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.

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.

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

The Vectrex community was taken by surprise in 2003 when the announcement of the upcoming, original release of Protector LE was revealed, as Alex Herbert envisioned that the arcade classic of Defender could be brought to the Vectrex. Many people were stunned when a downloadable video was posted as well, showing that the fast and furious gameplay from the original did indeed seem to be possible after all. It quickly sold out of its 100 copies in less than three weeks of release[1], which came with an overlay (a bit rare for Vectrex homebrews in general), were numbered and had an embossed foil logo on its box. It also came with the Spike Goes Down game included with it as well as an unlockable bonus. Then later on that year, the unlimited edition of Protector was released, although with a different game included, being Y*A*S*I, which stands for "Yet Another Space Invaders", as that game was a clone of that arcade classic (hence the title of this release being Protector/Y*A*S*I this time around). Again this was a bit of a surprise within the Vectrex community, as a lot of gamers in general didn't know that the Vectrex is capable of producing raster graphics as well, which Y*A*S*I proved by looking almost exactly like it's arcade cousin, having bitmapped, rather than vector graphics (note: Spike Goes Down also had raster graphics as well, it's just that this unlimited version is more well known, especially since the ROM for Spike Goes Down has yet to be released years later). No overlay was provided this time around though.

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.

A demo program for the 3-D Goggles. BaronVR described it like this : "The effect is that of a track extending from the monitor surface to about 3 feet inside the monitor surface, the speed controlled by pushing up or down on the joystick..."

Minigolf

You control the movements of the passenger in the lead car as he plummets down the spectacularly steep hills and careens around the gravity-defying curves of the Crazy Coaster. Will you be able to keep his arms raised throughout the ride without sending him flying off into space?

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.

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.

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.

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.

More Invaders! is the sequel to Vector Vaders. It's how John wanted VV to look originally, but due to his lack of Vectrex programming experience at the time, couldn't make it so. More Invaders! has practically no screen flicker and plays very fast (compared to its predecessor), and has some enhanced features, such as splitting Invaders, trick saucers and special bonuses!

Verzerk is a hack of Berzerk, adding speech this time around, with a robotic voice welcoming the player during the attract mode, then states "this is Verzerk". The phrases from the original arcade version of "shoot him", "chicken, fight like a robot", "got you humanoid", etc. are included in this release. The game plays identically to Berzerk though, aside from that and only being for one player.

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 ...

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.