Star Strike

Mattel, Inc.
for Mattel Intellivision
NA/$30.00-35.00
1 player
Rating: PG
Graphics: 10
Game Play: 5
Longevity: 5

There’s a lot at stake in this game. Lose it and you lose more than your life — Earth and all its inhabitants are destroyed in one climactic explosion!

Star Strike is a graphically beautiful game. The action looks similar to the concluding battle scenes in Star Wars. It’s not particularly easy to pick up and play, but once you get the hang of it, you ’ll save Earth every time. We like to look at this game, but don’t find there’s enough to hold our attention for many repeated plays.

OBJECTIVES

You control a Spaceship, dropping bombs on, and firing lasers at a number of red “Hot Targets” that race down the center of a Launch Trench one at a time and disappear off of the bottom of the screen. Simultaneously, you must avoid and/or shoot down the Alien Spaceships that defend the Hot Targets. As the game progresses, Earth moves across the background until it is aligned with the Trench. If you haven’t destroyed all of the Hot Targets, they will turn into missiles and will automatically destroy Earth.

STRATEGIES

There are only four things you can do in this game: maneuver your ship on screen, drop bombs, fire lasers, and change your flying speed. You can move your ship all over the screen, but most of the action will take place in or near the Trench. A shadow of your ship is provided to give you a better idea about altitude. Do not fly into the ground or the walls of the Trench or the game will end. Bombs fall at an incredibly slow speed in this game, and it is impossible to bomb a target from high altitudes.

Just before a target will appear on the horizon of the Trench, you ’ll hear a warning beep. Immediately move to the center of the Trench, and bring your ship down until it almost touches the ground (experiment until you find out exactly how low you can fly). Then release a Bomb when the target is about an inch in front of your ship. There is a second advantage to bombing from a low altitude other than accuracy: Your Lasers will not fire while a Bomb is falling, so you won’t be able to defend your ship at a high altitude from enemy Fighters.

You can only destroy the enemy Fighters once they are in front of you. The Fighters always come in pairs and start behind you so you’ll have to do some maneuvering to avoid their Laser fire. Move to a high altitude rather than to a side of the screen and dodge the Fighters toward the top of the screen. Then, as soon as you hear the warning beep of an approaching target, drop down into positon.

No matter where you are, your Laser fire heads toward a “vanishing point” in the center of the screen ahead of your ship. Thus, you shouldn’t fire at the Fighters unless they are in front of you and lined up with the vanishing point.