players' frog on contact, plus there is a timer for each level too, of which there are 16 total. The game is enhanced with a pause mode, so you can take a break if you need too!

Weave your way through the other race cars and toward the checkered flag!

As far as Vectrex games go, the holy grail for many collectors and gamers is the unreleased flight simulator, Mail Plane. This quirky take on the tried and tested genre made use of the obscure light-pen accessory to control the airborne vehicle tasking you with delivering letters. Unfortunately nobody got to experience this unique offering back in the day following the games cancellation. Having said that, the moment many of these deprived gamers had been waiting for finally arrived in November - a Mail Plane prototype cartridge surfaced on eBay in Pennsylvania, United States. Selling for a massive $877, one lucky bidder had finally secured the chance to experience this oddity once and for all, however, they had bigger plans for this title. Understanding the demand for this long lost title, AtariAge user Vectrexer - the new owner of this Mail Plane prototype - decided to generously create a ROM image of the game cartridge and release it online for free to the masses. As of today we can all finally experience Mail Plane in its original form, although there are a few more issues present. Not only do we need a Vectrex flash cartridge to load the ROM on to, but also the incredibly difficult to source Light Pen accessory.

Starhawk is a 1979 vector arcade game by Cinematronics. Starhawk is a shoot 'em up with a fixed environment. The game was unique at the time as it presented the graphics in a pseudo-three dimensional way. Essentially, the game is a simple video game version of the Star Wars: Episode IV trench run. The game was later ported to the Vectrex video game console in 1982. The game is remembered as having quite advanced graphics for the time and being the first video game based upon or to have noticeable references to Star Wars.

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.

A very difficult yet addictive Vectrex game. Maneuver your ship and destroy the mother fortress, while sentry ships attack you. Avoid crashing into the fortress. Take too long and the mother ship will attack at full force!

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).

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.

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.

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.

The player controls a ship that can rotate to the left and right and thrust forward, similar to the better known Asteroids, and like that game the player also has a "hail mary" device, hyperspace. In the center of the screen is the sun, which pulls objects into it, in a fashion similar to Spacewar!. The screen wraps at the edges. Waves of enemy spaceships appear in groups of up to eight. There are seven different types of ships, growing smaller to make them harder to hit. Each "phase" of the gameplay completes when each of the seven waves is destroyed. The spaceships are a collision hazard and normally fly around the screen randomly. As the game progresses, they become more likely to attempt to ram the player directly. At higher levels, the ships gain weapons and attempt to shoot the player. The player's ship is armed with two weapons, a cannon and a "nuke". The cannon fires a single shot in the direction your ship is pointed, and the game allows up to four shots on screen at once. The nuke destroys all ships in the area when it is triggered, which occurs with a second button press after being launched from the ship. The player's ship starts the game with three nukes and gains a new one every 10000 points. Whenever an alien ship is destroyed, a "survivor" is left drifting in space. The player can collect the survivors by flying his ship over them. Alternately he can shoot them, or allow them to fall into the sun. The player is awarded with points for successful rescues, and eventually free ships. The game is remembered fondly by many players, and Simon Burns of VoxelArcade called it "freedom under an overlaid blue sky".

Web Wars release for Vectrex video game system

Wetcat is about a curious little cat that got lost deep in the city's sewage system.

Missile Command and Defender clone