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.

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.

Spike's Water Balloons. Spike returns in this Vectrex version of popular "Kaboom" and "Mad Bomber" style games of the early eighties !

Your goal is to out score your opponent in a 7 minute timed match. You can score points by shooting your opponent or by picking up power-up items. Revector allows you to take-on another player head-to-head, or a challenging CPU opponent. Revector features a rather unique vehicle control system with the joystick controling both rotation and thrust. Power-up's include points, health, energy, weapons, invisibility and more ...

The first ever 16K Vectrex game, written by John Donzila! Originally planned to be a smaller game included in "More Good Things", John later decided to make it a seperate entity. Spike Hoppin' is a game where you make Spike hop on blocks, and change all their "colors". Spud returns and will try to stop Spike, as well as other enemies and a few friends too. Spike Hoppin' includes digitized speech (Spike talks again!), as well as a bonus hidden game and a few other surprises !

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).

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".

This is Vector Vaders as it was meant to be, with simpler graphics for faster and flicker free action, along with some bug fixes and multi-channel sound effects!

Web Wars release for Vectrex video game system

With the beginning of a new game, a map screen is shown with the player's position, as they control a ship set in a series of interconnected caverns. They must first plan out the best route in order to get to the central area in each Mission. After several seconds, the map screen changes to a cavern that the player is currently in, which each cavern has a core in the center that is constantly growing, as well as having several Planet Protector enemies. It is usually in the player's best interest to clear out each area of Planet Protectors by shooting them, then carefully inching their way to the protective barrier by an exit in order to drill through it. Once the barrier has been disabled by the drill, the player can then fly into the next cavern and thereby gets a step closer to the central area. The view changes from a cavern to the map screen with each cavern that they pass, showing the player's(') progress. Once the central central area is reached, the player(s) must drop a bomb at the center core, which they have several seconds in order to escape from the area before the bomb explodes. If the player does not make it out in time they will lose a ship; succeed and they will start again on a new area/Mission. Hitting a cavern wall, core or a Planet Protector will cause players to lose a ship and the game will end when there are no ships remaining. Exiting a Mission without leaving a bomb at the central core will cause the player to lose a ship as well, along with restarting the current Mission (if they have any remaining lives left). Also when the player loses a ship without clearing out all Planet Protectors in a cavern, that cavern's full complement of Protectors are totally replaced once the player's next ship comes into play. Players have a protective shield for use in emergencies, however.

Mine Storm is the built-in game that came with every Vectrex unit. It was also released in a 3-D version that required the use of the Vectrex 3D Imager and as a bug-free replacement cartridge called Mine Storm 2 Gameplay: Gameplay is similar to the arcade game Asteroids. The player moves around the screen shooting at star-shaped Mines of various sizes and mannerisms. Each screen has many dots, which can potentially turn into Mines; once a Mine is shot, two dots on the screen will turn into medium-sized Mines, which will then turn into two small Mines when shot (note: for the most part; sometimes, perhaps due to a glitch, a medium-sized Mine will just hatch one small Mine). When all dots have been turned into Mines on a screen, the Minelayer will come out, laying additional Mines in it's wake until the player destroys it. Making contact with any Mine, fireball, or Minelayer will destroy the player's ship and the game will end once there are no more reserve ships left (note: on some later versions, colliding with any piece of space dust or alien forces will also destroy the player's ship as well [see Trivia section]). Extra ships are earned after every four levels are cleared. The Escape function acts as Hyperspace, which moves the player's ship to a random area on the screen in case of emergency.

The player controls a hovercraft on its ascent up a mountain range with the goal of reaching the fortress at its summit. Each screen is part of a roadway, which is defended by three waves of guardians. These waves of guardians consist first of the Doomgrabbers, then the Tarantulas and finally the Ghouls. Each wave makes its descent down the roadway and towards the player, which all of one wave needs to be destroyed before the next wave begins its descent. Contact with enemies or the Spikers which are randomly released from the Doomgrabbers will result in the loss of a life. The player's own fire has the ability to ricochet off the walls of the roadway. This not only has the benefit of creating angles, which the player may destroy the enemies without them being able to return fire, but can also be a disadvantage due to the ability for the shot to return and destroy the player's ship. After three waves, the player is allowed to move up the screen and to the next roadway. Each roadway has the same enemies, although in increasing numbers. With the second roadway comes the addition of the Warbirds, who fly over the entire mountain and are able to fire at the player in the third roadway. Once three roadways have been

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

Melody Master is a fantastic cartridge that, when used in conjunction with your Vectrex light pen, introduces you to the exciting world of music. It allows you to compose your own melodies and even has the capability to play flute and piano harmony with rhythm sections of snare and cymbals. You can create your own electronic musical masterpiece and amaze your friends that this interactive cartridge in a quarter century old gaming system allowed you to compose it. There is also a tutorial program for those of us who are not musically inclined. The "Songman" teaches you to recognize notes and identify other concepts of musical notation. It is a true interactive educational and creative experience. In my opinion, the feel of this cartridge rates 9-10, controls 7-10, and overall 8-10. It is a fun software title to sink hours of creative fun into on your Vectrex.

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.

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.

Sports game Diving competition

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.